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Taking The Joomla Plunge

by Bishop81
10 replies
Ok, I have a site that I am building, and was going to use Wordpress for the site, and PHPBB for the forum, but then I was thinking...

What about using Joomla for the whole thing?

I want to have interaction in the site area, so people can ask questions (but I don't want the comments or anything to be visible to the public), and I want a forum. Joomla can do that stuff easily, and integrate with a forum as well. I could also have a community, if people wanted to network in that way too.

My question:
What extensions would you recommend for a site like this?

I have a background with modding wordpress and vbulletin as desired, and can do anything I want with PHP, however I don't know anything about Joomla's capabilities yet. Every time I've tried to use it I have opted to use something else instead. This time I'm really going to use it and complete the site with it, but there are so many extensions that it's hard to choose which ones to use and which ones not to.

Thanks in advance!
#joomla #plunge #taking
  • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
    Hi Bishop,

    Yeah, I love Joomla communities!

    I know I switched to using FireBoard for the forum, and it does a fantastic job. You can take a look at it in that gaming forum in my sig if you want an idea.

    Community builder, JCE, and frontpage slide show are good components too.

    Btw, you will never know how well sites do with Joomla unless you take the plunge lol.

    Trust me, they are well worth it!


    Mary
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    • Profile picture of the author JustinBrooke
      Yeah Joomla would be perfect for that type of site

      And Fireboard was a great extension but it's old school now - use Agora

      And definitely use mojoblog, community builder, allvideosplugin, and make
      sure you are using Joomla 1.0.x as Joomla 1.5 doesn't have full support
      yet for all the best third party plug-ins.
      Signature

      You ROCK!,
      Justin Brooke

      FREE: spreadsheet of 182 traffic sources (no opt-in)

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      • Profile picture of the author Bishop81
        ok, so if I use 1.0.x, what are considered the best plugins? I was about to install 1.5, but I'll wait.
        Signature

        I'm tired of my signature... Deleted.

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        • Profile picture of the author Tiger
          Use the community builder, which is being upgraded to the 1.5 version
          anyway. You are not going to want to stay with version 1.0, since the
          developers will not be continuing support for it.


          Version 1.5 has a point during its installation where you can integrate
          the old version into it, but I am sure there are some aspects that are not guaranteed
          to be 100 % compatible.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
        I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

        Technically, Justin is right. BUT..migration to 1.5 will eventually be a must. And eventually, all plugins (that matter) will work with 1.5. And finally, check out the migration docs to move from 1.0 to 1.5. It's friggin' hard (and I know Joomla inside out).

        Last point....Joomla 1.5 does a lot of things 1.0 doesn't do from the get go. (Like prevent contact form spam.) This is the developer's best move forward and they have fixed a lot of the things that 1.0 failed at. Keep that in mind.

        So I recommend doing the opposite. Start with 1.5. Future upgrades will be easy, contact form spam will be rare and you'll get the latest and greatest features. Then you won't have to relearn the system if you do move from 1.0 to 1.5.

        Originally Posted by JustinBrooke View Post

        ... and make
        sure you are using Joomla 1.0.x as Joomla 1.5 doesn't have full support
        yet for all the best third party plug-ins.
        Signature

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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Riley
        Originally Posted by JustinBrooke View Post

        Yeah Joomla would be perfect for that type of site

        And Fireboard was a great extension but it's old school now - use Agora

        And definitely use mojoblog, community builder, allvideosplugin, and make
        sure you are using Joomla 1.0.x as Joomla 1.5 doesn't have full support
        yet for all the best third party plug-ins.
        Off Topic, but I wanted to thank you for directing me to Joomlancers. Found a great team out of Vietnam. Very serious programmers.
        Signature
        Kevin Riley, long-time Warrior living in Osaka, Japan

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        • Profile picture of the author Jose Delgado
          If only I knew how to use Joomla.

          I don't get it.


          ,
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          • Profile picture of the author Bishop81
            I guess my mind is made up for me. I can't seem to install 1.5.5 on my host. I'll stick with 1.0.15 for now, and do an upgrade if I need to someday.

            With that decided, more extensions I should know about?

            Actually, I was able to install 1.5. For some reason 1.5.5 didn't work, but I'm happy using 1.5.
            Signature

            I'm tired of my signature... Deleted.

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    • Profile picture of the author zerofill
      Originally Posted by mmurtha View Post

      Hi Bishop,

      Yeah, I love Joomla communities!

      I know I switched to using FireBoard for the forum, and it does a fantastic job. You can take a look at it in that gaming forum in my sig if you want an idea.

      Community builder, JCE, and frontpage slide show are good components too.

      Btw, you will never know how well sites do with Joomla unless you take the plunge lol.

      Trust me, they are well worth it!


      Mary
      Hey Mary...I went to look at that game site as well... You have to edit your sig the links seem to still be unedited from the forum move. So they have slashes etc...in the wrong places 8)
      Signature
      Serp Shaker
      The IM World Will Be Shaken to the Core!
      Join my list at: IMCool.Biz
      New Podcast --> podcast.imcool.biz
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      • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
        Originally Posted by zerofill View Post

        Hey Mary...I went to look at that game site as well... You have to edit your sig the links seem to still be unedited from the forum move. So they have slashes etc...in the wrong places 8)
        Hey Zerofill,

        Hey thanks for that one. I didn't realize it until I went to click on them right before reading your post!


        Justin,

        I don't know that FireBoard is out dated. It seems be a bit more stable than Agore, but it's still a matter of preference. Mojo is good, lots better than the ole WP extension.

        Bishop,

        make sure you have community build for your members management. It may be old, but it's the best on the market at the moment.


        Mary
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