Where do I start?

Components are the most complex Joomla! extension you can make, and are a lot more complex than plugins and modules. That said, components allow you to really take full advantage of the power of Joomla! and create some really powerful web-based applications. Once you get your head around it, you will see they are really not as daunting as they may seem at first.

Once again, before you start coding you need to have a good idea about what it is you are trying to implement. Let's assume that you want to create a simple portfolio extension for your website. You've had a look on the JED, and haven't found quite what you are looking for, and the existing extensions are either way too complex or they don't suit your needs. We will call new this component com_folio. You've searched the JED and Google and this name is available. All components will have a com_ prefix which indicates that this is a component.

For each portfolio item, we want to show an image, have a descriptive title...