joomla!

I've written in another article on this site re my gradual disillusionment with Joomla!, and of considering switching to Drupal for some time. This had seemed a daunting prospect; there was an article on Drupal site about converting from Joomla, but involved digging around w MySQL databases - not something I felt up to.

I've had an email from someone asking me if it's worth migrating a Joomla 1.0 site to Joomla! 1.5 or - as I've done with a couple of sites, including this - to Drupal. (This site's Drupal 6; Drupal 5 remains current, too.) My reply:

I'd become more disenchanted w Joomla; built a Drupal site last year, and liked Drupal, inc the taxonomy - free tagging is the kind of thing you might like, so can assign keywords to articles, and Drupal readily gathers them.

I earlier wrote an article, questioning whether Mambo - Joomla's successor - could rightly claim "Power in Simplicity" (Mambo: Power in Simplicity?).

As the title of this article indicates, I have similar reservations about claims on joomla.org frontpage, to effect that "Joomla is easy to install, simple to manage".
- "easy" and "simple" for web developer type hotshots, maybe, but surely not for many people, especially if they anticipate the ease of use they're accustomed to with, say, word-processiong software.

My concerns resurfaced today, when came across Joomla forum thread, on Top Ten Stupid Administrator Tricks - in tongue-in-cheek way, recommends using test server, keeping software up to date, not being too trustful of third-party software...
All sound advice, but hardly making for managing Joomla being real "simple".

I added post regarding this, saying it gave the lie to Joomla being simple to manage. Prompted one response, to which I replied - saying that should qualify what it's simple compared to; and got answer including:

"Simple compared to if I told you to open a copy of notepad or dreamweaver and build a site using HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript...
Populate the tables of a MySQL database while you're in there.. And when you're done, could you draw up an outline of the appropriate htaccess files, secure the database against malicious intent, and generally keep your frontpage off Zone-H?

Simple Compared to anything, and equal to other CMS software."

I've got to agree re being simple compared to building site using HTML, CSS etc etc - but then, many things are simple compared to all this!

But, not simple compared to "anything".
There's much to learn, much to do in running Joomla site(s).

And now I have site in 1.0.14, I have Joomla version that's set to become outdated (bar security releases), yet it appears by no means trivial to "migrate" to Joomla 1.5: for time being, not doing so.

- indeed, I've "migrated" to Drupal 6.

Just posted this to drupal usability forum [1 Dec 08: adding some edits based on further experience, lest others stop by and read this]:

When I was first told of cms in early 2004, was told re Drupal: but had a look at drupal, and couldn't make head nor tail of "nodes" etc, and didn't see I could readily make site as I wished: chiefly with articles with images.
I found Mambo, used this and successor Joomla.

Now having another look at Drupal - partly as I've been asked re doing site that would involve info with various categories for individual items. [I've since switched to run sites on Drupal; meant "migrating" three sites from Joomla to Drupal, as I covered in another article here]
A few thoughts here; ups and downs, some ideas. (and not useful to just post and tell me I'm welcome to do the coding - I'm aware of that, but dunno code I'm afraid)

NOTE: Joomla to version 1.0.13 has built in Search Engine Unfriendly URLs.

But, editing this in early March (and Nov) 07 - as just announced that next version, Joomla 1.5, will be capable of generating URLs that are:

permanent
readable
hierarchical
brief and clean

- a huge step forward, I believe. Info here: Joomla! 1.5 Accessibility - Look Ma no Itemid’s.

Here's info on Joomla to 1.0.13:

Although Joomla! 1.0.x has option for "SEF URLs", these are Search Engine Unfriendly URLs, as have Itemids at the end, and can have new Itemid - a new URL - for each additional link you create. Results in multiple URLs for the same content, which is an SEO no-no: you'll suffer duplicate content penalty (one page may do well in SERPs, but the lookalikes will be well down; plus dilute any pagerank from links to the content).

Best solution, had been OpenSEF.

OpenSEF

This was a wonderful component, but when there was argey-bargey re Joomla and contributions apparently having to use GNU licence, the developer, Predator, got pissed and promptly pulled down his site with OpenSEF forums etc - loads of contributed info, just gone; seemed Predator didn't give a monkey's about the community of users. But you can still download the component from joomlacode.org/gf/project/nusef/frs/. And, maybe OpenSEF will be revived (hmm, looks less likely by the day).

sh404SEF

There are several other options for creating SEF URLs.
ArtioSEF seemed tempting, but I read that it includes adverts. JoomSEF was version with the ads removed; but latest version included the ads.
After some time checking info, I decided to give sh404SEF a go. Tried it, and I like it. Gives some control over how the URLs are created (eg, here I use /category/aricle-title-alias.html). Has built-n ability to create SEF URLs with some important components, including Fireboard, which I've also switched to (from Joomlaboard).

Dreaming of Joomla with URLs that are both SEF - and Cool

I've posted to forums, inc re my wish list for URLs:

" Truly search engine friendly - ie one URL per item (no matter what link you follow to arrive there - via menu, a category listing, a sitemap...); easy for search engines to follow; with words if possible; and - also importantly - structured so that can keep the same URL even as upgrade.

Would also be more human friendly - I always feel better giving short links with words than raw cms type gibberish."

Also:

'Item on W3C is headed Cool URIs (URLs) don't change. Has some reasoning for this; also potential excuses - like "we just reorganized our website", "we had to move some files"... With top-notch URLs built into Mambo, wouldn't be extra excuses: "I run Mambo, and I just upgraded my Mambo version", or "I run Mambo, and just changed the way I generate URLs" '

Joomla forum has long thread on When will SEO be integrated? - much of it recalling Monty Python ("This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction"), and while some posts laughable, a few good - eg see by Predator on 3 October 2006. (Predator was developer of both Joomla! and OpenSEF)

I've made more posts; added copies to my forum on this site.

Before using Mambo – and, more recently, Joomla! and Drupal – I built photo galleries a painstaking way - creating thumbnails individually, putting these in tables, with links from the thumbnails to full size photos. (Mind you: took time, but helped by links structure, it seemed Google liked the albums, and I received a fair number of hits from both image and text searches.)

But with Mambo came the opportunity to use components that could automate much of the process, and do other spiffy things like present slideshows. Seemed good to me, so I grabbed what seemed around the best of the galleries that were specifically designed as Mambo components - RSGallery. Had a few problems, but worked pretty well; till the project was discontinued. (Or just halted, as others may have taken it on.) I shifted to zOOm Media Gallery, which was an advance on RSGallery, yet didn't really live up to the hype by the developer, whose site had red text saying this would be the best gallery component for Mambo.

I had some experience with Menalto Gallery on another Mambo site. Ooh, so cool - packed with features, and real slick. With Zoom not making much progress, I decided to have a go with Gallery.

I began using Gallery 1.5 with Mambo; since moved two sites to Joomla!, and installed Gallery 2 together with the Gallery 2 bridge component.

When it comes to making sites search engine friendly - ie Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so they are readily navigated and index by search engine spiders, and pages rank well in, say, Google, Yahoo and MSN Search, Joomla! has a few quirks that are maybe worth a little explanation: to me, rather suggest some of key folks behind Joomla are not really interested in creating websites.

Firstly, though, the essentials of optimising a Joomla! site for search engines are exactly as for all sites, and as I've briefly covered in Free advice on search engine optimization.

So, what are the quirks?