Redesigning a Website - Question about Joomla

eagleeyejoe

Hi,

I've been updating a website for the past year using Dreamweaver MX 2004. Basically, i plan to redesign this website and make it look a bit prettier. However, my main objective is to add a content management system so that other people can update the website as i currently have full responsibility. My brother mentioned that i should look at Joomla. The only thing is i haven't a clue where to start. I'm wondering can i develop the website with Dreamweaver, then download Joomla and implement it into the website somehow? I have programming experience such as html, css, javascript and php so i could also design the website through notepad ++ or something like that. If i went that route could i then download Joomla and implement it into the site somehow? I just basically want somwhere where users could log in and up pops a WYSWYG editor where they can edit and upload then. Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated.

corkie

Install LAMP(WAMP for windows) on a test machine or your own PC.
Download and install Joomla(or what CMS applies) on the above.
Play around with Joomla and get to know the default setup.
Download a different theme to the default, explore the theme.
Browse and read the Joomla(or what CMS applies) forum.
Now you got to know the platform, design your website/theme around it.

Regards,
J.

STBR

Well since you know PHP it'd be best just to make your own CMS.

Nothing like a CMS built exactly how you want it.

corkie

SirDarren wrote: »

Well since you know PHP it'd be best just to make your own CMS.

Nothing like a CMS built exactly how you want it.

Just curious have you built your own complete CMS, which can scale up to multiple user's and have the security/features of say Joomla (or whatever CMS) ?

Building a dedicated purpose driven CMS is interesting goal, but time consuming. When there is already many available that can be customized faster.

Stugots

SirDarren wrote: »

Well since you know PHP it'd be best just to make your own CMS.

Nothing like a CMS built exactly how you want it.

I'm currently redesigning a web page and considering using Joomla. I've installed LAMP and got the basic examples up and running. It seems straight forward and it looks to me like it would take quite a lot of work to get a custom CMS up to this level + presumably you don't get access to all the useful plug-ins that come with Joomla.

Saying that, another party has also suggested developing a CMS from scratch with the justification that it would be "easier to customise". Would anyone care to comment? Are there functional items that you just can't get with Joomla that would be available with a custom solution? Am I correct in assuming that it would be relatively easier to hire or outsource maintenance of a Joomla based site than a custom one?

croo

it'd be best just to make your own CMS.

I can't understand why anyone would want to write a CMS from scratch, improve the Joomla code if you feel its not up to the task that's why it's provided! Open Source delivers more benefits than just being "free" - like the quality (& security) control that occurs when thousands of eyes review your code. Not to mention all those plugins that already exist.

The look & feel of Joomla is in the templates which are just html & css you are free to modify as you wish. there are many examples on the web.

If you don't like joomla look at drupal. It is also lamp based... perhaps its approach suits you better.

On the other hand if the goal is to lock the customer into your services.. write it yourself!

STBR

corkie wrote: »

Just curious have you built your own complete CMS, which can scale up to multiple user's and have the security/features of say Joomla (or whatever CMS) ?

Building a dedicated purpose driven CMS is interesting goal, but time consuming. When there is already many available that can be customized faster.

Yes, I've built several CMSs, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else if I hadn't.

And yes I've implemented many kinds of user systems.

Once you have adequate knowledge of how to code properly, you're fine security-wise.

Also, it doesn't have to be a "dedicated purpose driven CMS".

If you built a good general purpose one then you can use it for any projects you need it for.

Also, it is of course more time-consuming, but it is a lot better.

I have built full CMSs in a night, no problem.

But for them to be fully secure it can take some days longer.

But it's well worth it.

bSlick

SirDarren wrote: »

Well since you know PHP it'd be best just to make your own CMS.

Nothing like a CMS built exactly how you want it.

Pointless task re-inventing the wheel. Some modern CMS's are so customizable down to every minute detail that you can make it exactly how you want it in much less time.

Stugots wrote:

Saying that, another party has also suggested developing a CMS from scratch with the justification that it would be "easier to customise". Would anyone care to comment? Are there functional items that you just can't get with Joomla that would be available with a custom solution? Am I correct in assuming that it would be relatively easier to hire or outsource maintenance of a Joomla based site than a custom one?

Picking a CMS shouldn't be done carelessly as you are looking at countless hours working with it and you could save yourself a huge amount of time down the line by spending an hour researching different CMS's and picking one that suits your needs.

I develop exclusively with drupal and have never used joomla but from what Ive read of joomla's feature set it is quite limited compared to drupal. A good comment I once read on joomla vs drupal was "Drupal is so powerful it could probably build Joomla". I'm obviously going to be biased as I work drupal but I know there is not a single thing I can't implement with it if I want to.

