Joomla....

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Joomla is a database-driven, CMS (content management system), written in PHP and using MySQL.

I couldn't get my head around it. Very confusing dashboard.

Try Wordpress.

Andy

I use it, it's good, but since i've developed some web design/css skills i may move to wordpress, i don't know yet.

It's quite good once you get used to it.

*****PS Nice pic linzey

I use Joomla on my hobby site electricchili.com. It's was a nice learning experience but I think for usability, Wordpress is the way to go.

I've tried working with it some on a couple of websites, but haven't been able to get it work out very well yet. I'm having problems with the learning curve. Does anyone know of a good set of instruction videos?

Joomla is definitely a nice CMS, the only bad thing I can say about it is that it's really hard to get the hang of. I ended up buying a tutorial but still can't get the hang of it.
Wordpress might be a better choice for you, I've seen a few membership sites that use it.

i have been using joomla for about 4 years now and even did a Joomla/SEO presentation with the founder of joomla last year at the SEM For SMB conference in Austin

For me i would not use anything else - unfortunately a lot of the tutorials are somewhat overwhelming to say the least, providing you start of in the direction joomla once you figure out what its capable of and its very few limitations you will not look elsewhere

FYI the latin in the templates is just filler text

you can do multiple site installations with one instance of the code, there are a few third party scripts available to do this for j1.5 but have yet to test them out

there are well over 4000+ plugins for joomla

yes you can do a membership site with joomla i have some that i have done for client as well as my own tutorial site

developing your own themed/templates is not really that difficult if you understand the concept of php include files...

its definately worth a look in my opinion

hth

I have been using Joomla for quite a few years, but I'm technically inclined. I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that the difference between Joomla and Wordpress is that Joomla is a CMS (Content Management System) that allows for a lot more robust websites - including membership sites (they have plugins for carts, membership scripts, etc). Wordpress on the other hand is and always will be a blogging platform. To say one is better than the other is really subjective. You need to decide if it will suit your needs better. That's all

Joomla is a very nice CMS. It has alot of pre-made templates and themes out there that you can set up.

It is very easy to understand and install, this is a good CMS for beginners as it has alot of nice add on features that will allow you to do anything you can really need with a CMS.

I pretty much build every project in Joomla as it has a solid foundation and the ability to become any type of site from Directory, Membership site, blog. It has a massive developer base with 1000s of components that really extend the functionality to what ever you need.

Wordpress is a great starting point for new site builders as Joomla does have a bit of a learning curve. However, once you unlock that knowledge there is no limit to it's potential.

Just my 2c after using almost every CMS out there.

Regards

Sean

I have worked on many many Joomla sites, and used to recommend to most of
the time for all types of the sites...

BUT now it is all changed.... i mean if you really are going to make a website
which is going to have so much content in future then go with Joomla no worries.

But if it is just an small informational website, i think best option to use is : Wordpress :-)

Joomla is also great but you will need someone who is expert on it to get your
site going... but with wordpress you can do most of the stuff yourself...

so it all depends on your specific situation and requirments and future plans for the site.
If you are going to make real content based site with all content there,..then best
CMS is Joomla...but if you just need another website i think Wordpress is the way to go..

Best Wishes,
Mohsin

i think the reason why its so difficult to understand is due to the lack of decent and easy to understand tutorials

for a noobie it can be difficult to even know how and where to start

once you figure out how to create your own sites and style it yourself there will be no stopping you!

this is one of the sites we put together Cowboys DanceHall its by far the most complex site we have ever built, in fact its possibly one of the most complex joomla sites ive ever seen too!

we simply would not have been able to do this without joomla, and open source code... whats really appreciated is that code is available as open source so if something do what you want it to you can basically create your own components, modules, and plugins

Thanks again for all of you guys input. I notice that a few of you that posted links to your sites have a members login section. What extension did you use for this and would you recommend it for anyone else to use?

SOme tutorials here: Joomla 1.0 Tutorial: How to use Joomla, Joomla installation, Joomla templates, Joomla addons. Find professional Joomla hosting.

Hey guys ...

Give Welcome Home : XLsuite - Hosted CRM | CMS | ERP a try.

Very powerful CMS with full client management built in.

You can sell downloadable products, run a members site and do a lot more.

It's a more modern CRM / CMS system.

What about the security and ease of updating a Joomla site? I've heard that Joomla is in the ranks of phpBB as far as having quite a few holes, so you want to really stay on top of updates/etc. (just heresay, correct me if I'm wrong).

Anyway, whether this is true or not, how easy is it to update Joomla? One of the things I REALLY like about WP is the auto-update of both the core and plugins. I fiddled with Drupal, but it was a huge PITA (in comparison) to update as I had to keep certain directories/etc. Is Joomla any easier to update than Drupal?

its pretty decent for directories etc.. something that requires alot of information on the homepage. if you want a CMS for anything else, go to Wordpress definitely. its fantastic.

