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Joomla????

cadetstevecadetsteve subscriber Posts: 3
edited October 2009 in Building A Website That Works
I know that the web designers in this forum may hate this question...But... Anyone experience or heard of Joomla or VirtueMart?
 
Steve

[email protected]

 
All Hopped Up Home Brew
 
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Comments

  • NuevolutionNuevolution subscriber Posts: 30 Bronze Level Member
    Yes I am a Joomla developer. and VA Tony, yes it`s a CMS system. Many on the forum get bloggers and CMS systems mixed up. Virtuemart is and awesome feature... but Jcafe is much easier to use... By the way, Why do you ask
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  • cadetstevecadetsteve subscriber Posts: 3
    I am looking starting a website. What are the pros and cons of Joomla. What guarantees are there that it will be around fora long time?
    Steve[email protected] All Hopped Up Home Brew
     
     
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  • vwebworldvwebworld subscriber Posts: 40
    I think Joomla will be around for a while. The pros - it`s a CMS so you can make changes to your site without having to know HTML or php, etc (although it helps).
     
    The cons - it`s a CMS, so you have to learn how to use it and there maybe some limitations as to design and features depending upon what you want.
     
    A CMS is good if you plan or expect to make changes / additions to you site on a regular basis.
    If the changes etc you expect to make are only on the ecommerce side then you might consider an ecommerce program (open source or not).
     
    ~Roland
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  • art8art8 subscriber Posts: 6
    I like Joomla! But I agree that "V-Mart" is a bit buggy. Joomla it self is robust but V-Mart with it can be hair pulling. The learning curve on both is steep and you have to know a bit of CSS and HTML to get it to look customize otherwise it will look like a Joomla site. You can check outmy site that I built using both wahomejewelry.com .( still working on it) Well submit sometime in the near future for extensive review on this site.This took me about 1 1/2 moths to built. Started  knowing nothing about CSS and HTML and a lot of days pulling my hair out.  Almost thew my lap top out the window. I looked at Drupal vs. Joomla and what won me over is the forum and "support". Drupal just lacked an active forum and their e-commerce  is fairly new. If you are starting out like I did knowing nothing about site building and doing everything on your own be ready for a lot of What the @#@*&*&uck and a lot of ooooooh I get it.Good Luck. 
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  • NuevolutionNuevolution subscriber Posts: 30 Bronze Level Member
    Cadesteve,
    Joomla is the successor of Mambo (which is another CMS system) Joomla is fairly new but there seems to be a growing trend in developers and contributors creating modules and plugins for Joomla.
    In my opinion Joomla is not going anywhere, it is here to stay and it just gets richer and richer and more easy to use.
    My advise is that if you`re going to build your web site using joomla, that you use someone that has Joomla experience. Joomla can be very easy to modify and the template theme creation has to be done correct using the Joomla CMS stylesheet defaults. (you don`t need to use that).
    As for virtuemart, I would suggest Jcafe! or Magento these are all Open Source software you just need someone to create the templates for you.
    Magento, is an Open Source e-commerce that is becoming very popular and has lots of neat features. The only down fall is that you need php5 and mysql5 to get it working. other than that its very easy to set up and publish.
    Now back to the Joomla, I am currently over modfifying a theme for a friend, just so you can see the power of Joomla. It is very simple but easy to use...
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  • NuevolutionNuevolution subscriber Posts: 30 Bronze Level Member
    I like Joomla! But I agree that "V-Mart" is a bit buggy. Joomla it self is robust but V-Mart with it can be hair pulling. The learning curve on both is steep and you have to know a bit of CSS and HTML to get it to look customize otherwise it will look like a Joomla site. You can check out
    my site that I built using both wahomejewelry.com .( still working on it) Well submit sometime in the near future for extensive review on this site.
    This took me about 1 1/2 moths to built. Started  knowing nothing about CSS and HTML and a lot of days pulling my hair out.  Almost thew my lap top out the window.
     I looked at Drupal vs. Joomla and what won me over is the forum and "support". Drupal just lacked an active forum and their e-commerce  is fairly new. If you are starting out like I did knowing nothing about site building and doing everything on your own be ready for a lot of What the @#@*&*&uck and a lot of ooooooh I get it.
    Good Luck. 


