Aug 15, 2009

The main purpose in building a site using a CMS system is to enable a platform in which the user may easily edit their own content. Images, pages and text. When you compare Joomla to CMSms against this requirement, the latter comes out the obvious winner. Aside from the user interface of the admin panel, there are other similarities and differences in the 2 systems to consider when making a decision on which one to develop.

 

Lets look at some of the similarities between the 2 systems:

 

1. Both Joomla And CMSMS are open source systems meeting the need for content management by the user.
2. Both provide an extendable platform open to modification.
3. Both systems are built in the scripting language PHP, connects to a MySQL data base, and is served on apache web server (IIS is also available).
4. Each offers a large number of plugins and third party extension to provide additional product features.
5. Each provides a "user focused" administration system for content submission, organization, and management.

 

Looking further into these main points, we can start to see the main differences that seperate the 2 systems:

 

Site administration:

 

 

• The Joomla! structure model places PHP code and HTML code in the same file to define the layout of given template. Additionally modules are called directly in the template code with PHP script.  To make administration of the site content user friendly a robust set of tools is provided in the graphic interface of the user administration panel. Modifications to the site layout beyond the templates intended use require editing the files directly which requires knowledge of HTML, CSS, and most importantly PHP.
• CMSMS is built with complete separation of structure, style, and content.   Pages are treated as objects and can be assigned attributes (template, css, menus, miscellaneous modules, etc).   This makes the addition of modules or layout templates much more customizable. Page editing is also much easier since the page layout built in pure HTML, the page style is organized with standard CSS, and the references to modules (calendar, feedback form, forum, etc) is achieved with the use of "Smarty Tags". [Smarty tags are an extension to HTML where php or java script can be referenced via a "tag" in the HTML code.  It is also possible to pass parameters though the tag to have multiple instances of a module each displaying unique content]. CMSMS also provides the user with a friendly graphical interface to navigate and build a site.

 

 

Information organization:

 

 

• Joomla! Organizes pages in a predefined structure.  New "pages" are added to the site as an Article- Articles can be assigned to Categories - Categories can be assigned to Sections.  Further information structure is built by assigning item relationships in the menu system. Individual articles, categories and sections can all be independently customized but only within the confines of the provided tools. Additionally since each Page is served within the main page customization of the style template is only possible if the template itself was written with a style subset. 
• CMSMS uses a hierarchy model to create page relationships.  Pages are assigned to a parent with no limits to the level of branching.  Since the site structure itself is separated from the content it is possible to have a unique style sheet for each page or even a unique layout.

 

 

User management:

 

 

• Joomla! uses 7 predefined user rolls (Front end: writer, editor, publisher; back-end: writer, editor, publisher, and administrator).  Permissions for each user type are predefined to suit the roll of its name sake.
• CMSMS employs a group policy system where permissions can be assigned on a per object basis - Similar to unix access policies or Active directory.  One of the obvious advantages is the ability to assign users permissions to a specific section of the application.  For example you could create a special admin group with permission to add/remove/edit users but with no access to the template system.

 

 

Since both systems are built on PHP it is possible to do "anything" in either system.  They each have a large community and extensive catalog of prebuilt modules. Without question Joomla! has the larger community and offers a wider selection of plugins and third party modules.  However, CMSMS provides greater flexibility in site design, user management and customization.  Consequently CMCMS should allow for a shorter overall development time and provide a more structured platform for ongoing post build maintenance and developemnt.

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