Manual redo of our Joomla Portal site

Since I can't get our Joomla Portal to work on OpenSEF, then I just created a fresh installment of Joomla on a new folder. There aren't a lot of content done on it so I might as well redo the whole thing. I also used it as a testing site for all the components that I experimented on. So I want a clean installment.

These are the steps:

1) "Launch" Joomla (1.0.12) with a certain template
I started with installing a new template from RocketTheme Template Club. It has a RocketLauncher package that includes Joomla 1.0.12 with customized sample data used for the template we selected. I actually copied the template folder from our old joomla portal so I can "inherit" the CSS styles and the background and images that I use for our site.

2) Modified the Rokflow banner
To display the logos that we need for our subsites. For our different regional partners.

3) Enable and test SEO URL capability
I just want to make sure that this is working, for me to be able to use OpenSEF later on. So I will create an .htaccess file and see if it works. It's working! Yeah!

4) Install OpenSEF component
I installed com_opensef_2.0.0-RC5_SP2.zip and then go to it's configuration panel to enable it. OpenSEF Enabled? YES. It didn't work. Because I forgot to modify the .htaccess file to uncomment the lines on using third party extensions. Geez! I only uncommented these lines:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (/|\.htm|\.php|\.html|/[^.]*)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) index.php

and commented the core SEO lines, and also the Options +FollowSymLinks line.
It's working! Yeah!

5) Work in the mainmenu
What I did is that I moved all the existing menu items on another menu called the template Guide. There I wouldn't really need to delete it, so I can moved back to it once I need something on the Typography or certain module hilites and such. I only retained the Home menu item for the mainmenu.

6) Create static content pages for the menu items
I am about to add menu items News, About Us, Banner Programs, Our Partners, Publications, and Today's Weather. And then their submenus. But before I do that I will create static content pages first. Then I Link to Menu them.

7) I'm kinda caught in the CSS Typhography crap, still. Have to get friendly with CSS and dealing with images. They're a bit shy and hard to get to know at first. I'm sure they'll come around...