As pointed out by some of the posters, Joomla does have a steep learning curve. But this is also because of the amount of features that it has and the flexibility that it provides once you understand it.

If it takes you a long time to learn, it just follows logically that you should be able to do more with it. The old adage, "to whom much is given, much is expected" applies here, too.

I have used both Wordpress and Joomla, each one for its own purposes. For my blog, I use Wordpress because I don't plan on having a lot of information on it; just my own personal thoughts, ramblings and the comments from my readers. I could use Joomla for this function, but I am satisfied with the functionality that Wordpress provides as regards building and managing a blog.

As for my other more "sophisticated" sites, I would rather go with Joomla. The reason being that, once you get the basics, you can bend Joomla to develop any type of website. Plus, the Joomla extensions directory provides thousands of extensions that you can add on to your Joomla site to create the type of website you want.

I have used Joomla to create an article directory, a business directory, a community website, a site for my local interest group and a few more.

You can use it to build virtually any type of website-a membership site (simple or sophisticated), a simple blog, a social networking site, community portals, etc.

Also, for those who are already familiar and more comfortable with many third-party scripts or software applications, you can easily integrate them with your Joomla website. So, if you are already using Aweber, Amember, Getresponse, and others, there are extensions that are available to help you integrate your Joomla websites with these third-party services and software applications.

Recently, a developer also released an extension that enables the Joomla webmaster to integrate Wordpress with his site. As a result, you may even be able to use the Wordpress MU (Multi-User) blogging platform with your Joomla site.

For those who may be interested in looking up more (regularly updated) information about different aspects of working with and maintaining your Joomla website, you can head over to Main Page - Joomla! Documentation . It is the Wiki page of the Joomla CMS.

I am not the perfect expert on Joomla, but I hope this helps. I may also be able to help out with some other questions, if necessary.

All the best.

Muhammad

I too am liking Joomla! Starting to take a deeper look at the extensions

Joomla is awesome, but not straight out of the box.

To make it work properly you'll need an extension called "Linkr". This allows you to actually link to other pages within your site lol.

After you work out the navigation and SEO aspects, it's dead simple to create and maintain.

Well, HOPEFULLY I will get to it TODAY, but joomla seems popular(combination of use and development) enough that I am considering trying to use it for a project I had in mind. The idea is to get joomla, phpbb, and moodle working together. WHY?

1. Moodle is supposed to be one of the leading SCORM based teaching platforms.
2. phpbb is supposed to be one of the best liked forum systems.
3. Joomla is supposed to be a good powerful CMS that ALLOWS INTEGRATION, and some people HAVE gone down the road I want to.

And DON'T listen to people that say wordpress is easier, etc... MOST of the people on this site, or ANYWHERE, that have used wordpress have never even ATTEMPTED or even THOUGHT of doing something like what I am talking about.

Simplicity OFTEN comes with a lack of flexibility.

Steve

I've used it to make and flip several Joomla sites. They sold well because they looked awesome. They were very difficult for me to learn to use well and even more difficult for people who bought the sites without knowing a thing about Joomla.

I do love Joomla, but for flipping, I stay away from them because the "customer support" afterwards is intensive.

i have launched many sites with it, it is a ton more confusing then wordpress however if you spend the time and hours to wrap your head around how components and modules and all that stuff works, the power and flexibility of it is endless far beyond wordpress. however i am in love with wordpress and find myself using it for stuff i should not lol

I use joomla, before I use wp now, joomla has more advance feature IMO, actually joomla is more powerful CMS, and It's easier to create or modified Joomla template rather than WP, I've found software to create joomla or WP theme easily cheek it out Artisteer - joomla template generator and wordpress theme generator

There are several reasons why I do not use joomla

its slow
its full of trash code
too many in-secure add-ons
lack of support

When I was using joomla, there were modifications hosted on the joomla site that had known security issues. But for some reason, the joomla developers did not remove the add-ons. Its like security takes second place to how many features they can add.

The joomal support forums are a laughing joke - you can do a search for a topic, find a thread that has a link to another thread that is "supposed" to the answer. That second thread then has a link to another thread, that links to another thread, that links to another thread,,,,,. I spent more of my time running in circles then actually finding the solution.

Go to a search engine, and do a search for big sites using joomla - your not going to find too many.

On the other hand, do a search for big sites using wordpress - you will find lots of them.

When sites like Fox News use wordpress - there is a reason for that. I suggest that anyone trying to pick between wordpress and joomla, take a lesson from huge sites that get millions of hits daily, and use wordpress.

joomla is the best CMS software

I use Joomla for several sites of mine and i can see i'm happy with using it... Only problem i see is speed. I have hosted VPS server with 768mb of ram and it is not that quick. But there is plenty tools to optimize this, but it will still load some things that you do not need on site and will slow down site...

On the other hand, it takes you 2 hours to create a website that would normaly took few weeks i guess.