Joomla Noob Questions

Hey guys,I haven't used Joomla before and was wondering how easy it is to customize. Is there a way to re-code customizable php features into a Joomla page? I was just wondering how flexible it is and if it is a good tool for someone who already knows how to make a webpage(php) from scratch by text editors. Is it just software for people who want to make web pages but can't code?Please hit me back with your thoughts,Cheers.

That depends a lot on you and how well you understand PHP and templating. To be honest, I've only deployed the systems with minor template modifications, never done anything from scratch...if I need a custom Mambo/Joomla template, I hire someone to build it. That being said, I like Joomla a lot. It is extremely well developed, has a centralized management system, and offers a lot of features. That being said, it has its own learning curve and for a small, simple, interactive site...it's over kill. Mambo/Joomla seems to function better for larger sites with lots of admins, mods, topics, and a large user community. (Say if you have 1000's of people visiting every day.)If your looking for something easier, I'd suggest Xoops. I have created custom templates for Xoops and there were a few tricks to learn, but not too bad. What Xoops lacks is a centralized repository for catagories and is far more hub and spoke like with it's modules. That being said, I can usually deploy faster on Xoops than anyother CMS save for phpWebsite, but phpWS is way dated and very restrictive on anything but the most basic of interactive websites.

There is a great deal of customizable default features available in Joomla. The templates are about 90% HTML and the only essential PHP is pretty straight forward for most users.

Additionally, there are numerous Joomla extension available including link indexes, forums, file uploads, and statistical information.

My only suggestion for you is to install it and play with it for a while.

I designed my own templates and have performed numerous tweaks to the source code without any trouble.

See it in action:
Handy PHP

Hope this helps.

Joomla is open source and you can do whatever you want for customize your portal, so yes, if you know how to work with PHP, you can re-code your pages and make the the site of your dreams :blink:Usually these kind of CMS's are done for people who dont know anything about Programming and Scripting, so you dont need to care so much how flexible it is in the coding aspect, Joomla does it all for you, but anyway people who want to modify some options there can do it with no problems.You should try it and mess around with your Administration Panel. The interface is easy to use and understand.

Fresh install correct?

Joomla Noob Questions

I have recently completed what I thought was a complete, fresh install of Joomla 1.5(GoDaddy). As I look for help on customization I can't but notice that my cpanel doesn't look right. It has no icons and much of the content takes me to a 404 error. I have installed it in a subdirectory because I need to learn by doing and do not want to conflict with thge current HTML site on the domain.

Do I have any choices other than reinstall(ug!) or maybe run it on the localhost to get some experience?

-reply by webnoob