So you’ve heard a lot of cool things about Joomla but you’re not sure if it’s right for you. In this article we’ll talk about what it is, pros and cons and finally the basics on getting started.

First, let’s start with a scenario. I recently had a client that wanted a website built that had calendaring, blogging, venue registration, galleries, shopping cart and had a small finite budget. Now if you were to have this custom built from scratch it would take quite a bit of time and fair amount of money. Or you might find a collection of free technologies available but integration and a common look and feel would be hard to accomplish. So where to find this eclectic bunch of functionality with a common look and feel and not break the bank? Well you guessed it, Joomla had everything I needed.

So what is this Joomla thing?

Joomla is a CMS or “content management system” that enables people to build content rich websites without programming knowledge. So in a nutshell it becomes fairly easy to build a fully functional website without having to spend four years in school learning the latest programming languages. And here’s the great part, there are hundreds of people out there building add-on components to extend the functionality of the base Joomla software. So suddenly your website can become much more than just a content-centric site to something like a shopping cart or possibly a media site full of pictures and video. The options are endless. Take a look at the extensions that are currently available and start letting your creative juices flow on what you could do with your site http://extensions.joomla.org .

What are the advantages over building from scratch?

• The first one is obvious – cost. Joomla is open source technology which runs under the GPL license agreement which basically means it won’t cost you a dime!
• Time – I built a fully functional site complete with a login registration process, photo gallery, polls and web links for a buddy within 2 days. Enough said.
• Community – Joomla is community built and maintained. That may sound like a dis-advantage at first until you realize the number of folks working on this in various capacities. There is a strong focus on quality and they are not driven by your wallet.
• Extensions, extensions, extensions. Everyday new extensions are being built and become available for use. A few are commercial but the vast majority are completely free.
• Templates – There are literally thousands of free templates out there (most aren’t that great in my opinion but free is free) and a number of commercial templates that will generally run you $30 or less. Compare that to an OS commerce template and you’ll quickly see how reasonable that is.
• Templates – Your entire site will have a common look and feel. So if you are interested in blogging, maintaining a forum and having a shopping cart, your site will provide a seamless experience for your users. How many places have you been to where that’s not the case and it’s confusing on whether you are on the same site or not.

What are the disadvantages?

• Like most new things there is a learning curve involved. There are certain elements of Joomla that are not always intuitive (Although beta version 1.5 goes a long way improving this) . I find that most people understand the individual concepts but tend to have trouble understanding how the different elements relate and connect to each other. So have realistic expectations with your first site but don’t get the idea that this is rocket science either because it’s not. There are thousands and thousands of people of all levels building and using Joomla everyday. You can too.

Getting Started

There are a few things you will need before you can start with Joomla. First you will need a domain or the name of your site (ie http://www.IloveJoomla.com ). Next you will need a place to put Joomla on. Usually this is a professional managed server that could reside anywhere in the world as is generally referred to as “hosting”. Once you have your domain and hosting account, it’s just a matter of installing Joomla. Now there are two ways to install Joomla, manually or through an automated installer. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want to get your hands dirty and are more interested in getting things going then the automated installer is for you. Loudsign offers everything you need to get your Joomla site up and running. Email us at joomalahelp@loudsign.com if you have any questions.