I need to create a mobile website for a Joomla website that is already live and running (has been for a while). I have no experience in using Joomla, so hence why I am asking you Guru's on here! I need to be able to display news and their categories, and possibly a few sub pages of cut down text from the full site.
I have found a few Joomla Extensions which hint at redirecting users to a mobile theme.
See:
Mobile Joomla!
Architect for Joomla
Do these include a mobile theme with them? Or do you have to manually create a separate theme for these extensions to identify and use when a mobile device or tablet is visiting the website? If so - can any of you direct me to the best possible route of implementing a "simple" mobile theme based on the current website? And note any common pitfalls + issues.
The website in question is here.
I look forward to your answers - thanks!
Due to the fact that a mobile version (if optimized for mobile devices) looks quite different to a normal website, I would write my own code which accesses the joomla database. For example, you create an own subdomain (no need to check "show mobile version" on every page) and there you can create a very lean and fast php/html5 version, for example. The php accesses the joomla database and gets all the news you need. Writing your own code has some advantages (in imho):
You can create a lean and dedicated version specific for your needs -> less code which handles generic things is needed
You can use some sophisticated gui-tools like iScroll to create a nice gui
I don't think that there's a great community for mobile joomla websites...
Related
My questions about Wordpress
From what I can gather, Wordpress is fast becoming the norm for building content managed websites. Up until now, I have used my own CMS systems to allow my clients to manage their sites content etc. However, I was recently asked to build a Wordpress driven website, and as the client insisted on using Wordpress, I subsequently lost the contract...
Resultantly, I am very keen to learn how to build and program a Wordpress site from scratch. I am not interested in templates provided when you install Wordpress on your server, I am only interested in building a fully bespoke website, with the ability to update the content using the Wordpress management engine.
I therefore have the following questions with regards to how Wordpress works (I am completely new to this).
Can I build a completely bespoke designed website and have Wordpress manage the content?
Are there any limitations to using Wordpress to manage the content?
Can I specify which content is editable?
Are there any 'from the ground up' tutorials on starting to build bespoke Wordpress driven websites?
Where can I find the documentation for the Wordpress API (if there is one)?
Do I install Wordpress in the same way that I would if I was using the built in template engine? In other words, do I still install Wordpress as a package in Plesk for the particular domain?
Does the code have to be in a specific format, or structure?
I effectively would like to find (or be pointed to) an article that clearly explains how Wordpress works and how advanced web developers can make the most of it.
I appreciate that this question is not really related to programming, if it needs to be moved then please advise as to where I can re-post it.
My Research
I appreciate that the answers to these questions will be located somewhere on the web, but thus far, I have been unable to find any really helpful tutorials on this specific topic.
I have read through pages such as the following, and whilst they were helpful, they do not really explain 'in brief' what Wordpress is and how it can be manipulated:
Where to start
Features and Functions
I below is my answer.
Can I build a completely bespoke designed website and have Wordpress manage the content?
Yes you can. Here you can find some sites that are built on wordpress. You can get an idea of what kind of stuff can be done.
http://designwoop.com/2011/12/best-wordpress-themes-of-the-year-2011/
http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2012/07/wordpress-websites-examples.html
Are there any limitations to using Wordpress to manage the content?
According to my experience building wordpress websites, plugins and widgets, I would say you will rarely come across where you want to do something and you can't. If you know well enough php and understand OOP you can basically build whatever you want. In fact there are so many plugins that most of the time you could even get away with not writing anything (in your case this is irrelevant as you want to learn).
Can I specify which content is editable?
Yes. Other wise there is no point of using any CMS. I am sure this would be the most basic feature of any CMS out there.
Are there any 'from the ground up' tutorials on starting to build bespoke Wordpress driven websites?
Here are few tutorials you can start with.
nettuts
css-tricks
wptuts
And of course the best way to learn is the starter theme that comes as default with wordpress installation. You can find more themes here.
Where can I find the documentation for the Wordpress API (if there
is one)?
