I am still trying to narrow down options in order to streamline workflow and
was considering purchasing the Webassist super suite. I am afraid apart from
Wordpress, I really despise tinkering with Open Source CMS software solutions,
searching for a template, messing around with the CSS, and hoping the stinking
mess will function in the end... Takes all the fun out of web design... Can
anyone out there say that they have effectively replaced all (or nearly all) of
the functionalities of a Joomla-style CMS using a variety of WebAssist-style DW
extensions?

Paevo Kelley wrote:
> I am still trying to narrow down options in order to streamline workflow and
> was considering purchasing the Webassist super suite. I am afraid apart from
> Wordpress, I really despise tinkering with Open Source CMS software solutions,
> searching for a template, messing around with the CSS, and hoping the stinking
> mess will function in the end... Takes all the fun out of web design... Can
> anyone out there say that they have effectively replaced all (or nearly all) of
> the functionalities of a Joomla-style CMS using a variety of WebAssist-style DW
> extensions?

You will never be able to do a Joomla-style website with just
extensions. Its just not doable, as they can be so complicated.

I have the super suite, and whilst I have used a lot of it, I don't use
as much as I used to. This is mainly down to my job changing and the
focus moving to more SQL based apps which need more hand coding. It is a
great suite to help you learn tho, as you will have to tinker when it
doesn't do everything you need.

Be prepared to learn, and to get frustrated, but you should benefit from
it.... but I still don't think you will be able to put the man hours in
to a CMS that the combined efforts of the Joomla community have.

You need to see where it has come from to fully appreciate Joomla. It
used to be called Mambo, and when the core developers ran out of time
and energy to develop it, some hard code fans took it on and made
Joomla. Since then success of Joomla, Mambo has suddenly started to be
developed again. Funny that :)

Anyway, waffle as I may, the hours of dedication that has been put into
Joomla is well worth the investment of a good Joomla book to help you
get it straight in your head. Thats how I started to tinker with it...I
really need to finish reading the book and get on with a couple of
projects too, but they can wait until my summer holiday has come and gone.

Steve

> You need to see where it has come from to fully appreciate Joomla. It used
> to be called Mambo, and when the core developers ran out of time and
> energy to develop it, some hard code fans took it on and made Joomla.
> Since then success of Joomla, Mambo has suddenly started to be developed
> again. Funny that :)

I thought it was more of a hostile fork, where the founding company pissed
off most of the OS community, so they forked the project?

-Darrel

darrel wrote:
>> You need to see where it has come from to fully appreciate Joomla. It
>> used to be called Mambo, and when the core developers ran out of time
>> and energy to develop it, some hard code fans took it on and made
>> Joomla. Since then success of Joomla, Mambo has suddenly started to be
>> developed again. Funny that :)
>
> I thought it was more of a hostile fork, where the founding company
> pissed off most of the OS community, so they forked the project?
>
> -Darrel

Could well be, the book I read could be making it up or smoothing over
the cracks.

Steve

"I really need to finish reading the book and get on with a couple of
projects too"

So does this mean you're not able to build Joomla sites? I've actually been
saying the same thing for over a year now, and after two books on Joomla,
setting it up, etc., I realized that the extensions--the few that have been
upgraded to the new 1.5 version--more often than not are pay-per-site crap...
So after the nightmare of dealing with Joomla, you've got to fork over a few
hundred dollars per site? Ridiculous...

I'd like to think that DWCS5 will come outfitted with industry-specific
templates already equipped with the same kind of PHP modules that Joomla has...
That would be great!... By then, Joomla may very well be defunct, and a lot of
non-100% PHP-fluent web developers are going to be up the creek...

> So after the nightmare of dealing with Joomla, you've got to fork over a
> few
> hundred dollars per site? Ridiculous...

A few hundred bucks for custom site features seems extremely reasonable
compared to spending the time and billing for custom development. How many
hours would it take for you to create them from scratch?

The power of something like Joomla is that if you decide to dedicate your
time to it, it becomes a very versatile tool. Over time, you can begin
reusing your knowledge quite efficiently.

-Darrel

> I'd like to think that DWCS5 will come outfitted with industry-specific
> templates already equipped with the same kind of PHP modules that Joomla
> has...
> That would be great!...

It would, but it'd be a pipe dream. An open source project like Joomla will
always be infinitely more versatile that something coming from a commercial
single source.

> and a lot of
> non-100% PHP-fluent web developers are going to be up the creek...

Joomla ain't going anywhere. Nor is Drupal. Or Wordpress, or any other of
the many big OS projects out there.

Adobe, on the other hand, has randomly killed all sorts of applications over
the years. ;o)

-Darrel

..oO(Dooza)

>darrel wrote:
>>> You need to see where it has come from to fully appreciate Joomla. It
>>> used to be called Mambo, and when the core developers ran out of time
>>> and energy to develop it, some hard code fans took it on and made
>>> Joomla. Since then success of Joomla, Mambo has suddenly started to be
>>> developed again. Funny that :)
>>
>> I thought it was more of a hostile fork, where the founding company
>> pissed off most of the OS community, so they forked the project?
>>
>> -Darrel
>
>Could well be, the book I read could be making it up or smoothing over
>the cracks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joomla!#History

Micha

"An open source project like Joomla will
always be infinitely more versatile that something coming from a commercial
single source."

I understand what you mean, but this statement nonetheless defies logic; why
pay for any software application if it is a priori less versatile than
something free?