<rant>

I hope I am not the only one who is getting a headache from the Joomla! folks. Part of the problem is being caused by “business promoters” of all things Joomla. I mean, I appreciate that there are folks who are making a living by making the effort to take the open source CMS Joomla and create an easier to use, prettier to look at, and able to do more things product. But they are starting to make my head spin.

To give an example…today, I received an e-newsletter from a company (who will remain nameless) who sells value-added Joomla products (templates, mods, etc.). Nice folks.

The first article in the newsletter warns us that the end of version 1.5 is coming soon (in April 2012 BTW, eight months from now). They go on to talk about how Joomla 1.8 is right around the corner and that you should be preparing for this event. What!? Joomla 1.6 came out six months ago and Joomla 1.7 just came out two weeks ago! What’s the big hurry?

A couple of articles later the same newsletter has another story about the release of Joomla ver 1.6.6. What? This same company told me just two weeks ago that there would be no further development of Joomla 1.6 and that users of ver 1.6.5 (the then latest version) had to immediately switch to ver 1.7 or all of their websites would turn to pumpkins!!!

You can read about all the fun that caused me elsewhere in this blog.

I guess someone changed their minds and development on ver 1.6 is continuing.

The Joomla home planet gets into this fracas with this comment – clear as mud:

The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6.6. This is a security release and is intended only for those users who are unable to use version 1.7.0. Most users should update to 1.7.0 unless there are specific reasons why they cannot use 1.7.0 at this time. Update instructions for updating from 1.6.5 to 1.6.6 are available here.

The Production Leadership Team’s goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community. Learn more about Joomla! developement at the Developer Site.

Version 1.6 will reach end of life on 19 August 2011. All users of version 1.6 should update to version 1.7.0 before that time. The update process to version 1.7 is very simple, and complete instructions are available here.

The thing for everyone to remember is, converting from 1.5x to anything is not an easy process. Many mods which you have learned to rely on are either not going to be upgraded or have a new equivalent built into the core, and more importantly, many of your v 1.5x theme files will not work with ver 1.6, 1.7 and presumably 1.8. If you purchased a theme or spent a lot of time developing one to your liking, it is likely that you will have to start all over again, or at the very least, spend some development time moving things around and getting them to work. Sure, the core and the database may covert easily, but getting your website looking good and running, well, that’s gonna take you some time.

</rant>

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Image licensed by Creative Commons by thetorpedodog

In recent years, the Joomla community has eased my neuroses with some nice update modules that made the process more tolerable. BTW, the best CMS upgrade process is with WordPress which is almost completely painless, click a button and wait for it to do its thing. But upgrades of Joomla historically have been a lot more complicated and my past experiences were never very pleasant.

Some of you may know that Joomla came out with a new version (1.6) about six months ago. I have been contently using version 1.5 on my jebswebs core site and for several clients. I had figured to wait at least six months to make sure all of the bugs and kinks were worked out before attempting to make the upgrade. So, this morning when I read a security announcement that 1.6 had some issues, would not be supported after August 19th of this year, and the recommendation was to upgrade to 1.7 immediately, I got a little nervous and figured today would have to be the day.

Girded with a several cups of coffee and the latest migration directions in hand, I set about the task, following the directions with religious zeal. Make backups: done, check tech requirements: check, install jUpgrade – a new module that would automatically upgrade the install from 1.5 to 1.6 painlessly: done. I even made backups of backups.

The process seemed to go smoothly. The new installation appeared within a new folder and opened and worked appropriately. The MySQL tables apparently all converted nicely, my content was all there. But the first signs of trouble were the fact that jUpdate had not installed Joomla 1.6, it installed Joomla 1.7. But that can’t be a problem, right?

I moved the site to the live side of the public HTML folder and made sure my images and other folders were all working. I moved the 1.5 installation into a folder /myoldsite and let it rip!

Then the fun began.

The first thing I tried to do was switch off to my old template so the new site would look like the old site. But I soon learned that my old template would not work with Joomla ver 1.7 (or version 1.6 for that matter). I next headed over to my friends at JoomlaShack where I purchased the original template.  I selected a new template (Enterprise) and made my purchase. When I then checked the JoomlaShack support site, I discovered that others were having problems with the Enterprise template working with Joomla 1.7. Ugh.

So, until this new template gets updated, I am stuck in the water having to use the default Joomla template for jebswebs.com. Sorry folks, I know it looks ugly. I hope to get it fixed soon. Stay tuned.

For those Joomla 1.5 users considering their options, sit tight for the time being. Joomla will be supporting 1.5 LTS (Long term support) for at least another nine months. Joomla has also announced that ver 1.8 (LTS) will be released in January. Hopefully by then all of the bugs will be gone.

The easiest thing to do was to simply change the font-family style element from Georgian/serif to a san-serif. That has made a tremendous difference. Let that be a lesson to you; a simple font change can make your whole site look completely different.

There are still some font elements I don’t like, but I gotta search out the code to find where the CSS for that particular code is hiding. Always fun trying to crack someone else’s code.

