In the past I’ve always built CMS (content management system) functionality into websites that I’ve built on a need-to-use basis. If the customer requests a distributor page they can update themselves, or a news page, I’d code it up in PHP and charge for my time. Now though people want to be able to control all the content in their websites.
Around a year and a half ago I discovered a CMS called Mambo. I built a couple of websites with it but never really got into customisation etc. Last year much of the tech team left Mambo and created Joomla. To the bystander, Joomla was just Mambo repackaged. Things are changing though at a pace and in my mind Joomla is now faster and sweeter than the last version of Mambot that I tried.
Customisation is a doddle. Once you get your head round Joomla’s templates and preferably use Dreamweaver with a Joomla template plugin, you can rattle out templates at a pace. I used this Joomla template tutorial to get started on my first one.
You can go out and pay a lot of money for a content management system, or you could just go out and get to know Joomla. It is powerful and stable and I recommend it now to anyone wanting content management on their website. The plugins are appearing thick and fast and the whole Joomla community is very friendly. I think I’ll keep using it unless anyone has a better suggestion that is.
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I couldn’t agree more. Joomla is an excellent deal for website designers and clients. As too is Drupal. Have you tried that?
I’ve not tried Drupal, even though I’ve heard of it. Just looked at their site and it looks pretty powerful. They use it to run The Onion – that’s gotta be a good recommendation.
Yes, Mambo and now Joomla is my favourite. I earn US$ 220 for developing a web using Joomla!