Joomla components: mini-applications, admin and site parts

A component is one of the main types of Joomla extensions. In practice it is the primary building block of a site — you can think of it as a mini-application that lives inside Joomla.

Most components have two parts:

• one for the administrator (backend);
• one for the site (frontend / visitors).

Built-in components that ship with Joomla by default include:

• Content Management System (articles);
• Contact forms;
• Web links.

How a component is displayed

In Joomla, output is driven by menu items. When you create a new menu item, you choose a Menu Item Type. In the popup that opens, you pick the component (and the specific view) that should be rendered for that menu entry.