Anybody using Joomla! for gallery websites?

[feppe]

I'd like to upgrade my website to be easier to manage. Must be open source, generate standard HTML, be positively and absolutely Flash-free, templates must be fully customizable, and the whole package easy-to-use. I'm not looking to make any changes to the look or the content itself, although don't mind minor visual changes if templates demand it. I don't mind paying if the result is good. Joomla! with extensions seems to fit the bill.

The main PITA with my current site is in adding geotagged content, and I'm hoping Joomla! would be able to pull geotags from JPEG metadata. E-commerce might come in play for some other sites I'm working on.

Any experiences from LL users on Joomla!, especially how easy/fast it is to migrate an existing website to it, how easy it is to add content, using geotagged images, and of course sample sites?

[tom b]

I think that the major problem with any CMS is that they are piecemeal, you add content… wait, you add content… wait, you add content wait…

If you have a site that is small and doesn't have a lot of changes then that is not a problem.

I thought about it for a while but realised that my new site's navigation and structure would be so much easier to do in Dreamweaver. Add content in Dreamweaver and hit the Synchronize Sitewide… button and all the work is done.

I haven't used Joomla but I suspect that one drawback may be the easy/fast aspect of the migration.

Good luck, I hope all goes well.

Cheers,

[feppe]

I think that the major problem with any CMS is that they are piecemeal, you add content… wait, you add content… wait, you add content wait…

If you have a site that is small and doesn't have a lot of changes then that is not a problem.

My site is small, definitely piecemeal, and I have no interest in adding yet-another-photography-blog. Adding content with DW or plain-old HTML is a PITA as I said earlier, and as far as I understand a CMS would streamline it, which would be the main motivator for migration.

[tom b]

I have no interest in adding yet-another-photography-blog.

What has that got to do with anything I wrote?

I haven't used Joomla but I have used Moodle another CMS and if you think DW is a PITA, my experience with Moodle makes DW seem like a sheer pleasure.

All I was pointing out was that everything has to be added one thing at a time, one item not one folder at a time. Migration will be time consuming but after that if you don't change things often it's very manageable.

The piecemeal nature of a CMS was the major drawback for my needs and I was just pointing that out. Please don't shoot the messenger.

Once again good luck,

[feppe]

I have no interest in adding yet-another-photography-blog.

What has that got to do with anything I wrote?

It doesn't, was just a comment on my direction for my website, ie. keeping it as it is.

All I was pointing out was that everything has to be added one thing at a time, one item not one folder at a time. Migration will be time consuming but after that if you don't change things often it's very manageable.

The piecemeal nature of a CMS was the major drawback for my needs and I was just pointing that out. Please don't shoot the messenger.

I'm not. Piecemeal nature - as I understand you're using the word in this context - is not a drawback, as that's how I currently add content and plan on doing into the foreseeable future.

[kaelaria]

Joomla is simply a skeleton CMS system much like others out there, and they are all what you make of it.  Personally I have migrated to using Wordpress for all my sites and clients over the last couple years, away from Joomla and Drupal.  Wordpress is fast and pretty darn easy, everything is customizeable and there are enough free plugins to do just about anything you need, and of course paid templates for faster custom looks.

[EduPerez]

Have you considered JAlbum?

[feppe]

Joomla is simply a skeleton CMS system much like others out there, and they are all what you make of it.  Personally I have migrated to using Wordpress for all my sites and clients over the last couple years, away from Joomla and Drupal.  Wordpress is fast and pretty darn easy, everything is customizeable and there are enough free plugins to do just about anything you need, and of course paid templates for faster custom looks.

I've used WP for creating blogs, and it's great and easy for that. But is WP good for non-bloggy gallery sites? From what I read Joomla handles new content much better, ie. I could add a whole new category (eg. project on rocking chairs) from the admin control panel, while in WP it requires knowledge of CSS, something which I don't have.

Is adding shopping cart and checkout easy in WP?

Have you considered JAlbum?

I have, but it breaks the "be positively and absolutely Flash-free" rule AFAICT.

[EduPerez]

JAlbum is just the desktop app, where you define your gallery (select photographs, add texts, manage folders, ...); the gallery is created later, using a template / skin. And there are lots of templates to select, some use plain HTML only, some use JavaScript, and some use Flash.

[kaelaria]

Woodpress.com is the free service hosted by them and yes is geared towards blog creation.  wordpress.org is the self hosted software and you can do anything easily with it exactly like joomla drupal and others.  Adding posts, pages, categories, etc. is all simple and point&click. 

[feppe]

The more I read about WordPress.org, the more it seems like what I'm looking for. The user support seems on par with Ubuntu, ie. very good. Many open source projects are crippled by a poor community, but from what I've seen and heard WP community is very helpful.

JAlbum is just the desktop app, where you define your gallery (select photographs, add texts, manage folders, ...); the gallery is created later, using a template / skin. And there are lots of templates to select, some use plain HTML only, some use JavaScript, and some use Flash.

JAlbum appears to be rather limited, and not really a CMS. Also, it's not open source, which is a deal breaker.