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Joomla! The Best Keeps Getting Better
Essay 65 by Brian W. Kelly
Joomla's site is at http://joomla.org. They surely do not think that they need me to explain their wares so, if you choose to go to the Joomla! site itself, you will find lots of information. Depending on your level of prior understanding, the words, though written well, may not be so clear. That's why I built this site.
The words may not be so clear. I will try to make mine clear and I will treat you all like I like to be treated when learning -- like a dummy. Hopefully, I won't assume that you alread know something about soemething I am using as a reference to something I am trying to explain. If I do, comment me out and I will change the original article.
There is major power in Joomla!! It is used in all geographies to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate Web applications. I am convinced that even the developers of Joomla! do not know how powerful and potentially pervasive their stuff actually is.
So, let me take a shot at that.
What is Joomla!?
Joomla!! is another one of those powerful open source Content Management Systems. Joomla!, the word is derived from an Arabic word meaning, "all together." It is currently released as a major rewrite of the original Mambo code base. Several years ago, Joomla released its version 1.5.x system and this is the best of all open source programs bar none. Now that 1.5.x has stabilized, it is a real pleasure to work with.
Starting witht the code base from the original Mambo, which is a precursor CMS to Joomla!, that still has its own following, Joomla!'s developers took what is called a fork. In other words, they had been working with Mambo and wanted to move in a different direction than the Mambo leadership team had directed. So, they took the free open source code of Mambo -- code that for the most part they had built, and they created built Joomla! from it. Once the ork occurred, Joomla! and Mambo were no longer the same.
Over time, the Joomla! team built a much better better mousetrap, much of its by redesigning Mambo and coding from scratch. Just like Mambo, Joomla! is an open source solution that is freely available to everybody for the downloading. After just a few years of prime time, the Joomla! CMS is now used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. I can vouch that Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and most of all, reliable. As with all of these open source products, however, they operate mostly the same on all platforms. IBM's mainframes and its IBM i systems also work with Joomla! in a similar fashion, though it is a bit more work to deploy Joomla! on IBM proprietary platforms.
People use Joomla! for lots of Web facilities. The list below is from Joomla!, yet most of the CMS systems if not all, also provide this wealth of capabilities at varying levels of quality at the topic level. Here are just some of the ways people use CMS/Joomla! software:
- • Corporate websites or portals
• Online commerce
• Small business websites
• Non-profit and organizational websites
• Government applications
• Corporate intranets and extranets
• School and church websites
• Personal or family homepages
• Community-based portals
• Magazines and newspapers
• Internal intranet and extranet
• etc.
Browser Based Joomla!
The instrument of choice for access is the Web browser. Using this ubiquitous tool and the abundance of online Joomla! documentation and tutorials, you will be able to easily add new press releases or news items, manage staff pages, job listings, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your Internet and/or intranet
Joomla! Extensions
Joomla! has a number of powerful extensions including the following:
- • Dynamic form builders
• Business or organizational directories
• Document management
• Image and multimedia galleries
• E-commerce and shopping cart engines
• Forums and chat software
• Calendars
• Blogging software
• Directory services
• Email newsletters
• Data collection and reporting tools
• Banner advertising systems
• Subscription services
• Workflow tools
• etc. etc.
Besides the tools that are built as direct Extensions for Joomla!, it helps to note that Joomla! itself is a PHP application. As such, any system that can support Joomla! can support other PHP applications that may not yet be fully melded into the Joomla! umbrella. Thus, the whole world of Open- Source PHP applications for any reason are launch-able through Joomla! since your PHP/Joomla! site by definition has the prerequisites.
If your mission is an Internet subsite or a departmental or corporate intranet site and you have the luxury of designing or redesigning, take a look at the CMS options for all of the functions they provide. They are designed to provide the most facility for the least effort and that means that you can catch up pretty quickly to your competition using their innovative facilities. And once you are convinced that a CMS is the trick, remember Joomla! is the best CMS!
Made for a Regular Person
So why do regular people -- from firemen to accountants to construction workers to hobbyists and anybody wanting to sell a product or an idea --- why are they choosing Joomla! in record numbers. Oh, did I mention it was free! Regular people like Joomla! because by using it, It becomes a breeze to add or edit content, update images, and to manage any data that is needed to create and run a web site from a browser. Whether it is your company, your organization or yourself, Joomla! answers the call. All you need is very basic word processing skills and the ability to point and click. If you have those simple skills, you can easily learn to build and manage a Joomla! site.
In fact, you can write content on your PC in your word processor of choice and then use one of the Joomla! extension editors to clean up the word document's internal format and make it very presentable to your site. Or, you may like editing the content right online with your browser based tooling (A Joomla! Editor included with the mix or an optional editor of your choice). Either way, you can easily add content such as new press releases or news items, manage staff pages, build and maintain job listings and you can even load product images and an online catalog with free checkout facilities. To structure your site's content, you can create a an unlimited amount of Sections (like File cabinets) and Categories (like file folders). You can store your content pages within this structure making your site organized for logical retrieval. Oh, and by the way, Joomla! offers a native search facility so that visitors can type in a search pattern and find your content no matter where it is.
Extend Joomla! with Extensions
Right out of the box, Joomla! impresses and it gets more impressive every release. The Joomla! team is serious about having the finest CMS and application framework available for the common person and the IT guru aloike. I am not kidding!
Until you adjust to all it does at the core level, you won't believe that you might ever need anything else. But, when the honeymoon is over, though you still love Joomla!, you will be tickled that there are a ton of additions that you can make to your site that fit within the umbrella. These are called extensions and they add to the Joomla! experience on your site and make it even more perfect and delightful.
Article Summary
So, nobody's perfect and nobody can meet every requirement without more coding and testing. But, from my experience, Joomla! is almost perfectly suited for most jobs and it gets you started with audience applause. You can't argue with that. Even if you have no organizational skills whatsoever, the classy look and feel of a Joomla! site makes you look like you spent sleepless nights in its design.
Moreover, the Joomla template or theme structure as some call it, permit you to take a paint brush to your site by selecting a different look and feel without affecting your existing Web content. Try doing that with HTML, XML, Dreamweaver, or any of the traditional Webmaster tools.
More and more new features are added with each release, and since it is not Mother IBM or Bill Gates who makes the decisions, the new facilities and functions that are announced as free extensions are actually those requested by the constituency. There are some things in Joomla that you might want to pay for but for my money, getting it done with no money is very do-able.
The Joomla! major development team basks in the help and advice it receives from a faithful user and developer community and because of the community, the Joomla! Team is preparing to deliver world class, award-winning software for years to come. When they come out with another version or release of this software, you can bet I will be there to download it -- and perhaps you will be there too...
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