Thread

Hello-

I am looking for advice. My company currently has over 30 sites, running in separate Joomla 1.5x installs. As we continue to grow, this is rapidly becoming a maintenance hassle… upgrades, replicating content across sites, etc, is all consuming more time than I think I ought to be spending on it.

As a result, I’m looking at using multisite capabilities to reduce the amount of installed code that needs to be maintained, as well as leverage image and content assets across sites (many of our sites reference the same resort images, and have the same sidebar items). EE is on my short list of potential CMS’ for the job.

Some questions I’m seeking input on are:

1) Does EE’s multisite capability allow you to filter or otherwise manage content in the admin so that it is easy to identify what content is in a particular site? It is easy to find the content you want to manage?

2) Is the admin area easy for a non-technical user to publish with? We have communication staff that currently do a lot of publishing in Joomla.

3) Does EE use or integrate any javascript libraries by default? I like to use jQuery and often run into conflicts with Mootools on Joomla.

4) Is there a way to present alternate template(s) to mobile devices, so I can tailor CSS and layout without having to maintain separate content? More generally, can you alter which template is served based on browser detection or some other routine?

5) Is there a demo system somewhere? I find it odd there isn’t one I can log into and poke at.

Your input, questions or suggestions on this project is welcome. I have to make a decision fairly quickly.

Thank you,

Vaughn

Welcome to the ExpressionEngine forums, vteegarden.

1) Does EE’s multisite capability allow you to filter or otherwise manage content in the admin so that it is easy to identify what content is in a particular site? It is easy to find the content you want to manage?

You log into the site you want to work with, and as such you’ll have discrete channels, templates, etc.

2) Is the admin area easy for a non-technical user to publish with? We have communication staff that currently do a lot of publishing in Joomla.

I’m not familiar with how Joomla publishes content, but there is a very rudimentary toolbar that uses bbcode to help with html formatting.

If you want something more robust, there are several available wysiwyg editors which you can find on Devot-ee.com.

3) Does EE use or integrate any javascript libraries by default? I like to use jQuery and often run into conflicts with Mootools on Joomla.

jQuery can be used.

4) Is there a way to present alternate template(s) to mobile devices, so I can tailor CSS and layout without having to maintain separate content? More generally, can you alter which template is served based on browser detection or some other routine?

Certainly. There is at least one add-on available: Mobile on Devot-ee

5) Is there a demo system somewhere? I find it odd there isn’t one I can log into and poke at.

There is a community sponsored demo here.

Sue-

Thank you for your response. The link to the demo was especially helpful. I was able to test various aspects of the HTML editing including running Jquery within pages.

I was looking at the demo templates and they don’t appear to be set up to display meta tags and keywords. I assume this wasn’t a priority for the demo. But there is a tag for {title}, and filling in the Title section of the SEO tab had no effect. Do you know why this would be? (as in, does this normally work, and it’s just an omission from the demo?)

Otherwise, the templates are very straightforward, which is a good thing.

I assume that some functionality of the demo is disabled, is that right? For example, I don’t see where you select which templates are displayed for which pages.

The thing to remember with EE vs. Joomla/WordPress is that templates/themes are not the same. EE’s template system functions more like php includes which makes EE crazy wild flexible. You can do nearly anything in the way of design and layout and don’t even need to know how to spell PHP. That said, it’s not easy to simply ‘drop in’ a theme in the standard Joomla/WordPress way, because EE’s structure is a bit more complex and far more flexible. However, if you can envision your site(s) in Channels (separate sites or sections of a site) and Templates (regions of a site’s pages—header, content, sidebar, footer), then you’ll have an eye popping EE moment and wonder why you didn’t jump onto EE long ago.

Also, EE can handle multiple sites/domains with ease, with or without MSM (highly recommended because of the management features), but make sure all your domains/sites point to the same EE installation.

Vaughn, a few further notes here, since you’re in a hurry, and as Ron (grrramps) is very experienced.

- yes, I think the Title is locked down to be the same across the whole demo site. Normally, EE page titles are entirely individual, as you set them when publishing, and the free SEO Lite extension even gives you a place you can over-ride that for any desired effect, along with its ability to make meta keywords and descriptions convenient. SEO is a very important for a goodly number of EE sites.

- Lots else is not visible in this demo - in particular, where you build and edit templates, or set up the channels which provide the data to them. However, as you can begin to see in the Edit ability, channel postings, and therefore the page views they provide, which can handle all sorts of information fields, some which are very rich themselves. The add-on Matrix, for example, lets you very nicely handle groups of related data for galleries, carousels, and catalogs.

- The basic principle to producing EE pages is to design the HTML/CSS page, and you are entirely free in this. Then, you fill in or update the active areas of the design with EE tags, which primarily work with the data in channels, and are very configurable—see the User Guide from the top bar of this site. This makes a template which you save in the Template Manager of EE, and the template produces web pages, actively filled in.

- I’m not sure how your present viewed page HTML etc. is fully produced, as I am wondering how much of it may be from ‘widgets’. If needed you could copy a page design in any case, by saving its HTML, CSS, Javascript etc. from your present website, and that would become your basis for the EE templates, if you can’t get at the full original design more easily than that.

- One last point. This demo site is using an add-on that is very popular in the cases where more strictly hierarchical menus and sites are desired. It’s called Structure, and you can find out about it as well as a myriad of other add-ons via Devot-ee.com, including SEO Lite and Matrix as mentioned here.

The Structure approach may be quite natural to you, coming from your present CMS; at the same time, EE also can be much more flexible, which is nice to know looking towards futures. It’s also responsible, I am thinking, for a good deal of the enthusiasm you can often find around here.

Vaughn, good fortune in your decision.

Regards,
Clive

vteegarden,

I have extensive experience with Joomla and I have to tell you that you will have to forget almost everything that you know about CMSs if wanting to make a switch from Joomla to EE.

Joomla modules are not existent in a EE site. You could build something similar quite easily by creating a channel that contained the module code and then assigning it to various sections of the site via a relationship field or by creating categories that match the sections and then assigning the entries to those categories. But then I would ask why? With EE you have the ability to have a completely different layout per template.

And while we are speaking of templates… templates in EE are not even the same. You have template groups which may be logical sections within the site (about, blog etc) and then templates within those template groups (index page, comments page, Permalink page etc). You can also include pieces of code like a header and navigation to make things quite easy and the flexibility goes on from there.

If SEO is important to you then you have real control over your URL structure with EE. And if you add a custom field to your channel for Title Tags and Keywords and then bring them into the templates using the EE tags then you have some real SEO goodness that is hard to match.

Anyway, I have subscribed to this post so if you have any questions just reply. I will try and get back to them quickly.