Next, I need to work on getting/creating some new graphics for the site. With my new HP Pavilion Elite, crunching graphics is a breeze. So, stay tuned.

It may not be spring (look at the photos I just posted of the New Years Storm of 2010), but it is the New Year and change is in the air.

~j

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Image licensed by Creative Commons

Web sites come in many shapes and sizes and, given the magic of current technologies, can do many wondrous things. But to many, the inner workings of a website can be confusing. Having the responsibility of developing, or updating the web presence for your organization can be a major challenge. This article is designed to help.

Two Flavors

To begin this discussion, you should know that web sites still come in two major “flavors” – static and dynamic. To the knowledgeable purists reading this, I understand that there are no truly static websites, but please allow me some poetic license here.

The terms static and dynamic have little to do with the actual look of the website and refer more to the “backend” or inner workings of the site and to some extent the functionality of some or all of the features on the site. Either can be right solution for your organization, but how do you choose the right one for your organization? Let’s begin with some information about the flavors.

Static web sites are built using individual web page files written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML), along with some support files for styling (e.g., Cascading Style Sheets – CSS), images (e.g., JPGs, GIFs, etc.) and media elements (e.g., audio, video and Flash objects). Files are usually prepared off-line on a local computer using specialized web-authoring software like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression, and then “published” to a web server connected to the World Wide Web (WWW). Note, there are other programs that purport to be able to create web pages (like MS-Word or MS- Publisher), but be careful. Good web design requires the right tools and techniques. Using the wrong ones can make your site misbehave or worse, not work at all.

The web files are typically “published” to a web server using a piece of software called a File Transfer Protocol or FTP client. The FTP client may be built into your web-authoring program, or it may be a separate program. The “web server” is a special application that runs on a specialized computer (also called a server) that is connected to the Internet. This web server does just what its name implies; it “servers up” your web files when “called for” by someone on the Internet.

Most organizations do not own their own web server and will use a “host” like Maine Hosting Solutions to serve up their website. The cost of this hosting service ranges from a few dollars per month to many thousands of dollars depending on the size of the website and the amount of traffic is receives. There are many options and a web design firm like jebswebs can assist you in this decision.

In a Static web site, when you want to change the content, someone has to change the local file and re-publish it to the web server, thus overwriting the original file. If it is something like a link on a menu bar, this may require that every web file on your site be changed and re-published also. So, this quickly can become time consuming.

With the exception of some simple executable files, most of the content in static websites is fairly flat, meaning it allows little or no interaction with visitors/users. In other words, people viewing the site will typically only be able to read or view the content and not able to write or submit content to the site.

When the World Wide Web was first developed in the early 1990s, designers had very limited choices of things they could do. Designs in those days were almost exclusively static in nature and developers were constantly challenged to make the user experience more interactive and exciting.

Dynamic web site development came out of that need for interaction. These sites often provide the user with the ability to interact with the content and provide some kind of feedback. But the real reason for calling these sites dynamic has to do with how the sites are constructed and maintained. In the dynamic web site, all of the content, styling files and related web documents are contained within one or more databases located somewhere on the Web and “controlled” or administered by an application called a Content Management System (CMS). The content is “hung” on the website using various templates written in a dynamic markup language such as PHP, ASP, Cold Fusion or Java. These templates are similar to HTML, but are more complex and can do a lot more things. Think of your website was a Christmas tree. The template is the tree itself with trunk and branches. It has some color and texture. The content is like decorations and lights that are hung on the tree. Each of your “pages” (also called nodes) uses the same tree, but the decorations and lights vary from page to page, node to node. Some of the “decorations” are built-in to the tree and will appear on every page/node. For example, the heading/logo area, the main menus and the footer of the page. You can also add blocks of content that will appear on every page/node. The choice is up to you.

There are many CMS applications out there  and each works a little differently. The three big ones, Joomla!, Drupal, WordPress, have become the standard in the field. These are all “open source software” meaning that they are developed by volunteer code writers who are always trying to improve the code. They are also free and freely available to be modified and changed to meet your needs.

I should point out that there are commercial CMSs as well and they can cost many thousands of dollars to purchase and license each year.

The CMS is used to create and edit content and runs on the web server itself, requiring almost no additional software. Many of the CMSs have  built in image editors which can do some basic edits like resizing the image, however serious edits are usually done off-line with a local editing application. There are many modules, plug-ins and “widgets” that can be freely added to the dynamic site making the experience for the user very rich.

All CMSs allow for multiple users and the administrator can control how much access each user has to the website.

How to Choose

Generally the first consideration when trying to decide between a static vs. dynamic website is the basic size of the site. This can sometimes be decided by looking at the size of the organization. If the site is for a single person or small organization, you can probably get by just fine with a static site. If there are a large number of people going to be involved with this website, it’s probably best to go for a dynamic design. If you are looking at some kind of an e-commerce website – in other words you are looking to sell things on the Web – you are probably going to need a dynamic web site.

Next in your consideration is how often the content needs to be updated. Static sites by their very definition tend to have information with a relatively long shelf life. That is, if the information that you are putting on a website is relatively stable and will not be changing for months or years, you can get by just fine with a static site. If your content is changing more frequently than once per month, you should consider a dynamic website.

