In actual days, the main CMSs options usually fit to typical needs to blogs, simple websites and hotsites development. But, what if even for a second moment you need a robust intranet, an specific system to fit your needs or integration with third-party systems, this decision must be taken prudently.
In this post we will approach some advantages about choosing Joomla to your projects. Will be presented the concept, basic needs attended by it and the infinity possibilities available to complex needs.
About Joomla
What is Joomla?
Joomla is an open-source Content Management System (CMS) utilized to develop websites, intranets and powerfull online applications.
Why use Joomla?
- It has robust codifications
- It is scalable
- It is robust
- It has more then 500 thousand active contributors
Newbie resources
There are more than 8 thousand extensions free or at low-cost to download at extensions.joomla.org like templates, modules, components and plugins. After installing Joomla, the updates are easy to do and can be done though the administrator interface.
Beyond the easy updates, it is possible to apply versioning on contents, you also count with an integrated help system, you can build responsive websites with Bootstrap and easily develop a multilanguage website by installing languages packages.
Developer features
To more advanced users that wish to act on coding a website or application, the Joomla offers an extense Access Control List (ACL) with users management among different access groups. It is also possible to count with a large amount of libraries well structured that help the development of own solutions and integrations with external applications.
Joomla to basic needs
On the basic needs context, you can build small websites, blogs and hotsites.
Small websites
Small websites - those which has more content than resources - normally use content management, banners, images and videos galleries, contact forms and a search.
Blogs
Blogs usually have a content collection separated by categories and normally use content management, search, social media sharing and comments.
Hotsites
A hotsite is used to a communication and/or marketing temporary action, normally focusing on design and content using only the content management.
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Joomla to complex needs
If you think that Joomla only fulfill to the previously listed items, then you need to know some of the infinite possibilities that it offers to complex needs.
Portals
It is usually considered as Portal the "big websites" that count with an intranet. See below some extensions developed by No Boss Technology to Portals:
- Forms management
- Crons management
- Courses management
- Plataform to manage job (trainee/fulltime) opportunites
- Entrance exam campaign manager
- Integrated payment with Itaú
- Report generator to associations
- Webservice
- Professionals search to associations
- Blog manager
- Social media integrator
- Client's panel management
- Integrated authenticator with Totvs Educacional
- Association students, partners and professionals management
- F.A.Q management
- Additional fields to articles
- Embbed Flickr and Youtube galleries
- Banners and highlights
- Integrated search with Google
A super interesting project - which is between the most robust already built with Joomla on the world - is the Unisinos Portal. See below some data about the case that were obtained from the Lecture about the project held by the No Boss Technology co-founder Johnny Salazar Reidel, on Joomla Day Rio 2014:
- Unisinos uses Joomla since 2005
- The Portal has:
- More than 8 thousand pages
- More than 2,5 million page views/month
- More then 600 thousand accesses/month
- More then 32 own custom extensions
Another interesting project that was developed by our team is the ABPR Portal. The project has a Intranet named as "My ABPR" where students, lecturers, professors, partners and secretary (separated by groups from ACL) can, among other funcionalities, update their personal and professional profiles, pay annuities, request membership cards, manage courses and students (for professors) and enjoy exclusive contents according to each group.
Specific systems
When content management is not necessary, you can use only the Joomla's framework's layer.
See below two examples of specific systems developed by our team:
In both projects, the Joomla libraries most utilized were:
Integrations
As support to portals and specific systems, you can utilize third-party extensions or build your own integration extensions.
There are two main models to integrate Joomla with external extensions:
- Webservice
- Recieve a HTTP request to return data in universal languages.
- ODBC connections
- Joomla application connects directly with the external extensions database through an ODBC driver installed on the server.
If you want to know a little more about possibilities of integration between systems and portals, see the webservice developed by our team.
If you still not sure that Joomla is the adequate option to your need, get in touch with us and we will be willing to clarify your questions with no commercial commitment.