Topic: Joomla extensions

[ober]

Is anyone using Joomla?  It seems pretty good, but all the good extensions are paid extensions and not only are they paid, but they're subscription based.  What a fucking ripoff!

But I may be stuck with this piece of junk so if anyone runs a site like this and has experience with a plugin that does event registration, I'd love to hear about it.

[webwhy]

We used Mambo/Joomla several years ago (2003 to 2005) as our cms platform for clients.  It used to suck for security.  Hopefully things are much better now, but  problems were not patched quickly enough and patches were really difficult to install without breaking custom code, extensions, etc.  There are numerous security best practice documents on the web, which are mostly common sense.  Even if you follow these, you will be compromised eventually especially if you're installing third party extensions so make sure you have a good backup and recovery plan in place.

I have no idea of what the current extension "marketplace" provides, but whatever you finally decide to use, do a thorough code review of the extension before putting it into production.  Again, if it's a popular extension, and has unpatched security vulnerabilities, your site WILL be compromised.

It's a major reason we abandoned it, it was more trouble than it was worth keeping things relatively secure.

[Mike]

After Joomla changed their interpretation of the GPL to basically kill any 3PD not using GPL I swore them off.

[ober]

Wow... maybe my gut was right about them.

Ok, so if not Joomla, can anyone suggest a comparable CMS?  What do you guys think of Drupal?  The site I'm working on currently uses Wordpress and it doesn't have the community type features that I'm looking for for this project.

[ober]

Gah... I fucking hate Drupal.  I don't understand it and it doesn't seem to have anything installed by default.  Even the content editor isn't a WYSIWYG.  Drupal seems like such a flaming hunk of shit but I've seen people rave over it.

What gives? 

My other hesitation with Joomla is that there is this whole 'legacy' vs. 'native' bullshit that seems from a distance to just be a poorly mismanaged bunch of software developers.  And there doesn't seem to be a lot of extensions.  Hence my love of Wordpress, which does have a lot of plugins and whatnot and seems very easy to develop on.  And they do have consistent, steady updates to the platform.

I hesitate to leave Wordpress, but I need it to be more of a CMS instead of a blog.

[webwhy]

i'm sort of removed from the PHP scene, but it seems Wordpress is the goto for a lot of folks.  I have heard ModX mentioned as a decent option though.

http://modxcms.com/

[Mike]

Wow... maybe my gut was right about them.

Ok, so if not Joomla, can anyone suggest a comparable CMS?  What do you guys think of Drupal?  The site I'm working on currently uses Wordpress and it doesn't have the community type features that I'm looking for for this project.

What are you looking for in a CMS?  Some people love Drupal, some hate it.  Really, without some sort of requirements it is hard to say what would be the best one.  I'm not a big CMS guy but I know some people who are in that area and can get some recommendations.

[ober]

I have 2 setups, both for non-profits.  One is an annual event where the event coordinators need to be able to share documents, post images of the event, and basically manage a website.  That one is currently using a Wordpress installation along with Google Non-profits.

The second is a PTA association.  This one is coming on board now and they want a small community (profiles, image sharing, document sharing, calendar, RSVP functionality and the ability to have members-only content).  I don't think Wordpress is a great fit for this one, hence the reason to look.  My wife likes Joomla for that one so far (she manages both of these websites).

Another thing holding me back is the ability for my wife to design the template for the site, which she is currently doing in Artisteer and they only support a handful of CMS packages (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, dotnetnuke, Blogger).  I'm willing to figure out something for another CMS if there is a better one so that's not the a huge blocker.

Does that help?

[Mike]

Yeah.  I'll ask and get back to you once I have a response.

[ober]

Thanks Mike.

[Mike]

His recommendations were Joomla, Drupal or Xoops

[ober]

Hmm... maybe I will go with Joomla then.