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The CMS Wars: Joomla vs Drupal – A comparison of User Roles

Content management systems are taking over the web design industry. Drupal and Joomla are the two most popular. If you have considered using one of these, here is my comparison of them.

Making comparisons between Joomla and Drupal are very common these days as they are currently considered the top two open source content management systems (CMS) out there.

Most people claim that Joomla is too difficult and Drupal is easier, but it really depends on how used to one you become over the other. I found Drupal easier when I first started using it than Joomla, but I find that Joomla has better looking templates.

Both CMS systems allow you to edit the live pages as soon as you are logged in as an admin, but Drupal has much better user management which you can assign custom user roles to any content type. Joomla’s user management is not that great as you are limited to only 6 user types, while Drupal allows you to create as many as you need. I created a web site for an online podcast conference at www.Podcamp.Info and created user roles for speakers and another for attendees. Speaker roles can create sessions. Also, what I like about Drupal’s user management is the Auto Assign Role module which allows people to register for more than one role at the signup form or to automatically assign a role. I have not seen that from Joomla.

Joomla has good plug-ins and components to manage users, but out of the box, Drupal gets my vote for the better CMS when it comes to user management.

What are your comments?

Blueprint CSS Framework Saves the Day for web designers!

In the battle of tableless CSS vs tables, I was having some issues with cross browser compatibility. I found CSS Frameworks. Blueprint is actually a great one that I am currently using, but there are others.

CSS Frameworks are now making their way into the hearts of web designers. I know how we all disapprove of using tables for multi-column web page layouts. Some web designers still use tables because CSS flops in some browsers. Most web designers still do not know the difference between fluid CSS and fixed CSS.

I recently discovered CSS frameworks and found that they do make CSS easier to use. Actually, the CSS layout is already done for you. You simply add the classes to DIVs, like you would your own. I checked out Blueprint CSS framework. It works on a grid system. Has anyone tried this or a similar CSS framework yet? Blueprint is cool, because they offer a grid section of 24 columns. You simply add classes called span-#, where # is the number of the column. You simply specify what column you want that DIV to be in and it moves it to that column. Each column in the grid is 30 pixels wide with 10 pixel margins. You can always override that if you need to. Now, how good is this system?

I applied it to a few client web sites and it worked really well. The cool thing is that it took 45 minutes to redo the entire CSS using Blueprint. I know about 960GS, but have not used it. Has anyone had luck with it?

#22 Is Myspace following Facebook in Application Development API?

We were following the application development API for Myspace. The Myspace Developer Platform (MDP) seems intuitive enough and allows Myspace members to easily add those applications to their Myspace pages.

The MDP has a nice splash page as well and features Myspace applications every single day. With almost 25 categories in which to place your application, you really can develop an entire suite of Myspace applications for comedians, musicians, and more. The page I am looking at now features a Family Tree, Family Guy application, Texas Hold Em, and a Travel application called Where have I Been?

I have not gotten too much into the MDV as of yet, but when I do, I will surely develop an application or two and let you know how the process is. So far, from a quick glance, I like Myspace’s Rest API section that allows web developers to access their own web page from Rest (Representational State Transfer) connections and uses two flavors Low Rest and High Rest. It uses HTML GET, POST, PUTs, and GETs, which allow you to access elements of your web site over XML or JSON.

Using Google’s new open social API os what the Myspace Developer Platform is created on. So, Myspace developers will need to join iGoogle first and learn the basics of Open Social.

Using MDV, you can write applications for your Myspace friends, groups, and more. Give it a try.

#21 Web 2.0 Web Design is Becoming the Norm

Web 2.0 allowing web designers to create blogs, wikis, podcasts, rss feeds, and allows web sites to interact with their visitors more.

Web designers who take the time to learn the WordPress API will prevail in the long run.

Allowing web sites to interact with their visitors is key to increasing online sales and traffic.

What do you think?

#20 The Battle For Tableless CSS goes on!

According to various web development forums, Web Designers around the world are still adhering to HTML tables for multicolumn layouts on web sites. As it is battled on more and more messageboards, the issues are between cross browser rendering and how Firefox, in most cases, does not render the CSS correctly, although some designers happy with Firefox complain that it is MS Explorer which causes the problem.

Until both browsers make it easy to render tableless CSS, designers promoting its benefits are not going to win the battle and tabled web sites will still prevail.

Some practice can be handled on CSS dominant web sites like CSSZenGarden.com and CSSBeauty.com.

The best advice I give to my web design readers is to practice on both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

#19 MooTools Javascript/Ajax Plugins

MooTools is rising as one of the top competitors for compact Object-Oriented JavaScript framework fans. It allows you to write powerful, flexible, and cross-browser code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent API.