The wordpress documentation is quite detailed covers most of the things. While learning or even further this will be your best resource. I usually tend to read the code itself if I want to know how the function works and other details which of course documentation won't cover.
Do I install Wordpress in the same way that I would if I was using
the built in template engine? In other words, do I still install
Wordpress as a package in Plesk for the particular domain?
Installing wordpress is as simple as copying it to your server and accessing it via the browser. You will get on screen step by step instruction. It could not be easier than that. And if somehow you got stuck, there are hundreds of tutorial online or you can visit the wordpress codex site.
Does the code have to be in a specific format, or structure?
Of course you would be following the wordpress coding style (not necessary for but recommended for sake of being consistent). Depending on your skill level you will fairly pick up the standards.
If you are building plugins or widgets, which I assume if you want to build sophisticated websites, you must follow the coding standards.
By the sounds of it, you need to learn about writing a theme from scratch. A Wordpress theme gives you absolute control over the HTML that's outputted by the engine. You can therefore customise your site to look however you want it to look. My company website, tec20, was designed this way without any themes used from wordpress.com. Obviously the themes are aimed at writing blog sites, but you don't have to include any of the commenting hooks, for example.
These tutorials may help:
http://rockablethemes.com/wordpress-themes-tutorials/
I am looking to create a web site that will need to exchange information with a Filemaker Pro (version 11) database. Using PHP I can create simple web apps that submit and retrieve data from Filemaker. I would however like to use a CMS framework (such as Drupal) to allow users to control access to the site and update site content (blog posts, images, etc ...).
Is it possible to use Drupal as a "shell", controlling access to certain pages and allowing site editors to modify content, while embedding a PHP page/form to interact with the Filemaker data? I would be planning to use MySQL for Drupal and the custom "web apps" would access Filemaker. Thanks for any help.
Have you ever heard of the expression "there's a module for that?" It's used quite a bit in the Drupal world. And yes, for Filemaker, there is a Module for That!. It's called, the Filemaker module, see more detail at http://drupal.org/project/filemaker.
Now I've never tested it, so it may not give you everything you want. But the beauty of open source is that you can always contribute what it doesn't already have. Or at least see how they did it to see if its worth it for you to try your own integration.
Now this module is one version behind current, so maybe you can learn Drupal by learning to upgrade the module. There's great guides on how to do this.
I know Joomla as a CMS manager, which is a system that manages different contents (texts, media,... etc).
But people tend to say: ALWAYS use joomla for your pro projects... bla bla
Let's imagine I need to do the following:
A web site where registered users post quotes (like in chucknorrisfacts.com for example), quotes are moderated, then published to people. And quotes have comments (from registered users).
How would Joomla help me easily building such a website ?
Because I think I can develop it very fast by starting from the scratch, but in another hand I'm very very interested in using Joomla as a base in order to learn it, and experience CMS methodology.
The Joomla administration console helps putting components on the websites and all that stuff, but what happens when we do need to store user input, submit it to users moderation, then publish this content and allow comments on it ? Does this require Joomla plugin development ? Or is there another road that could be taken...
My question might seem noobish, that's because this is going to be my first experience with a CMS though.
Wow. Where to start. First, the Joomla core does not support all of the requirements as it does not have a built in commenting system. Next, plenty of "pro" sites use Joomla, Wordpress, and Drupal. Big sites with big traffic and big budgets. More and more corporate sites are going looking to OS CMS, they have really come a long way in the last couple of years. Last, Joomla 1.0 stopped being supported a LONG time ago. Since 1.0, 1.5 released and had 22 updates, and 1.6 released earlier this month.
As for the original question, Joomla would be an excellent choice for the requirements described because it can easily be done with just K2. You can set up a specific content type for quotes, assign registered users as authors that can submit content, and turn on commenting for registered users. All of this is built in to K2 without any modifications.
I think Joomla does support that from core.
The quote of using joomla on pro sites is WRONG.
The real pro sites are custom build or use a professional CMS.
The semi pro sites use joomla (or any other OSS CMS).
Why?
