Posts Tagged ‘Content Management System’
Why Joomla!
January 5, 2012 | 
Author
Joomla has numerous advantages:
What are some of the advantages to using Joomla! to create websites?
Cost
This very well may be the biggest draw to Joomla!. It is a top-notch Content Management System (CMS) and it is free. Joomla! is comparable to other CMS’s, some of which can cost thousands of dollars.
Site Updating and Maintenance
Joomla! makes it quite easy to keep your site updated as well as add new content quickly. Due to it’s ease of use and layout, time otherwise lost trying to find where or how to make a change, is gained by allowing the webmaster to concentrate on the content itself.
Plug-ins (Joomla! calls them Extensions and Modules)
Many, many varying feature sets can be added to your Joomla! environment. Some examples might be; a Photo Gallery, a Forum, Statistics, etc… They are usually very easy to implement and use. There are thousands of free ones as well as those you pay for.
Loads of Built-in Extensions and Modules
Some of these are: Articles Banners Feed Displays Polls Newsflash Latest News Search
The list goes on….
Nearly Endless Customization Options
Joomla! is Template driven. It comes with 3 templates and thousands of others can be downloaded and easily installed. A Joomla template download can be free or of the paid for variety. It is quite easy to find a template that will suit your needs for FREE. Joomla! facilitates customization via it’s web-based Administrator front-end. The major part of it’s customization is menu-driven in this front-end. It really is wonderful! If you are so inclined, you can dig down deep and get technical as well. You have the ability to modify HTML, PHP, and CSS code if you choose to.
Synopsis
If you are looking for a free, easy, fun tool to use to create web sites, this is it! Joomla! is updated regularly and there are many forums you can join to get help, help others, or just be a part of the Joomla! community. See you there!
Posted in ijoomla magazine | 
Tags: Content Management System, News Search, Photo Gallery | 
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Creating Web Pages With PHP, CMS, and Joomla
For those who need to design and create their own web pages, whether for personal use or for business purposes, there are few terms you should become familiar with. A few of those terms are “PHP,” “content management system,” and “Joomla.” The following article is a brief description of these three terms and tools and how you can use them to create, manage, and enhance dynamic web pages.
PHP
PHP originally stood for “personal home page,” as that was what it was designed to help create; however, today, PHP is used to create a variety of different types of web pages. Essentially, PHP is a scripting language that people need to know in order to design and produce dynamic web pages. PHP is free software, and because it is compatible with most web servers and almost every operating system and platform, it is widely used for general web page purposes and can even be embedded into HTML. In using PHP, a web server takes a PHP code as input and creates web page content as output.
Content Management System
A system that utilizes PHP codes is a content management system or CMS. CMS software uses the PHP scripting language to create and manage HTML content as well as other documents and images. And this software not only helps you create web content, but also allows you to control and edit that content.
Essentially, a CMS makes creating and managing web pages simpler and more understandable. In fact, most content management systems are designed so that users that have little or no knowledge of programming languages can create and manage their own web pages. These systems store content in databases and offer a variety of web page templates for the user to choose from.
Joomla
Joomla is a content management system that users around the world use to publish content on the web and internet. Like many other content managing systems, it is written in the PHP programming language and uses a database to store information. Some of the features that the system includes are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, website searching, and language internationalization. Joomla extensions and templates are typically distributed as a zip file or other compressed format that must be installed before implementing. With this set of basic functions and the countless other free Joomla extensions available, creating a dynamic web page to improve businesses (or to enhance personal pages) is easy to manage in-house.
As a content management system, Joomla offers a variety of great benefits for those looking to create their own web pages. First of all, and perhaps most importantly, Joomla is free. And as new versions and updates of Joomla are released, new features and improvements also become available. Joomla is fast growing and offers limitless possibilities for future applications.
Another major benefit of Joomla is how easy it is to add or modify content. With Joomla, you can add images and other multimedia elements, and you can also organize and manage important data with relative ease.
And as Joomla has gained increasing popularity, it has won many awards for its features and services. Joomla’s popularity offers another often-ignored benefit to users. Because so many users are familiar with Joomla, there is a plethora of forums, web pages, and directories centered on how to use Joomla and to help those who have questions or experiencing problems with the software. And the software is also well supported by developers and service providers. Hence, if you have a question about Joomla, chances are that with very little effort, you can find the answer.
One of the other advantages of Joomla is that it offers a variety of free Joomla extensions. Some extensions are called “plugins” which are background extensions that extend Joomla with new functionality. “Components” are also Joomla extensions that allow users to expand the number of features on their web page, backup their websites, translate content, and create URLs. “Modules” also expand a web pages’ functionality by adding features such as a calendar display or Google AdSense.
In fact, these extensions offer perhaps the biggest benefits of using Joomla. Some of these extensions include dynamic form builders, image and multimedia galleries, e-commerce and shopping cart engines, forums and chat software, calendars, blogging software, email newsletters, data collection and reporting tools, banner advertising systems, subscription services, and more. And there are a host of other free Joomla extensions that can enhance any webpage.
Specifically, there are five Joomla extensions that are arguably the most popular. “Community Builder” allows users to extend profiles, enhance registration workflows, user lists, and much more. “FireBoard Forum” is a forum that is both stylish and powerful and will allow visitors of the web page to engage in discussion and commentary. “Expose Flash Gallery” is an extension that creates slide shows from your own uploaded images. And Joomla’s “Events Calendar” is a classic that informs viewers of important dates and events.
