Joomla!
Well, I mentioned that I wanted to try Joomla! for the Minis In The Trenches website.
Having used it for 24 hours or so (not straight, I promise!) I love it. I’ve not really played with Content Management Systems before although I am currently using WordPress as a CMS on Mini! Mini! Mini! (MMM).
I am seriously considering taking the plunge and re-developing MMM to use Joomla. It just makes sense. It’s a dedicated CMS.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the simplicity of WP, the cost of plugins and themes for WP and the support for the application. But it’s a blogging tool. To use it as a CMS is almost bodging it. Joomla! is a dedicated CMS with blogging capabilities. As MMM is supposed to be a web mag rather than a blog I think it would be better suited to Joomla!
My only real issue with J! is the cost. Although the application is completely free (fabulous!) nearly everywhere I look people expect you to pay for extensions, plugins and other bits and pieces. Fair enough, people need to make a living and the J! CMS is such a powerful tool that it’s a great way to make a living but do all the free themes have to suck?
Disclaimer: I suck at theme building. I have the skillz to code (just) for WP but the Joomla! theming system is doing my head in right now. I am stuck with making basic modifications to colour and images.
Many of the free themes are what I could code at the limit of my ability and that, to me, is not of a high enough standard to release.
I took four hours of searching to find the theme for MITTS and another two hours to change the images. I think it looks pretty good. I suspect that professionals would call it crap. But hey, it’s free, it’s a bit of fun for me and as the even budget is exactly £0 I have pretty much hit the limit of what I can do with the site.
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