Joomla is (at least the 1.0 version) slow, and not friendly to your server.
Also Joomla is vulnerable to attacks from script kiddies.
Not as unsafe as Wordpress though...
I have a web application that needs to be built using PHP/MySQL. The application will require documents to be generated from data in the MySQL database. Such documents will be printed and/or emailed and user will be prompted to run a daily print/email job based on business logic.
This application functionality needs to be made available to individual users such that they can upload data, have the system prompt them as to whether letters/emails are to be generated. The site also needs to be able to support a bulletin board, online live training events and will have admin area as well.
Question: Should a hybrid solution be developed such that the data management (upload functionality, and letter production) be a separate part of the site that authenticated Joomla users can access? That is, the document management functionality would exist separately from Joomla, but be called from within it via a link in the Joomla sitemap. Alternatively, should custom modules be developed from within Joomla to accomodate the document management functionality?
Thanks so much for your input!!
Joomla could do the job for you but based on the amount of things you need that differ from a normal Joomla site I would use a framework to build from instead of a CMS. I say this because it sounds like you need a lot more than just a CMS and it can be more work if you try making Joomla do things it wasn't designed to do. In my opinion Joomla is for "web sites" and not as much for "web apps". Of course those terms have overlap but it sounds like you would be better off with a Framework to go off of instead of working around Joomla to get what you want. However if the site is already done in Joomla it may be less work just to make a Joomla add-on.
Since you have to use PHP I would definitely recommend CakePHP for your framework. As for an integrated forum try looking at the links in this post. If that doesn't work for you, try out Vanilla forums (vanillaforums.org) which are very clean and may be easier to integrate into CakePHP than some of the other PHP forums.
If you decide to use CakePHP, check out Cake Forge to see if you can find anything there to make your life even easier.
If you were to use Joomla, the upload functionality and letter production would be written as a custom component. You can write the component to make sure that the current user is authenticated before generating the documents. I would not develop this as a separate application alongside Joomla; it would be easier to write it as a component.
Many forums and forum bridges are available for Joomla, so that would be something you wouldn't have to write.
I'm not sure what kind of live event support you're looking for.
I have a Hindi magazine website hosted on Joomla. Though helpful from publishing point of view the site was a maintenance nightmare. Joomla is so much susceptible to hacker attacks. My host will often shut down my site due to bots attacking my website. Recently I relaunched the site as a new Wordpress based site on a different name. The Joomla based website would therefore never be updated anymore. However, I do want to maintain the old content. I have used PHP but hardly am a power user.
I want to convert the files as plain HTML. I created a mirror of the website using HTTrack. But thanks to the fact that Joomla had variety of URLs for the same page (if you used a SEF URL plugin you would understand) the mirror is full of redundant content. Moreover I have repetitive HTML content (for header,footer,menu etc) in each page.
My questions are:
Which is a better option, create a static HTML site or PHP4.x pages (with Unicode content and having include PHP fragments for repetitive content)?
If latter is better should I use template system like Smarty? I am worried about caching since the content will hardly be updated I want caches to last forever.
Thanks for the help.
If the content is not going to change frequently I recommend using HTML files. They are static and hence faster.
However, if you are going to be updating content frequently, then you can either upgrade to the latest version of any popular CMS preferably joomla or drupal. I cite these two because they are actively developed and you can get a lot of support for them on the internet. Be sure to follow their security guide for hardening your installation.
If I were you I'd move everything over to WordPress since you have started using this. This way you will be maintaining a single website application keeping things better manageable in the long run.
You can copy the data out of Joomla using the Joomla administration interface. Or maybe even quicker using a database tool like MySQL Tools or Navicat which has a lot of export options.
Copying the HTML from Joomla using tools like HTTrack or TelePort Pro will result in lots of duplicate code and pages like you state.
Maintaining an extra PHP site just for the old content will be as much effort as getting everything into WordPress.
The "Static Content" project at: https://github.com/juliopontes/staticcontent does exactly what you are after although it looks like it may need to be updated for Joomla 3.5.