How to Install Joomla Add-ons and Joomla Extensions

Joomla is an award-winning, content management system (CMS), which is used to power an ever-growing number of websites the world over. It is one of the most popular content management systems because of its ease of use and huge variety of features. Joomla features RSS feeding, page caching, web polls, blogs, and website searching.

In order to take advantage of all of Joomla's powerful features, you may need to install components, mambots, or modules.
*A component is basically an application that increases the functionality of a website. Examples of components include content, banners, news feeds, contact pages, web polls, and web links.
*A mambot is a type of program that intercepts information or content and modifies it in some form before it is published and able to be displayed on the Internet.
*A module extends the functionality of your Joomla website. Modules include hit counters, template choosers, main menu, newsflashes, and polls.

Virtuemart is a popular add-on that is used as a shopping cart module. With Virtuemart, webmasters can sell products online with the many features it offers. Events Calendar is another add-on used to display interactive calendars on your website that can be used to organize meetings and other important events. EventCal is another application similar to Event Calendar that is used to manage events.

You can even display the weather on your website with add-ons such as Weather Station and MambWeather. Managing photo galleries is also made easy by extensions like zOOm Media Gallery. You can also display photos in Flash format using Expose Flash Gallery. DocMan can be used to manage a huge database of documents and MamboWiki will add wiki functionality to documents.

How to Install Joomla Extensions and Add-ons
Installing extensions and add-ons is very similar to adding templates.

Step #1
First you have to download the extension from the Internet. Once you have selected the desired extension or add-on, you need to download it. The file will most likely be in .zip format, which is a compressed file.

Step #2
Save the file on any folder on your computer so that you will be able to access it later.

Step #3
After you saved the file, you need to log onto the Joomla administrator panel and go to the Installers menu.

Step #4
On the Installers menu, you will need to click Upload File and Install.

Step #5
On the menu, you will need to click Browse.

Step #6
You now need to select the file of the extension you downloaded earlier. Once selected, click Upload and install.

Step #7
After you have installed the template, click Continue complete the installation.

And you are done!