16. How to set up Phoca Download, a Download Manager for Joomla

There are many Download Manager extensions for Joomla, a lot of which are outdated. Phoca Download is a fairly new extension and seems to have a well-rounded feature set

1) As with all extensions we'll be showing you, start by going to extensions.joomla.org. Then, navigate to the Directory & Documentation / Downloads category and find the Phoca Download page

2) Once there, click Download

This extension has a number of plugins and modules that you can choose to install. All you really need, though, is the component

3) Click the download link

4) Read over the License Agreement, if you want, then scroll down

5) Agree to the terms of the license

6) Click Download

7) Now, install the component as you would any other extension

For assistance with finding or installing extensions, watch the first two tutorials in this series

8) Once you've installed the component in Joomla, scroll down for one final step

9) Since this is a new installation, click the giant Install button to set up the database

First, let's go over some of the pages on the menu, starting at the end

Info provides you with some helpful links and some other general information about the extension. There's not really anything to do there

Statistics will really only become useful after your download system has been active for a while. You can keep track of how many times each file has been downloaded

Settings only contains a few options for you to configure. The defaults should work just fine for most purposes, but it's worth checking out this page at some point

The Licenses page allows you to add license agreements to the database that can then be added to files. Users must agree to the terms of a file's license before being allowed to download it

Now, let's explore the rest of the menu items, starting with Sections

10) Click here

The first form of organization used by Phoca Download is its sections

Let's create a new one

Scroll right

11) Click New

12) Give the section a title

The Alias and Date fields will be filled in automatically if we leave them as they are

13) Set a date, if you want

14) Change the Access Level or add an image to be displayed next to the section, if you want. Then, scroll down

15) Add a Description

Scroll up

16) Click Save

17) Next, go to Categories

Categories are contained by sections

Let's create a new category

Look right

18) Click New

19) Type the title

20) Choose the section we just created

21) Scroll down and enter a description, if you want

22) When finished, click Save

Finally, it's time to add a file to the download manager

23) Click Files

24) Click Parameters

The box that appears contains a number of global settings that can be customized, if you wish. Most of this component's settings are actually here, rather than in the Settings tab of the main menu

Most of the options are listed under Download Settings

Scroll down

There are a few other settings here that aren't directly related to the downloads

Scroll back up

25) When finished, click Save

The Text button allows you to intersperse blocks of text and other content throughout a category's file listing, as you'll see in a moment

26) Click Text

27) Give the block of text a Name

28) Select the Section

As we only have one category, it has been selected for us automatically

Scroll down

29) The Description field is where the text is stored

As you can see, all the content and styles you can put on a Joomla article can be added here

Scroll up

30) Click Save

The text pseudo-file has been saved

Now let's add a real file

31) Click New

32) Start out as before

33) To upload a file, click File

34) Browse for a file

35) Start the upload

36) When finished, the file will show up here

You can create a new folder in the downloads directory here

37) Click here to add the filename to the form and exit this window

The filename has been transferred over, as stated

If you want the download system to provide a direct link to the file, tick this checkbox. By default, the download will be routed through the download system

You can add an icon to display for this file, if you wish

Scroll down

38) Fill out the remaining details, or just leave it all blank

If you wish to instead link to an external file, do so here

When finished, scroll up

39) Click Save

Once some people have downloaded it, this direct link to its statistics might come in handy

All that's left now is to add a menu link leading to the download system

40) Go to Menus

41) Then Main Menu

Look to the right

42) Click New

43) Select Phoca Download

44) Choose this layout

45) Enter a title

Scroll down

46) Customize any of these settings you want

Then, scroll up and right

Here are some basic parameters that are fine left as the defaults

Expand the Parameters (Component) tab

These are the same settings, exactly, that are on the Parameters window of the Files page. If you change nothing here, the settings for this component will be exactly as they are specified there