And even though Joomla is simple to use, these many extensions allow a person to create the most complex of corporate websites. In fact, Joomla is used for a variety of applications including corporate websites, small business websites, non-profit and organizational websites, government applications, school and church websites, personal or family homepages, community-based portals, magazines and newspapers, and online commerce. Essentially, if you need to create a webpage for any purpose, Joomla has the reliability and outstanding features to help you create the webpage you need.
Once you understand the basic concepts of PHP and content managing systems, you are ready to start creating your own web page. And with a reliable, free CMS such as Joomla, you will soon be on your way to creating and managing a web page that directly meets all of your needs.
Posted in ijoomla news | Tags: Content Management System, Dynamic Web Pages, Personal Home Page | No Comments »
Why Should I Use a Content Management System? The Top 10 Open Source CMS to Gain Control
What is CMS? Content Management Systems are defines as software designed to simplify the publication and editing of Web content. CMS simply enables content creators to submit content without requiring the knowledge of HTML coding or the uploading of files. A CMS is most commonly used in establishing a presence on the Web. CMS software keeps track of all of the content on a Web site. This Content can include simple text, photos, music, video, and documents. The greatest advantage of using a CMS is that it virtually requires little skill or knowledge to manage a website.
Here are The Top 10 Content Management Systems to Help you Maintain your Website with Ease:
1. Joomla: The system includes features such as page caching to improve performance, printable versions of pages, RSS feeds, news flashes, blogs, polls, website searching, and language internationalization.
Joomla! is used to power all different types of Web sites including corporate intranets, online magazines, newspapers and publications, as well as e-commerce, and government applications. Non-commercial usage is also popular. Key features include: completely database driven site engines,News, products, or services sections fully editable and manageable, topics sections can be added to by contributing Authors,fully customizable layouts including left, center, and right Menu boxes, browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site, and dynamic forum / poll / Voting booth for on-the-spot results.
2. WordPress: Not just used for blogging anymore, WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. It is free to use for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee or design price.
3. Drupal Platform: Drupal is a free and open-source platform and content management system written in PHP for building dynamic web sites offering a broad range of features and services including user administration, publishing workflow, discussion capabilities, news aggregation, metadata functionalities using controlled vocabularies and XML publishing for content sharing purposes.
Equipped with a powerful blend of features and configurability, Drupal can support a diverse range of web projects ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven sites.
This software can be used for community web portals, discussion sites, corporate web sites, personal web sites or blogs, E-commerce applications, resource directories, and social networking websites.
4. CMS Made Simple: CMS Made Simple is an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) for simple, stable content sites. It is used all over the world for simple websites, as well as more complex corporate applications.
It provides a fast and easy way to create a web site and manage its contents. Unlike many other CMS packages, it is not overly complex, and the software is not just for blogs. The software provides the ability to manage news articles, search functionality a contact form, a WYSIWYG editor (for your customers or editors) and numerous other built in functions. Additionally, there are hundreds of third party add-on tools that are quickly and easily installable to allow building websites with many different capabilities.
5. dotCMS- include features you might expect in a complete CMS, including true separation of content and design, ease of editing, page caching, advanced templating, this software also includes many features you might not expect such as a Web2.0 calendar and events management, e-communications tools and more. This is truly CMS at its best.
dotCMS is fully supported and has been deployed by thousands of companies, news organizations, Web 2.0 sites, universities, associations and foundations.
6. miaCMS: Lets you build powerful and standards-compliant Web sites in a matter of minutes. It features simple installation, graphical content editors (with automatic code generation), RSS content syndication, an extension system, flexible site theming capabilities, site searching, user management, and multilingual support.
7. Mambo: This sofware can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. It is used to power government portals, corporate intranets and extranets, ecommerce sites, nonprofit, schools, church, and community sites. The great features of this software include: easy to install, hundreds of extensions, plugins and add-on products, simple for non-technical users to create and update content through an intuitive, web browser-based editor, fully localised with language management, and customizable.
8. Textpattern: Designed to help overcome the hurdles in publishing online, and to simplify the production of well-structured, standards-compliant web pages. The features of this CMS is endless, but here a few; Unlimited site sections, integrated link management system with unlimited article, link, file and image categories, browser-based file and image upload & organization, fast intuitive editing of articles, links, comments, page elements Posting, editing & design privileges hierarchy, unlimited site authors, browser-based plugin installation and maintenance, import content from other content management system, and built-in search engine.
9. Pluck: This CMS focuses on user friendliness and enables non-technical people to manage a website. Key features include: create an unlimited amount of pages, Insert images in pages, create your own blog, create an album to show images or photos to your visitors, keep in touch with visitors by including email forms on pages, and the ability to change site information, for better results with search engines
10. Frog CMS: This program is known as CMS Simplified. Some of the great features include: unlimited hierarchically structured page navigation menu, drag and drop page ordering, flexible page content (body, sidebar, extended, summary), per page layout customization, simple and reusable content snippets, password protected administration, Simple user and permission management, and much more.
Posted in joomla magazine | Tags: Content Management System, Content Management Systems, Corporate Intranets | No Comments »