Joomla Overview

In this lesson we will take a look at Joomla, another very popular content management system.  It is used by organizations like MTV, Harvard, IHOP, and Citibank.  We just switched our site over to Joomla maybe 1 month ago, the transition wasn’t pretty, and we are still learning a lot about the way things work but we have spent considerable time with our noses burried in books and feel we have a good enough handle on it to help share a little about how the software works and some of it’s advantages and disadvantages.  Lets start this thing out with a little about the features Joomla Offers.

According to their website:
•    Corporate Web sites or portals
•    Corporate intranets and extranets
•    Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
•    E-commerce and online reservations
•    Government applications
•    Small business Web sites
•    Non-profit and organizational Web sites
•    Community-based portals
•    School and church Web sites
•    Personal or family homepages

Some of the core features include things like:

Banner Management: This allows you to customize your entire website with a professional looking banner as well as works to help you get your message across and brand your company.

Polls: A great built in tool for getting information out of your website visitors without a formal survey, helps keep you ahead of the curve.

Search Tools: Helps your users find what they are looking for as well as builds up an amazing cue of topics for you to take notice of as your visitors are looking for it.

Content Management: One of the easiest tools we have ever used to help content look great!  That is one of the things we still struggle with, getting the content of our website looking tops and is one of the reasons we went with Joomla.  Easily letting your visitors email articles or convert them to PDF is an amazing feature as well.

Loads of Free Extensions (Over 3000!): This is where Joomla really seperates itself from the competition with over 3000 extensions and growing some of the best integration we have ever seen.  Their extensions make adding complex features to your website a snap and there is pretty much a plug in for almost anything. (This is similar to modules in drupal)

Bottom line is Joomla is a great option for just about anyone starting a website.  It is a tad more advanced than Drupal in our opinion but in exchange for that it’s a little less flexible.  You kind of have to take things how they in unless you are pretty darn skilled already.  If you are someone how fancies all the bells and whistles Joomla may be a better overall option for you to start with.  If you are going to want to do a lot of tweaking to the sites overall look and feel, perhaps Drupal is a better option.