Whoever told you writing your own CMS is a good idea because it is "easier to customise" is well off the mark. There is absolutely no need to develop the various systems of a website, from admin interface to users handling to defining various content types to image handling,etc...., when there are CMS's out there that have already done this and whose code has been road-tested by thousands of people around the world ensuring that it does exactly what it's supposed to and is extremely robust. You are not going to write as good a CMS as drupal or joomla in any reasonable length of time. These CMS's have been continuosly worked on and refined over a period of several years by thousands of top developers.

I don't know about joomla, but drupal is extremely easy to customize. That is if there is not a module out there that already does exactly what you want which is often the case.

STBR

croo wrote: »

I can't understand why anyone would want to write a CMS from scratch, improve the Joomla code if you feel its not up to the task that's why it's provided! Open Source delivers more benefits than just being "free" - like the quality (& security) control that occurs when thousands of eyes review your code. Not to mention all those plugins that already exist.

The look & feel of Joomla is in the templates which are just html & css you are free to modify as you wish. there are many examples on the web.

If you don't like joomla look at drupal. It is also lamp based... perhaps its approach suits you better.

On the other hand if the goal is to lock the customer into your services.. write it yourself!

There are endless reasons and websites that need a custom-built solution.

And the security is well taken care of if you know what you're doing actually.

And I don't know how you think that would lock a consumer in.

STBR

bSlick wrote: »

Pointless task re-inventing the wheel. Some modern CMS's are so customizable down to every minute detail that you can make it exactly how you want it in much less time.

You see, that's just it. You're not "re-inventing the wheel", because there are so many websites need something completely different and custom-made.

Especially modern web startups, I can't name one that uses a pre-made CMS.

Pre-made CMSs are best suited to those who don't have an in-depth knowledge of the field.

corkie

SirDarren wrote: »

Yes, I've built several CMSs, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else if I hadn't.

And yes I've implemented many kinds of user systems.

Once you have adequate knowledge of how to code properly, you're fine security-wise.

Do you build all of them from complete scratch? are do you reuse the same set of code base (that you may have previously built yourself?) in each?

If your answer yes to the above question's, then your just customizing your own CMS to each new one you are building, probably tweaking the code in the process.

For some like the OP(or myself) that may have an working understanding of PHP etc, I could not recommend that they build their own and deploy it for the security reason's.

I glad to know there is an Expert PHP developer here on boards if I should need one in the future.

Regards,
J.

in response to this:

SirDarren wrote: »

But yeah, I'm sure there's more on Boards you don't know about yet.

It's large community, and even been on boards.ie pre my current profile date, there is things that still surprise me.

bSlick

SirDarren wrote: »

You see, that's just it. You're not "re-inventing the wheel", because there are so many websites need something completely different and custom-made.

Pre-made CMSs are best suited to those who don't have an in-depth knowledge of the field.

If your goal is to have a site that you can theme a certain way and where users can simply add and edit content, as with the OP, then writing your own CMS is total overkill.

Maybe for specialized projects with a team of developers and a big chunk of cash behind them a completely custom-built solution is a better idea. But for websites where the goal is simply to have users uploading content, editing, interacting with each other, etc.... it makes no sense to spend vasts amount of time rewriting code that has already been worked on for years by legions of developers.

SirDarren wrote:

I have built full CMSs in a night, no problem.

You built a fully working bug-free and robust CMS with full image handling capabilities, a menu system, a templating system, a user system, a forum, database api, content type system, forms api, taxonomy, permission system, mailing system, site maintenance, javascript/ajax functionality, to name but a few of the features in an open source CMS, all in one night? Not too mention coming up with the overall architecture behind such a complictaed fully featured CMS.
There have been teams of people working just on individual components of drupal for years. There is no way that work could be replicated in, say, a month by one person let alone a night. And that is just an individual component, not the entire thing and how it all slots together.

I don't see how you can criticize 'premade' CMS's and then say it's possible to build a more suitable system, or even a system 1/10 as good as a drupal/joomla, in one night.

Especially modern web startups, I can't name one that uses a pre-made CMS.

Various big name corporations are using open source CMS's these days. Some examples are MTV and some major record labels now have sites powered by drupal. Sony also uses it for some stuff and has pumped cash into it for specialized modules they need, modules which are then free for everybody to use. Mozilla is another company that uses drupal.

I think there are only going to be even more corporations using such open-source CMS's in future as the functionality they offer grows gets even better.

STBR

corkie wrote: »

Do you build all of them from complete scratch? are do you reuse the same set of code base (that you may have previously built yourself?) in each?

If your answer yes to the above question's, then your just customizing your own CMS to each new one you are building, probably tweaking the code in the process.

For some like the OP(or myself) that may have an working understanding of PHP etc, I could not recommend that they build their own and deploy it for the security reason's.

I glad to know there is an Expert PHP developer here on boards if I should need one in the future.

