Joomla!
Joomla is a free, award-winning content management system written in PHP which allows users to easily publish their content on the world wide web and intranets. Joomla is created as an open-source project where individuals and teams contribute their skills to its development as well as its supporting systems.
While Joomla is packed with features, its greatest quality is that it is extremely extensible. Because of its extensible structure, there aren't many things you cannot do with Joomla. A short list of some important features of Joomla are the following:
- Page Caching
- Web Indexing
- RSS Feeds
- Printable Page Versions
- Newsflashes
- Blogs
- Forums
- Polls
- Calendars
- Website Searching
- Language Internationalization
What's in a name?
The name Joomla is a phonetic spelling for the Swahili word "Jumla", which means "all together" or "as a whole".
Joomla! Links:
Project Site: http://www.joomla.org
Demo Site: http://demo.joomla.org [from here you can see the front end (the users view) as well as the back end (administrators view)]
End-User Documentation: http://help.joomla.org
Developer Network: http://dev.joomla.org
Extension Directory: http://extensions.joomla.org
Content above taken directly from: www.opensourcematters.org
How does Joomla! work?
With traditional website design, there is a bottleneck whereby the webmaster must enter all the content into the site. In a large organization, it's possible to have designated contributors each with web editing software like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, but the costs add up, and each person must be trained to work with HTML. The larger the group of contributors, the higher the cost. Speaking from experience, a couple of incorrect keystrokes can ruin a website. One poorly trained contributor can make a huge mess.
With Joomla! a template is set up by the developer, the owner/administrator can give permission to others who would simply need internet access to log in and enter content on their own schedule. There are tools build in to the back end to customize the look and feel of the page, much like you would use in creating a Word document. The administrator can allow others to publish directly, or have it approved first.
See it in action
You can view the Joomla! demo here. This is the front end, which is what the user sees on the web. Now take a look at the back end via the Joomla! demo. To log in, use admin for the user name the password.
It's possible to have multiple templates, so that the end user can choose the style they prefer. This is possible because the content is contained in a PHP database, unlike this static HTML based website.
There are hundreds of Joomla! templates available, many that are free, most cost under $60. I can create a website using a template and then customize it to suit the needs of the organization.
Is Joomla right for you or your organization?
Joomla is a content management system, with the key word being content. If you can't come up with the content, your Joomla based website is going to look empty. For me, the big attraction to using Joomla is that the burden of publishing content can be distributed to those that create it. For many, it's enough just to create a Word document that looks good, they just want to hand it off to someone else who will publish it on the web. As appealing as it sounds, you have to be sure that your contributors are willing and able to take the extra steps needed to get it on the web. Don't get me wrong, it's not that hard to publish your work once the site is set up, but for some it might be the straw that breaks the camels back!
Here is a list of interesting Joomla! websites.
Sample Joomla! Websites
These sites are just a few that I found (not sites I worked on!), some are fairly simple while others have many bells and whistles. (Note: This list has not been updated for some time, with the expection of Aston Juniors Football Club added 6/9/08.
a Health Stop
Arts Council of Rock Hill and York County
Aston Juniors Football Club
Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40
Capture New Zealand Photography Tours
DCguide.com - Washington, DC
Dorset Cricket
Freekick Temple
Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
Pro-Landscapes
TheFunnyCartoon.com - Funny Cartoons Comic Strips eBooks Daily
UrthTV Creating the Future
Websk8ter.com - The Management of Technology Portal