Advice needed

[jthorstad]

Greetings! I've been given the fun job of redesigning our K-12 district's website. It's currently just a collection of static pages, and I definitely want to go with a CMS. I've decided on Joomla.

I've got a test install running, and have had great fun tweaking the theme to our colors and so on.

Now comes the REAL task of building the content. Not as much fun, but most important!

We are a district with 6 schools: 3 elementary, 1 middle, and 2 high schools.

I want each school to have a News page, and also links to each teacher. Each teacher, then, would have his/her own content page for updating.

Of course, we'd also need sections for HS athletics, school board minutes, etc.

Is this just too much content to build into one Joomla installation? Would it be better to have one instance of Joomla for our main website, then have links to other instances of Joomla, one for each school?

I'm too new to completely wrap my brain around what kinds of content each page would be, and how I should start organizing it. My most pressing question is: can I do all this in one Joomla installation. If someone would answer that, I'd be most appreciative!

Oh, and may you have a blessed Thanksgiving as well! :-)

[GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Please move your signature into your profile's signature.- ChiefGoFor]

[steveoc]

I don't see why one Joomla installation could take care of it all, but there are pros and cons. To do it all in one installation might take some  more creative planning with the menus in relation to the content sections and categories, as well as the judicious use of extensions. On the upside, you would have only one site to maintain. If you have seven separate sites, you will need to work with each of them every time there is an upgrade to Joomla itself and the component extensions. It can quickly become a headache--yet for security reasons, it is important to keep track of the updates and keep your site current. Additionally, if there is content that is relevant to all of the sites, you may have to add it to each. I do not know how much redundancy there would be for your schools.

My situation is different as we are a very small one building K12 district with fewer than 200 students.

Personally, I don't use Joomla for the entire site, rather I integrated a number of packages into the site with Joomal being the center of the site. In addition to Joomla, I use Moodle, Coppermine Gallery, and Squirrelmail to get the functionality I need. I did not use bridges to share databases. I merely use the wrapper and have edited the css files to give it a similar look so it doesn't appear that you have arrived on a different planet when you hit a link to a page running the other software.

It is very much a work in progress, and I have very much resigned myself to the fact that there will always be a few rough edges. The site is constantly evolving with small tweaks and changes over time. Had I waited for perfection, there would be no site!

Glad to help in any way that I can--so just let me know!

[GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Please move your signature into your profile's signature.- ChiefGoFor]

[jthorstad]

Steve,

Interesting info. Thanks for that. I do run a few Moodle sites, and considered using Moodle as our main CMS, but feel that Joomla has a more polished look and feel.

I haven't thought much of using the wrapper. That would be very useful for including legacy static pages, as long as they're re-styled. I'll have to consider doing that!

I also use Coppermine! Do you do anything for document management? Something that makes it a snap to upload public files (meeting minutes, etc.) for public download, or do you just do that within Joomla? The way Moodle makes uploading files (be it a pdf or multimedia) for download is what I would like to use.

[GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Please move your signature into your profile's signature.- ChiefGoFor]

[steveoc]

Steve,

Interesting info. Thanks for that. I do run a few Moodle sites, and considered using Moodle as our main CMS, but feel that Joomla has a more polished look and feel.

I haven't thought much of using the wrapper. That would be very useful for including legacy static pages, as long as they're re-styled. I'll have to consider doing that!

I also use Coppermine! Do you do anything for document management? Something that makes it a snap to upload public files (meeting minutes, etc.) for public download, or do you just do that within Joomla? The way Moodle makes uploading files (be it a pdf or multimedia) for download is what I would like to use.

[GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Please move your signature into your profile's signature.- ChiefGoFor]

I agree with you--Joomla makes a much better public face. I really use Moodle primarily for pedagogical purposes: Teacher pages, classroom extension, etc. The wrapper isn't perfect, but it works. Sometimes the wrapped pages seem to collapse when you use the back button in some browsers, for example. A reload clears that up. You may also consider turning adding the html from the legacy directly into a content item within joomla by by-passing the html editor. For public consumption, we use the docman component within Joomla for document management--I'm not sure it handles multimedia. I suppose you could use Coppermine as well. I also use Moodle to handle documents that are specific to one course.

I am starting to collaborate with a fellow from Tunisia and have created a site for this collaboration--let me know if you are interested and I'll give you the information.

[GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Self Promotion Link Removed - ChiefGoFor]

[slord]

To do it all in one installation might take some  more creative planning

I'd say thats almost the bottom line....
If you know Joomla well and have made sites before then this stage is easier....
If your just beginning your jumping in at the deep end....

I would be tempted to start with seperate sites and let each evolve its own way and then set about consolidation though you might want to make this part clear to any collaberators from the beginning? 

[TerryKing]

About size of site: I'm working on the design of a new K-12 site and although there is a lot of content and a lot of menu items I think it's very workable.  I have, um... about 60 menu items. Take a look at:
http://www.terryking.us/joomla_tk/
to see the menu (nothing else is up there yet, and I'm still trying to fix the drop-down color!!)

I am working (With Steve, above) on a website dealing with the whole PROCESS of designing a school website. It's very early in that work, but if you want to look at the documents I have on the planning process I am using, look at:
http://www.terryking.us/temp4steveo
and start with the Narrative .doc 

Many people will think this is overkill in analysis, and others prefer a more hack-it-out hands-on stepwise-refinement approach. But my experience is that when something gets to this size, you have to get organized or you're redo the work many times over.

There are two diagrams up there that try to show the PROCESS.  Let me know if this makes any sense or helps with your project.

