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Comments (5)

1  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 20-02-2008 05:56 You should do some more research before you post crap. You're wrong about all sorts of stuff. You clearly don't know much about Joomla! buddy... I mean come on.. SHAPE5??? Yeah, they have decent templates... DECENT. But what were you thinking when you posted this hunk of crap? Report

2  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 20-02-2008 06:24 Hmmm. Well Jason, first let me say that I enjoy your blog. I even recently passed on your 9 Free, Open Source, and Phenomenal Platforms You May Not Know Yet post to several people. (Hey, now you've got 2 backlinks to your site for the price of one!)  As far as my post being 'crap', you only reference one specific point I make, which was that shape5 made a Virtuemart template that actually made Virtuemart not look horrible, which is no small feat. It wasn't meant to be a testimonial on Shape5 as a whole. There just aren't that many people making templates for Virtuemart period as far as I can tell. Why? Because it's a pain in the ass compared to making a Joomla template.  As far as points 2,3, and 4 go, I'm curious what you are contesting here. These are just facts about Joomla and the fact that they are important (at least to me) because real clients wanting a CMS are asking for these things. Report

3  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 25-02-2008 05:21 I enjoy your blog too, thanks. After reading my comment, I realized that it was much too harsh. For that, my apologies. My problem is this:     1. Virtuemart is a phenomenal shopping cart... contrary to your post. You mention that the design doesn't fit well with your site. The development behind Virtuemart is completely separate from the design. If you're building a shop for a client, then it's better to assume that your design work will include virtuemart design.     Also... Shape5 is good, don't get me wrong. But it almost seems like you're plugging them... TemplatePlazza, Gavick, Joomlart, Rockettheme, etc. all have great shopping cart templates too... arguably better than shape5.    2. Joomla as a blog. First off, I use Wordpress for openjason, which I love. But I have about 5 or 6 other blogs that use Joomla!, which are just as great as WP. For pinging, it's a 10 second install to get that functionality. Check it out here: http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,3075/Itemid,35/    3. I'm not quite following you on the user groups post. There are several ways to handle this... for Joomla 1.01x - you can install JACL, rokaccess, and several other tools to accommodate. Of course you can build your own, but if you're looking for a quite fix, these work great. Now, keep in mind that I'm not really understanding what you're saying (on item #3), but I think I got the jist.    4. Two-level hierarchy. I struggled with this one a couple of years ago. But now, I believe it to be better... Why? Well, it's easy.... there's no reason to have more. See, the categorization of Sections,Categories, and Content Items are really for the back-end admin... Most people build out there content architecture thinking that's how they'll deploy it to the user. Well, that's just wrong. Let me give you an example. I can create create several sections... for instance, "joomla," "wordpress," and "drupal." 3 sections, right? Now, on the main page of my website, I may not want to link to any of these individual sections.. but rather, I want to create a link called "CMS Technology," that goes to all 3 CMS platforms. I simply setup a link that includes all these sections, I then name it "CMS Technology," ... done. So, I've essentially created a link to hold 3 sections, grouping them together. Following me? In a weird way, you're using your menu items to create a tier higher than Sections...     All in all, good post though.. Report

4  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 25-02-2008 18:54 1. Maybe my take on Virtuemart is a little harsh, but I just found that trying to customize the look and feel is a pain, partly due to the apparent widespread use of inline CSS. I notice it also re-defines styles in the joomla admin (for instance, the joomla menu changes styles once you are in the Virtuemart component, etc. which I just find annoying, and it makes the nav invisible when using a templateplazzza admin template).  I just wish all extensions (not just Virtuemart) could just work with Joomla templates “out of the box” instead of doing their own thing.*  As far as Shape5 goes, that’s just the first place I found that made professional Virtuemart templates. I’m actually more infatuated with Rockettheme currently, but I’m not seeing anything on their site regarding templates for Virtuemart.    2. I’m happy with Joomla as a blog as well. However, I’d like the pinging to be an automatic process, and I don’t think the component you’re using or the one I’m using (DS-Syndicate?) do that. I find that once you move away from the simplest of tasks, the non-technical joomla admin (i.e., the client) cant get lost quickly. Posting by email and comment management are two other things I would like to see “out of the box”.*    3. I believe the solutions you mention either don’t do what I need or they require hacking the core Joomla code, which I want to avoid to make installing patches less of a hassle (please set me straight here if I’m off base). To re-iterate what I’m asking for here - I want to be able to create my own user group (say “client a”) and then assign menu items, content items, etc. to only that group). These groups could just be sublevels of “registered” in order to accomplish what I need. And it’s not even so much that it can’t be done, because I know it can with a hack or extension that does a hack), but that it’s not built-in already.*    4. My main problem with the current hierarchy stems from the functionality you can get with using the Extended Menu module (http://de.siteof.de/extended-menu.html) in 1.0x that allows me to auto expand sections and categories in a menu. So if I’m using a Suckerfish-type menu system and a client adds a new content item or category under a section used a top level nav item, it automatically appears on the menu. This goes back to keeping it simple for the client. All they have to do is create a content item, assign it to the correct section/category, and it automatically shows up in the menu without having to tackle the additional step of editing the menu.  However, I’m limited here with the Joomla hierarchy (section->category->content item). What if I just want section->content item, or section->category->sub-category->content item? For the section->content item example, I could just make a category my “content”, but that’s just one more thing to confuse a client with.    *My main point here is that these are the things that I think could make Joomla the “Holy Grail“ of the open source CMS world if you could combine a fully integrated, high-end shopping cart, full-featured blogging tool, and more flexibility in terms of user management and content “out of the box”. And it’s all very doable. Report

5  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 18-03-2008 00:07 gtaylor, i agree. Virtuemart could be designed in a much more structured way. A ..DECENT shop component in joomla would go a long way... but Virtuemart isnt it. I have used, and my customers use Joomla with Virtuemart and there are only a few situations to where it is justly suited... and dont try to intercept any of the output from Virtuemart, god forbid you use data in another section.     Joomla was not build as a portal system, read any good joomla book and it will tell you so. This, in my mind (along with the 26 or so mysql queries it takes just to load the front page) disqualifies Joomla from being any kind of serious user managed solution. sure its easy to install... then what? My customers have customers too, JACL and the rest do NOT apply the correct security principles to lock down...    .remote access details  .salary stuffs  .system documentation  .files, router configs etc.    I mean even PHPBB has scalable user groups, surely it is fundemental to any decent web app. This in particular is appauling.     2 level access? it took me about 3 seconds to run out of level access, and at other times it was just way to complex to convince a client that it was a better way of doing things. Most new people e.g. directors, reps, etc are just confused at why joomla is determined to do everything in reverse. Joomla is not at all looking like being scalable in this sense either.. oO its not as broad as we've all been telling ourselves. Ino ino, maybe its not the right product i hear you say... no, its not the right product, but they said it was.    As far as i can see the only use for Joomla is public content, nothing fancy, just a big ads site.    And Jason, before you launch your expected rebuke, I am a Joomla developer and I am working on a component to control all of the things that I have just mentioned, for a corperate business, in a good team. We also are writing heaps of more scalable components, unfortunately not like Virtuemart yet.  Why? because Joomla doesn't do the foundations of what most people want from a website. If I could have bought, or even had writen the functionality that Joomla simply needs to be viable then I would have, but no, I was left with nothing other than to write it myself.     gg gtaylor, gg. We need more sensible and observant people like you in design. Report

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