Friday, 08 May 2009 18:38
Joomal! is design to be user friendly and it is. The most powerful aspect of using Joomla are the thousands of extensions that have been created by 3rd party vendors to work with the Joomla framework. The 2nd most powerful feature of Joomla is its template design system. Joomla is a CMS, which basically means you separate the design of the site from the content.
The design is done using Templates which make changing the look of the entire sight as simple as uploading a new template. There are however some points that need to be considered when working on a more advanced Joomla web site. And Advanced Joomla web site would be any Joomla site running more then one Extension.
1. Security
3rd party companies that have absolutely no affiliation with Joomla create Joomla extensions. Joomla doesn’t not warrant and guarantee any of the extensions. With that in mind be aware that not all people are simply out to share something they have created and instead are out to make money. Making money on selling your extensions is perfectly fine and even expected with some of the more complicated extensions. However, making money buy adding Malware Code with the extensions is less then fine and cause a real security treat to your site. Some known issues have been “trackers” that are installed with extensions that then send data about your site and its members back to a 3rd party database. Online, information IS money. Another issue is just basic security flaws due to poorly developed code on the part of the 3rd part vendor. 99.99% of the time when a Joomla site is hacked it is found that the hacker came though an opening in one of the extensions that are installed on Joomla and not the Joomla program itself. Because you agree to the terms and conditions before you can download any extensions none of the security threats are illegal. No one is forcing you to use them.
2. Stability
Because many extensions are Free and simply came about because of one developer needing a given function on his site the stability of the extensions it self can cause issues. Joomla is a server side program that requires some advanced server applications to function, for example Apache, MYsql and PHP. Each of these programs have different versions and are constantly changing. Joomla program is self is currently on version 1.5.10 and about every 2 months or so Joomla comes out with minor updates and every year or so they come out with Major updates. The problem is this. You have found a great extensions and it works well for months. You install the latest version of Joomla to keep security treats in check and all the sudden your extension stops working. Because this extension was free chances are the developer is not going to do much updating until they them self’s need it, which may be never. I even have some extensions that I have paid for that have not had any updates and have been forced to update them myself to keep them working. Keep in mind this example involves only 1 variable changing at a time, which were the new updates to Joomla being installed. You have to take into account the server side applications in addition to the possible dozen different extensions installed on any given Joomla web site. It can at times be a nightmare to keep extensions stable when taking into consideration the amount of variables involved with making Joomla work.
3. Compatibility
Joomla web development can be lots of fun because of the ease of acquiring highly professional templates for a fairly low cost. Also building templates on the Joomla framework can be and exciting way to learn how the Joomla framework functions. Part of what I do as a Joomla developer is to make it appear as if everything on the site came from one developer. There is a low barrier-to-entry for developing a Joomla site and having it look good. Joomla even comes with a few templates out of the box and high quality templates are available at a fairly low cost. Most of the times on a simple site this is all that is needed. However the compatibility issues come into play when we again start to talk about the extensions that make Joomla such a powerful tool for building web sites. Basically a Joomla Template is a set of rules (code) that tell the web browser (internet explorer, FireFox etc.) how to display any given content on a web page. The problem is that the 3rd party vendors who create the extensions also have to include set of rules (more code) that do the same thing as the core Joomla template. They tell the browser how to display those particular extensions. Once you add a few extensions to your site you will end up with a very unprofessional looking site with different fonts, colors, styling and even some vendor advertising on your site. So creating a custom look and feel on the site becomes more difficult and will require custom coding to edit each extension that is installed.
4. From development to production
If you have the abilities to develop your Joomla site on its final resting place then your in luck. However if you are like most people your going to be develop this new site to replace and old site. Typically this means that your will be completing your site and then moving the site. A site Migration can be as simple and move a file from one folder to another on you computer or it can be as complicated as moving a thousand of files, in hundreds of folders one at a time and getting them all in the right order on a another couture that you access though the internet. It would be a wise choice to research the exact parameters of your new sites host server and try to match those on your development server. Even as an experience Joomla Developer I have had to personally rebuild sites manually that would not migrate the “easy way”
If you would like to find out more about these issues or need help with your Joomla! web site please contact me.
