Someone asked recently what I think about Joomla. It’s a great framework and platform to build websites on top of. It’s still largely unfriendly, though. I know there are tons of modules, but it’s just so user UNfriendly.

Some people would be intent on comparing Joomla with something like WordPress. WP is a great blogging platform at this time, and it’s working on being for more than just blogging. Joomla is better being compared to Drupal. If I had to choose between Drupal and Joomla, I’d go with Joomla any day of the week.

I’ve yet to find a framework out there in open source land that is user friendly. I say that the reason that this is is due to developers getting ahold of things. Usability is usually the last thing on a developer’s mind. That’s how we end up with these unweildy experiences.

Joomla fans will gripe at me to just learn it. However, if I look at something and feel as though I might screw it up, I tend not to touch it. If a program or framework is steeped in a usability nightmare, I want nothing to do with it.

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lHO5qt4Yppw"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lHO5qt4Yppw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

It was most heartening to see that Hans pretty much echoed our same concerns and directives – which means we’re definitely scooting down the right path.

In about an hour, we’ll officially be starting down the path of live dogfooding the project that is now known as Gnomepal. This means, we will be building out our needs as a community for this particular community project. Like anything, we have to start somewhere – and Gnomepal.org is it. If you’d like to join the discussion list, we have one set up.

We are planning to be active in #drupal-gnomepal on irc.freenode.net, and anybody can download the living code on the Assembla page (which contains a wiki that needs fleshing out, Trac, svn, trouble tickets, Milestones, etc.). If you would like to join the effort in development, documentation, organization, etc. – just let us know (and I could certainly use some help in wrangling folks). I’m working on getting a mailman list set up on my server, but for some reason it hasn’t been cooperating with us lately.

That’s all for now. I need some coffee to wake up. You?

• Joomap (sitemap generator – great for your site AND automatic Google sitemap in the background)
• JCE Editor (& file manager plugin & image manager plugin) – GREAT WYSIWYG editor, a million times better than the standard Joomla editor (I always unpublish the font and style plugins if other people will be managing the site so they cannot screw up the layout of the site!)
• Google Analytics Plugin – obvious really!
• CorrectPNG – IE6 PNG mambot/plugin which allows transparency (although not in png’s called in by CSS)
• Google Maps Mambot (if appropriate) – fantastic map plugin which makes adding maps SUPER easy.

He added: “If OpenSEF is problematic, Artio JoomSEF is far easier to setup, I just like the control I have with OpenSEF. I recommend never using “static content” and instead publishing a “General content” or similar category in which you put general info – it’s far easier to manage through a single content manager than having some things in static etc.”

I wonder how else we could pimp my Joomla? Ewwwwwww…