J is for Joomla the best CMS for website design and development

Editors Note: It is some time since I wrote this and interestingly wordpress is often a better platform for most standard website functions these days. We still love Joomla for some kinds of function but are doing most sites with wordpress now. View the comparison blog on Wordpress vs Joomla

Joomla is the CMS (Content Management System) that we use to make our sites. It allows the average man to add content to their own web site. Yes it is a bit more complex than using facebook but with some guidance you will be adding pages and new menu items with ease. Even if it is beyond you it allows us to add things remotely to your site. Yes you can add things from your mobile phone or tablet even. You just need a browser and internet connection.

How does it work ?

A database stores the content of the site and various options, this data can be added and changed by the CMS so it updates itself. You can choose to save and not publish immediately items and you have access to advance ACL so you can set a piece to be able to be read by certain people for example subscribers who pay a monthly fee to you Joomla ACL will recognise the logged in user has the correct privileges and will show the item for that user or group only.

Joomla has been developed by many individuals using the Open Source Idea which allows the use as given in its license opensourcematters.org.

Advantages to using Joomla far outweigh the disadvantages

Advantages:

• Scalability (we would use this to build a really small basic site so that the user has the option to add later with no loss of economy due to poor planning)
• Some things are easy to do like add a new article
• Add components such as Forum, Blog, Reviews, Shopping Cart...etc the list goes on see the extensions website to get more of an idea.
• Custom look and feel is entirely possible. Indeed 3rd part templates allow a highly professional look that can be tailored to fit in your colour scheme and branding.
• The limits are just the individual,
• and many more... 

Disadvantages:

• A learning curve that can be beyond some individuals who don't have the time to get to grips with it.
• It can take some time to solve conflicts that occur from 3rd party components playing together. Our considerable experience allows us to solve any that might happen quickly.
• It can be slightly time consuming to make a really small 4 or less page site, experience allows us to do this and create our 200 pounder package !