    YES,
    That`s how it is, if you don`t know anything about CSS or HTML it can be a costly experience, if you hire someone that understands the code they can probably do it in an 8 hour work period. I`ve designed sites in Joomla, where it took me a little under 4 hours to slice the PNG`s, Create the themeDetail.xml, and everything that goes into a joomla template. the style.css can be tedious to create,  I don`t know if you guys are aware there`s a Joomla Extension for Dreamweaver.  that can kill 80% of the development time.
    Again you just have to know how to use it.. so yes there`s a learning curve but they also have Joomla Books that can help you cope with the learning. Barnes & Nobles has about 20 different Joomla developer books that you guys might want to check out "I DID" and it`s made my joomla experience and learning curve fun.
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  • NuevolutionNuevolution subscriber Posts: 30 Bronze Level Member
    There are also lots of really nice Joomla templates for sale out there, too.  Check out Rocket Theme (no affiliation).  They can get you looking decent in just a few clicks and have a quality product.  (You can also send me Joomla questions - that is the bulk of what I do these days - Joomla admin and online marketing.)
    One important thing when working with such services:  keep the Joomla code updated and secure, and keep the components/extensions updated, too!
    @nuevoution - I am surprised you are so quiet...busy?  I haven`t worked with Jcafe yet...at least I don`t think so...I am going to check it out.

    Yes, Rocketheme is a good start... Did you know they are hiring.. can you imagine that?
    Rockettheme are good, the only thing is that most of their templates are not currently up to date and they keep holding them off till a later time. I wouldn`t advise to use them since I am currently having issues with one of them. I would suggest you guys build your own from scratch at this point.
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  • NuevolutionNuevolution subscriber Posts: 30 Bronze Level Member

    Joomla has a usage agreement that forbids the integration with3rd party commercial plugins.  I don`t thoroughly understand all the issues but here is the upshot - Commercial ecommerce solutions cannot be used with Joomla and stay in compliance. Hopefully the Joomla developers will come around, but for now a lot of developers are steering clear of Joomla. Joomla makes awesome-looking sites though.  I have spent more time playing with the Drupal CMS, also very full-featured. Either one will cause some hair loss when you are starting out -the learning curve is real and if you are in a hurry to get a workingsite up you will get frustrated by things you don`t understand.

    Joomla is a CMS system that likes to be compliant. They express their feelings for HTML validation and they like for their developers to know the basic coding scripts.
    They can be overwhelming in the begining but... it is a fun learning experience..
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  • art8art8 subscriber Posts: 6
     In all, I`m glad that I did build  my own site and went to all that trouble. I just have more control on the overall operation of the site. Knowing a little CSS and HTML helped me understand  a little of what is happening  under the hood.  I`m even surprise my site even works. That said, I`m not a programmer and barely a  novice web master and so, I have ask.... do designers and programmers dream in codes?   
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  • cma01cma01 subscriber Posts: 0
    I love Joomla . . . LOVE it.  Having said that, as others have mentioned, there is a pretty big learning curve to use it.  It`s pretty straightforward, but you have to get used to how things are done.
    As far at developing Joomla sites, for me, 20% of the time is spent on the layout design and template development, the other 80% is in installing the components, modules and configuring the menus.
    I`ve set Virtuemart up on a couple of sites.  I`ve used the Mambo/Joomla script since before it forked and I`m pretty familiar with the way things are coded, but Virtuemart is something else. 
    I haven`t looked at J!Cafe before, but one thing that is a little interesting is that the checkout button on that site is from Virtuemart.
    I have played around with Magento a little, but just looking at the shopping cart features, Zen Cart has a lot more options.cma016/11/2008 2:44 PM
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  • WebJunkyWebJunky subscriber Posts: 8 Member
    what can beat free?
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  • NuevolutionNuevolution subscriber Posts: 30 Bronze Level Member
    Yes, it is always good practice to delete the generic Admin or just deactivate it.
    Also, for the person that brought up Rocketheme [I love their designs], there are times when you have to step out of the box [as a joomla developer] and the need to design a custom joomla template is your best route.
    What I've noticed about using templates is that, you are limited to what you can do with them. For example. Module positioning and layout.
    then, you have those issues where you have to go in there and tweak the template a little, and have to spend countless hours figuring out the other developers coding.
    What I love most about the Joomla modules and components [the non-commercial ones] is that you can take the code, and build on it to get the results you need. Not long ago, I overhauled the Event Listings and added AJAX features to it.. I've taken the Den Video Component and made it where the customer can add their own videos and comments and removed that gray 20 pixel box [basically overhauled the component].
    So if you're in the market for a CMS, I would consider Joomla...
    Also, if anyone needs custom modules and components built, let me know... Or if you just need modifications I can do that as well...
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  • LEUHLEUH subscriber Posts: 0
    Virtuemart I have not heard of, Joomla is an excellent CMS. Joomla is great for SEO, however if you do not have at least a basic understanding of HTML it may be complicated to operate. Joomla does have an excellent community forum that covers pretty much every topic concerning the CMS and can help you learn it. If you want to use Joomla Google "build a Joomla website" you can find plenty of resources that can help you with a basic site design.
    Larry Hutzell
    Managing Director and Founder
    iStartSavvy.com
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  • johnlee66johnlee66 subscriber Posts: 0
    I like joomla from any other CMS because of its rich and large collection of tools i have create many site with the joomla just buy any beautiful template and use it in your own way no skill required i am currently working over 3 site.
    lee
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