mac - advantages/disadvantages for web design - Page 2

nixgeek · #9 April 24th, 2009, 06:49 PM

I'm not sure how Joomla! fits into the "web designing" category since it's just a content management system, not an application solution for designing or creating websites.

Randy Singer · #10 April 24th, 2009, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nixgeek

I'm not sure how Joomla! fits into the "web designing" category since it's just a content management system, not an application solution for designing or creating websites.

From:
http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla/getting-started.html

"Joomla makes creating and maintaining Web sites easy for everyone, from total beginners setting up their first site to IT professionals managing enterprise installations."

From:
http://joomla.en.softonic.com/mac

"Although blogs are now the most common way to be online, there are still people who prefer alternative web publishing methods like a content management system.

"Joomla! is one of those systems, in fact one of the most popular ones. On the one hand, it's definitely not as easy to set up as a personal blog on any free blogging platform, but on the other hand, it grants you total control on the way your website is displayed, managed and updated. And in case you need help, Joomla! features a highly detailed help section on its website which can bring light on any problem you may have during installation and configuration.

"With Joomla! you can set up a complete website in minutes. You don't need to design or code anything; as long as you install the required apps (PHP, MySQL and Apache) you're ready to go. The whole website is configured and customized through web menus, so that the only thing you need to worry about is creating good content for your site."

nixgeek · #11 April 24th, 2009, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randy Singer

From:
http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla/getting-started.html

"Joomla makes creating and maintaining Web sites easy for everyone, from total beginners setting up their first site to IT professionals managing enterprise installations."

From:
http://joomla.en.softonic.com/mac

"Although blogs are now the most common way to be online, there are still people who prefer alternative web publishing methods like a content management system.

"Joomla! is one of those systems, in fact one of the most popular ones. On the one hand, it's definitely not as easy to set up as a personal blog on any free blogging platform, but on the other hand, it grants you total control on the way your website is displayed, managed and updated. And in case you need help, Joomla! features a highly detailed help section on its website which can bring light on any problem you may have during installation and configuration.

"With Joomla! you can set up a complete website in minutes. You don't need to design or code anything; as long as you install the required apps (PHP, MySQL and Apache) you're ready to go. The whole website is configured and customized through web menus, so that the only thing you need to worry about is creating good content for your site."

That still doesn't make it a web designing app. It's a server-side solution, not a client-side solution. KompoZer and the like do not require the designer to install PHP, MySQL, and the like to modify a site. Joomla! requires these in order to function on the server side. They may have tools for administering and modifying certain aspects of the CMS as well as theming, but you don't "design" pages with them. Joomla! and others like Drupal and Wordpress are pre-designed, "canned" site solutions.

Randy Singer · #12 April 25th, 2009, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nixgeek

...Joomla! and others like Drupal and Wordpress are pre-designed, "canned" site solutions.

Hence the review that I cited that said:

"...there are still people who prefer alternative web publishing methods like a content management system."

I'm not a Joomla user. When I've posted on discussion forums about Web site creation tools for ordinary Mac users in the past, I've been told about Joomla by Macintosh users who use it and recommend it highly for creating Web sites.

Apparently a "canned" solution is what many folks prefer. It isn't, by any stretch, what I would prefer to use myself. However, the fact that Joomla is very different than most other Web site creation tools isn't something that rules it out, in my mind, from consideration for creating a Web site. iWeb with its canned templates, is very different, and more limiting than, for instance, Kompozer. The latter being more like Dreamweaver or GoLive. It sounds to me as if Joomla is just further along the continuum between being a design program and creating a site based on a template.

Not having tried Joomla, I can only go by the reviews, and what others have told me about it. Apparently they all consider Joomla to be a Web site "creation" program. (Using that *exact* term.) Since it is free, it is easy enough for folks to try it out for themselves and see if it is what they had in mind. But your point is well taken, and users should be mindful of the fact that the program offers little or no creativity to be brought to the process and apparently the emphasis is on the content of one's site when using Joomla, not on its aesthetics.

**fryke** · #13 April 25th, 2009, 02:10 AM

One serious point for webdesigners is this:

Comparing results.

On a Mac, you can run both Windows and Mac OS X (and linux), which lets you test your designs in 100% of desktop web-browsers in use, whereas with Windows only (well, and linux) you get about 90%. While many companies ignore the 5-10% Macs, that's not a reason to ignore them as well. It's a reason not to. ("Our designs work on all web-browsers in use." That's an argument for you as a designer.)