Mambo is designed to be expanded. Though it has a lot of built-in features, there are hundreds of others that you can download and incorporate into your Mambo admin.
What is the difference between Modules, Components, and Mambots?
Modules are simple plug-ins that present information on your site. Menus are modules. Polls are modules. The user sign-in is a module. Modules can be added to Positions, and will appear on your web site.
Components are applications. They add functionality to your Mambo admin. So when you want to add newsletter functionality to your Mambo site, you will probably install both a Component and a Module. When you add a component, you'll see it under the Components menu, and when you go there, you'll see a whole new set of admin pages designed to help you set the features of that component.
Mambots are small, task-oriented functions that intercept content before it is displayed and manipulate it in some way. Mambo provides a number of Mambots in the core distribution. For example, mosimage converts
tags to html img tags;
mospagebreak provides pagination and table of contents functionality. You're less
likely to need a mambot than a component/module set.
Add-on is a non-technical term for cool stuff that doesn't come by default with the Mambo installation. Add-ons usually consist of both a component and a module, but are sometimes just modules, or might include a mambot. Add-ons are also referred to as "extensions".
Where can I get add-ons? Add-ons and extensions are available from the forge at http://mambo-code.org/
, direct from their developers websites, and from various other extension sites. Make sure any extension you are looking at using is safe, being currently developed, and has been tested with the version of Mambo you are using. Check the forums and post a question if you are not sure.
Now, if you have gotten this far and are still frustrated with Mambo's peculiarities, I'm hoping the next chapter will answer some of your questions.
Next Tip: Where Is It?
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