Regards,
J.

It depends on the project really.

If I'm working on a new startup or something along those lines, I would almost always build a new one from scratch.

But if I'm building a simple website then of course I can just reuse code.

But yeah, I'm sure there's more on Boards you don't know about yet.

STBR

bSlick wrote: »

If your goal is to have a site that you can theme a certain way and where users can simply add and edit content, as with the OP, then writing your own CMS is total overkill.

Maybe for specialized projects with a team of developers and a big chunk of cash behind them a completely custom-built solution is a better idea. But for websites where the goal is simply to have users uploading content, editing, interacting with each other, etc.... it makes no sense to spend vasts amount of time rewriting code that has already been worked on for years by legions of developers.


You built a fully working bug-free and robust CMS with full image handling capabilities, a menu system, a templating system, a user system, a forum, database api, content type system, forms api, taxonomy, permission system, mailing system, site maintenance, javascript/ajax functionality, to name but a few of the features in an open source CMS, all in one night? Not too mention coming up with the overall architecture behind such a complictaed fully featured CMS.
There have been teams of people working just on individual components of drupal for years. There is no way that work could be replicated in, say, a month by one person let alone a night. And that is just an individual component, not the entire thing and how it all slots together.

I don't see how you can criticize 'premade' CMS's and then say it's possible to build a more suitable system, or even a system 1/10 as good as a drupal/joomla, in one night.

Various big name corporations are using open source CMS's these days. Some examples are MTV and some major record labels now have sites powered by drupal. Sony also uses it for some stuff and has pumped cash into it for specialized modules they need, modules which are then free for everybody to use. Mozilla is another company that uses drupal.

I think there are only going to be even more corporations using such open-source CMS's in future as the functionality they offer grows gets even better.

Well appearantly for some it seems like "overkill".

And obviously I didn't include all of those features in the one-night CMS, I built a full CMS for the project.

It did have a menu system, user system, content type system, taxonomy, permission system, and JavaScript functionality.


But I'm not "criticizing" pre-made CMSs at all, I'm just stating my preferred alternative.

And yes, I'm saying it's possible to build a more suitable system, but once again, I never said you could built it in one night.

For one of my projects, I was able to, but clearly not for all.

And I know lots of corporations use pre-made ones, I said web startups.

Besides, are you aware of the amount of times various sections of MTV's websites have been hacked?

I'm not blaming this on the CMS, but it's something to be noted.

adm

Check out http://www.concrete5.org/
I think it has great potential and it's very user friendly.

kevteljeur

eagleeyejoe wrote: »

Hi,

I've been updating a website for the past year using Dreamweaver MX 2004. Basically, i plan to redesign this website and make it look a bit prettier. However, my main objective is to add a content management system so that other people can update the website as i currently have full responsibility. My brother mentioned that i should look at Joomla. The only thing is i haven't a clue where to start. I'm wondering can i develop the website with Dreamweaver, then download Joomla and implement it into the website somehow? I have programming experience such as html, css, javascript and php so i could also design the website through notepad ++ or something like that. If i went that route could i then download Joomla and implement it into the site somehow? I just basically want somwhere where users could log in and up pops a WYSWYG editor where they can edit and upload then. Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated.

It should be very easy to re-implement the existing website as a theme in Wordpress. it would be very easy to do, take a few day's work at the outside, and you'll have all the features you need for a full CMS 'for free'. You don't need to make your life difficult. You'll get all the WYSIWYG features with it, and user authentication, roles, plus a great plugin architecture to get you any features that are missing from the base install.

I've built, or been involved as part of a team in building, a few CMS systems, some being used as Enterprise-level deployments. It's as much work as you make it, but it's generally unnecessary these days, since there are already either full CMS systems to do what you want, or frameworks which can do all the separate functions (such as Prado - I haven't used it myself) and you can put it all together. But you'll still need to design all the various aspects, and the DB schema, to make it work well and be secure, and user-friendly. That is weeks of work if you haven't done it before, along with prototyping and roll-out. There also so many approaches and theories as to how to do it well.

It's a good project to do, and I recommend having a go at it, but first implement and customise someone else's software, and you'll see how they did it.

If you customise an off-the-shelf system, you have all that work done for you, you're up and running in no time, and you don't need to worry about a security implementation for someone else's site.


.

ScumLord

Overall I don't know if Joomla is any easier to use than Drupal. Joomla seems much more user friendly from the get go, every things familiar and straight forward but once you try to make the website look unique it gets more and more complicated.

Once you get over the initial wtf it makes allot of sense, even editing the code is easier and I'm terrible at all that code stuff.

Run both locally on your PC using wamp and pick the one you like. They're all free.

EDIT: There are also guides on the adobe website for using dreamweaver with drupal.