We use Joomla a lot for our websites - It is a very good CMS, which is good for theming and has a multitude of different components and modules enabling it do exactly what our clients require.

One of my favourite components and definitely the one that saves me the most time is Joomlapack and its trusty sidekick kickstart which make updating Joomla and moving a Joomla website a breeze!

I remember in my early Joomla days spending a lot of time manually updating all of the files when Joomla released an update... Fun times!

Anyway I am sure there are many other ways to achieve the same objectives but this is the way that I use and it works a treat:

Backing up your website

First things first... Although these techniques have always worked 100% for me - Safety dictates that you first back up your website just in case!

This is all relatively straight-forward but there are a couple of settings which are best changed.

1. Go to the Joomlapack website and download the latest version of Joomlapack (Both the 'Core' version and the 'Plus' version will do the job - Core is slightly less complicated and just as good)
2. Install the component as you do for all other Joomla componenets. (Incidentally when you update this component you do not need to uninstall it first!)
3. Navigate to components > Joomlapack > Configuration
4. Under Common Settings > Basic press the reset to default button which will give you hierarchichal view of the folder structure on your server
5. Choose the browse button next to 'default' and then choose a folder which is below the base directory of Joomla (This is not mandatory but means that you will not include backed-up files within back-ups)
6. After that go to Profile Settings > Advanced and changed the Archiver engine from "Zip, using PHP functions" to "JPA Joomlapack archive"
7. Then press save and you should be ready to go - You then press the "backup now" icon, add any comments you wish to add and press the "back up now" button and watch it do its stuff... (DO not navigate away)

* Note that when you move a site using Joomlapack you need to perform steps 4 & 5 again because it will be set to the old directory setup.

Updating Joomla

This is the super quick method of updating Joomla (Not that I have ever had a problem with this technique but be sure to backup your site before the update process for complete peace of mind)

1. Go to the Joomlapack website and download the latest version of kickstart.php (Get yourself Joomlapack as well whilst you are there - Both the 'Core' version and the 'Plus' version will do the job)
2. Noting the current version of Joomla on your about to be updated website go to the Joomla website and download the appropriate Joomla Update Package making sure to download the zip version (eg 1.5.12 to 1.5.14)
3. Upload the zipped up update package and the unzipped kickstart.php file to your Joomla websites base directory
4. In your browser navigate to www.yoursite.com/kickstart.php where you will be confronted with the kickstart.php webpage
5. In the dropdown box check to make sure it is pointed to the correct zipped file and then press start!
6. Kickstart will start whirring away copying files to their correct places and then say it has finished
7. The final step is to click 'here' to reactivate the .htaccess file and voila updated.

Moving a Joomla site

I use this for moving my sites between live sites, testing servers and my local server in every possible direction... You can move it to a fresh space or you can just install it straight over an existing 'redundant' site

1. The first thing to do is to backup the site you want to move using Joomlapack and move it via FTP to the directory where you wish to install it
2. After that depending on whether this is a clean install or over an existing site you need to get the database information together...
   • For a clean install either request a MySQL database, username, password and path from your hosts or clients or create one yourself using cPanel, phpMyAdmin or suchlike.
   • If you are installing over an existing redundant drupal install you can simply get a copy of this websites existing configuration.php and keep hold of it for later
3. Upload the kickstart.php file to the directory where your joomlapacked up site is
4. Now in a broser navigate to the kickstart.php file (e.g www.mysite.com/kickstart.php)
5. You will now see the kickstart page and the dropdown list which you need to make sure is pointed to the joomlapack archived file.
6. If all is good press start and watch the files whirr until it has done its thing...
7. When that is done you need to click the first "click here" which opens the Joomlapack Installer restore script.
8. Check that everything is good and all the current settings are correct and press "next"
9. You will now come to the Database restore section where you want to add the details from the new database or from the configuration file that you have copied over (For a local server they may well be localhost, root, root, "database name"
10. Press next - If there is a problem it will ask you to check your settings so do this until you have joy!
11. The next step is FTP Options which I don't use so just press next
12. The next step should tell you all is done and now you need to delete the "installation" file from the base directory of your new Joomla install and close the window.
13. You now want to go to the other Joomlapack browser window and reactivate your htaccess file.
14. Once this is done all you should be good navigate to the admin section and login with the username and password from your cloned site.

You will now have an identical website moved to wherever it was you wanted it to go to!

• You can use this method for creating a preprepared Joomla install ready to go... i.e You can install all the module and components that you always use on every site create a back up and use this every time you are starting a new website which can save you quite a bit of time!

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