If you are a web designerlooking for more interactivity on your web site without the need to learn tricky cross browser Ajax, you may want to give MooTools a try.

At the moment, Mootools works well with Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher as well as Firefox 2.0 and similar Mozilla browsers.

I tried Moo Tools and was impressed their plugins which included:

• Objected oriented classes
• Drop and Drag effects
• Window manipulation utilities
• and more

Moo Tools works with DHTML, CSS, and HTML forms for advanced interactivity of your web site visitors.

Give Moo Tools a try at mootools.net.

#18 of all Web Designers Still Design All Flash Web Sites

Visit most web sites and find that almost half of them are still all Flash and no HTML. This web design practice poses a serious problem with search engines lke Google and Yahoo.

It is true that most web designers love Flash and Flash makes a great looking web site with smooth animated graphics and interactivity, but it is still bad for search engine ranking positioning.

Most web sites are now turning to a simple HTML look like Craigs List, Google, and other plain text web sites. Although these web sites do not look as professional as all-Flash web sites, they gain higher Google and Yahoo rankings. This is the tradeoff.

So, what I do in this case it create an all Flash site with a similar all-HTML site and this is what you need to do if you have all Flash site. If you have a very high traffic web site from offline marketing, then this is fine, but most web sites do not have this content.

#17 Web Designers Now Use Google Themes To Promote Themselves

With the release of Google Gadgets, Google’s application development suite similar to the Facebook application development API, web designers were able to add usable applications for use by iGoogle members. Using a simple IFRAME setup, web designers can design database driven widgets that would be hosted on their web sites. Google makes them available to its users.

With the long awaited Google Themes development suite, web designers and graphic designers alike can now create banner-like headings for iGoogle members. A simple design down with Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro allows developers to add to Google’s headings.

 All is takes is a background, (which is tiled) and a center image. Then, the design is done. It is all packaged in simple XML file and sent to Google.

What does this mean for web designers? Since most web designers can design simple graphics, they can submit their Google and then add a little heading for their company.

I suggest all web designers take advantage of this as it can bring them design business. Experimenting with this, I ceated a Safari design, a Disney princess design (featuring Cinderella, Arial, and Snow White), and Brick Wall Google theme. I designed the Disney princess theme for my daughter and I use it privately, since I am sure I would violate a Disney copyright if I submitted it. There is nothing wrong using these themes privately for yourself.

For more information, go to Google and search for Design Google Themes.

#16 Are mod rewrites worth the pain to learn for better search engine traffic?

I was recently into the using cryptic GET querystrings to access back end database information with dynamic web pages. Using PHP and classic ASP as well as .NET are perfect languages for the typical users.php?user=YOURusername. Of course, in PHP, you can use the typical $_GET['user'] code to access this value. However, what if you are using ID numbers? A typical autonumber field with a primary key works wonders for accessing database records with numerical primary keys, but it does nothing for the search engines or your search engine rankings. In walks the mod rewrites.

I talk to web designers who still have no idea what this method is, but learning how to master it will do wonders for your search engine rankings, because you can add all sorts of relevant keywords to your URLs and have spiders index them. Of course, for regular search engine optimization, you can use meta tags, ALT tags, HTML titles, and <H1> to H6 tags with keywords, but don’t forget about your URL.

Using mod rewrites, you can instruct the web server to use a “fake” or rewritten URL to substitute for the real URL:

For example:

Real URL: http://store.hotwebideas.com/?id=342 can be rewritten as http://store.hotwebideas.com/articles/modrewrites

What do you think a search engine likes better?

To do this using PHP, you need to modify or start a new.HTACCESS file on your web server’s root directory. A good knowledge of regular expressions is essential for your success at this as well.

In the .HTACCESS file, try something like this:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^articles/(.*)/(.*) /articles.php?id=$1&c=$2

Save your file. This says that any URL with articles/(.*)/(.*) will be rewritten as articles.php?id=$1&c=$2.

So, for example, a URL of articles/webdesign/html
will be rewritten as articles.php?id=302&c=23

From here, you will need to do interpret the $_GET variables as normal.

The ^articles/(.*)/(.*) is broken down to ^ meaning the beginning of the string in PHP (and other languages) regular expressions. The (.*) means as many random characters as possible in the regular express language. It does get more complicated than that, but this is all you need to learn to get good results.

You can throw as many keywords as you want into the URL in order for this work.

Try it! You’ll like it. Let me know if you have successfully done mod-rewrites. Post some comments with examples of your web site here. I am looking forward to your mod rewrites.