“Who will manage your content?” is your next question. If you have on your staff personnel that know how to design and update web pages, you are all set and can have either a static or dynamic site based upon your organization’s particular needs. However, if you have a small staff, or perhaps are a small nonprofit organization staffed with a handful of volunteers, you are going to need to either hire someone or find a volunteer with extra talents and time.

Finding staff or volunteers that know how to design and maintain a website is not as difficult as it once was, but sometimes keeping that staff is difficult. These people are usually in high demand and may get a better offer from one of your competitors.

Choosing a dynamic web site will be an advantage here in that adding, deleting and editing content is very easy. If you have ever ordered anything on line, written or commented to a blog, or added a comment to an online discussion group, you can easily learn how to work with a dynamic web site.

The last question you need to consider in selecting what type of web site you want is -how interactive do you want your site to be?

One of the big advantages of choosing a dynamic web site design is that they are designed for interaction. In some ways, that’s the goal of the dynamic design; it encourages lots of people to contribute and collaborate. However, you will be comforted in knowing that with a dynamic web design, you still have complete control of who can add, delete or edit content. You can also assign sections of your website to different parts of your organization so that only these groups can see and work with the content in that section. Or, you can open your site up to the whole world for input and discussion like many people do with blog sites. This is all entirely up to you.

Dynamic websites can also import content from multiple sources including automated ones so your website will be constantly updating and changing as these sources update content. And, as noted earlier, dynamic websites can be use to conduct commerce on the Web.

We can help

Whether you are considering your first website or updating one you’ve had for years, it can be very helpful to discuss your needs with a web design firm like jebswebs. We are here to help you with each stage of the design and development experience from concept development to implementation to staff training. Please feel free to contact jebswebs today to request a free initial consultation.

technology

I have been toying around with an article for my website describing the difference between traditional “static” websites and “dynamic” websites created with open source Content Management Systems (CMS).  I may still finish the article/blog and post it, but in the meantime a nice little article was just published by the folks at TechSoup which describes Joomla!, one of the several open source CMS out there. Thought this article was written for people who work in the nonprofit world, the article is fairly generic and can be broadly applied.

I particularly liked these two paragraphs:

Until about two years ago, there simply was no easy, cost-effective way for non-technical users to update their own site content. Clients either had to train existing staff to code HTML, purchase additional software, hire a webmaster, or contract for ongoing maintenance. Installing individual desktop software was especially cumbersome for organizations functioning outside the traditional office environment — a description that fits many nonprofits, which often rely on volunteers, part-time staff, and staff who work from home.

CMS technologies such as Joomla enable authorized staff members and volunteers to edit their own site content from a web-based interface, with no prior knowledge of HTML or programming. CMS users can create new menu items and web pages, add news and calendar listings, upload photos and videos, and even build online communities.

So check out the whole article!

Oh, and if you have a nonprofit that needs a Joomla! site, well, “we can do that!”

~j

The logical explanation of my phobia is that “things can go wrong” when you play around with web servers and when you develop with content management systems (CMS) like Joomla!, Drupal and Word Press, you’re bound to hit a few snags along the way. It’s happened to me before.

My strongest aversion is to upgrades, especially Joomla upgrades. This is probably due to the fact that a year or so ago when I upgraded this site from 1.0 to 1.5 the whole thing crashed and burned and I had to completely rebuild the site. So, I am a little gun shy…you understand.

Well I am feeling pretty cheeky today after launching a new revised site for the Maine Coalition to Fight Prostate Cancer. I had built their original site last summer using basic HTML and a free CSS template. It looked pretty good and I got lots of compliments which I redirected at the guy who did the CSS work. But the MCFPC folks were so impressed they wanted to push the envelope further and expand their site to a CMS.

I met with some of their board members and we talked about the design at length. And then, once they had agreed to the plan, the moment of truth came. Now I had to rebuild the site.

My first decision was deciding which CMS to use. As this site would likely involve the use of one or more volunteers serving as authors and editors, I liked the fact that Joomla had a pretty user-friendly WYSIWYG content editor. Yes, I know you can install TinyMCE or some other editor in Drupal, but I’ve had lots of problems getting those to work well over the year. In the meantime, Joomla’s editor works quite nicely “out of the box.” So, Joomla it was.

Next chore was finding a suitable template with colors that matched the original. Thanks to the good folks at Joomlashack, I was able to get a nice pro template and install it pretty quickly. The colors were pretty close to the old design and the MCFPC folks seemed to like the beta site that I put up.

It had been several years since I rolled out a new Joomla install and I was pleased that the latest iteration of v1.5 installed quickly and easily. There have been a number of back-end features which have experienced major improvements. The entire media management system is much improved and will make it very easy for novices to add images to their new “articles.”

In the process I learned a lot more about the back-end of Joomla and have been pretty impressed.

So now I really want Drupal and Joomla and Word Press to get married and have a little baby called…DroomlaPress…or JoompalPress….or WorDrumla…

I’ll stop now…you got the point.

~j