[slord]

Terry, All I'd say on that is its a matter of a compromise between letting the site evolve and planning. 
The danger with over-planing is it tends to shoehorn certain solutions to problems that if looked on differently the same functionality can be achieved a different way much more easily. 

When something is as extensible as Joomla its usually a matter of pinning down how to do that ....
As Steve mentions he's adding external stuff through the wrapper, this would be my preferred way.... its not perfect and you have issues of common logon etc. but its just a stop gap while other core functionality is taken care of...

In the end its my experience that large projects rarely stick to the plans once they are released to the intended audience because the audience suddenly finds new uses... and that you will have periods of rapid expansion and change... in the install.  All this is normal .... and good so in many ways ist better to get something out with the plan of a beta trial and take user feedback than present a full plan because chance is after a while you will loook at it with more experience and want to redo it from scratch anyway.

[TerryKing]

Slord, Merci' beau coup for the insights. (I'm across the Med in French/Arabic Tunisia..) Wish my French was as good as your English!

I am a firm believer in prototyping any large system and then letting beta users embarrass the developers.

I once quit a large project at IBM when they canceled the prototype (which would have actually run a section of a manufacturing line), because the project was too successful and was taken over by the 'Pros at Corporate', and everyone had to spend time getting the comments in their code up to corporate standards.  A year and beau coup Bucks later, it all failed. And then there was the story about my hair. But I digress...

A question to all: A prototype Joomla site has TWO classes of Beta users: The Information Consumers (Audience/Users) and the new class of Information Producers who use the front end to create content.  What are your thoughts on how to handle the Producer users, in a prototype situation???

[slord]

Slord, **************** or the insights. (I'm across the Med in French/Arabic Tunisia..) Wish my French was as good as your English!

****    My English is my mother tongue, my Punic sucks though and my Arabic is almost lost! 

I am a firm believer in prototyping any large system and then letting beta users embarrass the developers.

I once quit a large project at IBM when they canceled the prototype (which would have actually run a section of a manufacturing line), because the project was too successful and was taken over by the 'Pros at Corporate', and everyone had to spend time getting the comments in their code up to corporate standards.  A year and ****** Bucks later, it all failed. And then there was the story about my hair. But I digress...

A question to all: A prototype Joomla site has TWO classes of Beta users: The Information Consumers (Audience/Users) and the new class of Information Producers who use the front end to create content.  What are your thoughts on how to handle the Producer users, in a prototype situation???

(note edited to comply with forum rules)
It really depends how many... but going on your other question on what is the difference between a CMS and page layout system this part is pretty fundamental. 

The separation of content and layout takes care of this for you....
The producers are adding content.... and this content is portable and even usable from outside. 
You could add a completely external piece of software and access the same data... (content)
You can also have several Joomla instances and share the data... (content)

As you progress through beta its the "buy-in" in terms of time for submitted content you need to preserve (or you get pissed beta producers if you loose their content) think of them as stakeholders....

From what I understand you are largely in a beta process of consolidation... ?  That is taking diverse software and integrating it and then phasing out the parts you don't need... due to duplication of functionality or simply "look n feel" 

Whereby text is easy you might be careful on things like images embedded with {mosimage} etc, or you may need to do extra work but because of the content and layout separation consolidating is easy... the more you understand Joomla and its underlying database the more apparent this becomes. 

I have found you can usually get a plug-in/component/module to do what you need and if not you can easily create a new one using the model of the closest... just hack the code... it already has the models for accessing the database etc.
and you don't need to be an expert... I only started looking at php a month or so ago.... and I certainly couldn't make a new module from scratch without a bit of sitting down and learning but I can modifiy and hack other modules to get them to do as I want...

However a huge part of this is simply understanding the schema and how Joomla works and I'm largely a learn by example sort of person so the more you use Joomla and get to know it the easier these integration/consolidation things are...

Secondly the stakeholders in terms of producers are obviously likely to drift in many directions and request x,y,z...
This is the hard part.... until you know the limitations and extensibility of Joomla in certain directions its hard to know if doiung X can be done in 5 mins but Y would take 3 weeks....

I did a similar thing with .asp a few years ago (what a mistake that was in terms of platform but it was what I had) but I found its better to take the mountain to mohammed.  (PBUH in case that upsets anyone) and get really pro-active with the stakeholders as they add content. 
See how they actually use what you gave them.... because in many cases they end up using it differently (and more inventively) than you designed. 
A lot of the best ideas came from the "producers" in my case.... and could then be integrated back into the application. 

A lot of this is true anyway but in a CMS like Joomla it becomes more so because its so flexible and extensible. 

[steveoc]

I guess my approach was a happy medium of planning and on-the-fly evolution. I sketched out an awful lot on yellow pads while sitting at the beach this summer. I also had the luxury of implementing some of the ideas and testing them out on a site that nobody was going to see anyway.

There is no question about the importance of planning. There is also no question about the importance of being able to abandon something that is not working out or shifting gears to make it work in a different way.

I'll say one thing--my schema did not always fit with the way Joomla functions.

I have abandonedgoing to extremes to make Joomla work the way I wanted it to. There is other software that does some things better than Joomla does; hence, the wrapper. Common log-ins are not all that big of a deal and I have not bothered with bridges. There is an extent to which the separation is good--and it largely affects the providers rather than the consumers. I also find that the providers are working with one software or the other--not all at once.

Terry and I are working together on creating a resource for applying open source software--not exclusively Joomla--to school websites at http://openedweb.com Pop by if you like--with the caveat that it is very much in beginning stages--and has not been planned out much at all. It uses Moodle to start with.

Steve