Sandbox

First of all, I want to thank everyone who responded to a posting I did on whether or not I was crazy to consider moving from a static page site to Joomla. I have made the Joomla vs. Mambo decision, so at least I've made some progress (I've decided on Joomla, which is why I'm posting here).

Now my questions are about taking the next step...

First of all let me set the stage with the type of site (organization), the purpose and the audience, because I think it provides context for my 2 questions:

The type of site: a site for a synagogue that also has an early childhood program and religious school

Purpose: Provide information to the general community and information targeted at members of the congregation.

Audience: Information for members not open to the public. Information and articles for the public.

Other: I've implemented vBulletin for an on-line community and committee discussion tool.

So here are my two questions where I am seeking not so much answers as advice (because I have no one within the congregation to discuss this with right now). I am on the executive board of the synagogue in the role of Information VP, my responsibilities include marketing, advertising, promotion and setting technical direction:

• How does one even approach a project like this from a planning perspective? I'm talking more scope, requirements definition, design, development and implementation. Has anyone done this in a non-profit setting like this? I've been considering trying to get a task-force going and starting off with a needs analysis. From there, dividing up the work into content analysis, layout and design, permissions and workflow. Has anyone been successful at doing this in a non-profit like ours? How did you do it? What would you do differently? What should I be thinking about before I even get going?
• This is a really stupid question, but here goes, where do I build the site and then how do I make it accessible after go live? Do I build it in a folder system within public_html? How does it get moved? Do I blow away public_html and rename the folder I've built the new site in? I know this is probably the simplest and stupidest of my questions, but it's got me real puzzled.
• Is there a user group or something like it for Joomla in the Chicago area?

Thanks again to any and all who take the time to read this and respond.

Wow, I don't see that you have received any assistance.  Let me know how things are going - I'm just starting on this as well and would like to discuss issues.  I'm working on a church site as well and could use any advice if you have gotten anywhere are your developments.

No, I never received any replies. It's funny that because I am now starting to revisit this project again, and am still at the same point I was.

But, I would be interested in discussing it with you and sharing the journey.

Thats too bad - do you have a site at all right now?  I was just playing around with Joomla and its so easy compared to the other program I was using - WOW!  I have my design but wasn't designed in Joomla so I either need to find a similar template or get my current one skinned.  Do you have a basic design yet?

We have a very active web site and I did launch an online community this past year using vBulletin, but the site was built using Dreamweaver, with office staff maintaining it using Contribute.

I have no Joomla design and that is one of my challenges, plus taking time to learn Joomla.

We are tearing down our building and building a new synagogue, so I somehow want to tie the new site design in with the new building design.

You may fnd thi presetation interesting http://www.joomlatraining.org.uk/extern ... lides.html

As for where to build the site, when there is an active existing site we usually install Joomla in a temporary subfolder, and even give it a subdomain if possible. That is, if the site is http://www.xyzcharity.org we create something like dev.xyzcharity.org for the Joomla site under development. It is relatively easy, once the Joomla site is ready to go, to switch it to the main folder and replace the www site. I hope that makes sense and answers what you were asking! 

Your question about planning for a Joomla web development project is a very good one. I would imagine that a lot more people could do better planning before launching straight into developing a site. Nevertheless, the answer to how to go about it probably has as much to do with the culture of the organisation you are working in as it does with the technology side of things. From experience, if the non-technical people in the website committee can at least grasp concepts such as Sections, Categories and Content items, or the different ways that menus are used to create "pages" (which don't really exist in Joomla), then they have a fighting chance of being able to intelligently articulate what they want the site to do. And that works the same way if you are going to implement a workflow system for content generation. Design itself is best left to those on your proposed "task force" who have an eye for that sort of thing -- though most people can easily respond to ideas presented to them with a thumbs up or down.

Regards
Geoffrey