New team 2472 site with Joomla interface and look

[RoboMaster]

www.team2472.com

I found this section on CD and I thought I'd post about our team's new website.
Our Media and IT group leader found out about Joomla, which is a website content management system. In essence it's an interface for creating and managing the content and structure of a website, instead of writing code for it. We downloaded it for our website which is hosted on our team server. We also obtained a template from Rocket Theme (Joomla itself is just a shell, you can get templates for it that basically provide the look of the website). The template we got is called Refraction (we applied red color, see a demo here).

We liked Joomla because it allows our media team to add and change content easily and quickly. Something like this certainly has many useful, customizable features, like different types of web pages and sections (news, media, description, intro, about, etc). And you can't go wrong with the look of it, it's certainly pretty cool. It cost us a pretty penny though: $90 a year for the template (Joomla is free). We felt that we could afford this, although I understand that some teams can't. However, we think this is a really nice system and of course I'd recommend it.

Hope you like it! There's actually not much content on the website right now; we're in the process of adding things (history of the team, what is FIRST, media, etc). Things are liable to be added and changed, so don't think that's all. We're even redoing our logo this year.
Feel free to give any suggestions, especially once there's more things on the site! Thanks!

[dqmot17]

On the front page, when i click "read full story", your team picture is cut off. And if you can find a way, enable gzip compression so it loads a little bit faster. But otherwise can't wait to see some content!

[cablebox]

(post deleted by writer)

you can learn a bit from from a cms but you don't learn alot. You can peek into the source codes but sincerly, lets say joomla's CMS, it is very difficult.
Hardly understandable for beginners, and its in php. (more advanced then html) and for people who are on their first year, it will be hard to learn variables
before html. Im just saying! But i personally would like learning how to make it then using a cms and just editing it.

this is only my opinion, everyone has there own.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by RoboMaster

[url="http://www.team2472.com"]
We liked Joomla because it allows our media team to add and change content easily and quickly. Something like this certainly has many useful, customizable features, like different types of web pages and sections (news, media, description, intro, about, etc). And you can't go wrong with the look of it, it's certainly pretty cool. It cost us a pretty penny though: $90 a year for the template (Joomla is free). We felt that we could afford this, although I understand that some teams can't. However, we think this is a really nice system and of course I'd recommend it.

^---- Thank you for explaining your reasoning behind choosing the system you did.

Originally Posted by cablebox

Joomla is a CMS (content managing system), it is, in other words, a site maker. Really the only difference with Joomla and lets say, webs, is that joomla you have to know how to use a ftp (and sometimes hosts give you joomla auto installers). Joomla is a bad idea. Your site wont be custom, i can think of 20 joomla sites with the same template off the top of my head. When people come to me requesting a website, they show me there current website (joomla) and guess how many traffic? 0-10! My advice? dont use a site maker such as joomla, its not creative, you dont learn anything...except that joomla is buggy. And if you want a login and stuff, code it in php. Its not very hard. Sorry if i sound harsh, but even though im a beginner in robotics, i have years of experience in traffic and web design.

Each team is different, your mileage may vary. What works for your team does NOT necessarily mean it will work for others.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by cablebox

Joomla is a CMS (content managing system), it is, in other words, a site maker. Really the only difference with Joomla and lets say, webs, is that joomla you have to know how to use a ftp (and sometimes hosts give you joomla auto installers). Joomla is a bad idea. Your site wont be custom, i can think of 20 joomla sites with the same template off the top of my head.

That and Joomla is customizable, extendable, and most importantly open source (and free). In fact, if he wanted to learn about web design, he could peek in the source code of the program and the HTML and PHP files it generates.

When people come to me requesting a website, they show me there current website (joomla) and guess how many traffic? 0-10!

Have you ever been to a website and gone "Oh, it uses a CMS! Not worth my time anymore." Can't say I have. If you can't design a better site by scratch (not trivial at all), why not use a COTS solution? There are many notable sites that use CMSes to generate content, and their viewership isn't cut by that, nor is it "no work" or "thoughtless" to maintain such sites.

My advice? dont use a site maker such as joomla, its not creative, you dont learn anything

You won't necessarily learn HTML through Joomla, but it's a stretch to say you "won't learn anything" about web design. Especially if you extend it.

...except that joomla is buggy. And if you want a login and stuff, code it in php. Its not very hard.

It's a bit trickier to make a login secure.

[dqmot17]

I agree with the learning curve. Yes php is a very usefull skill to have, but teaching kids HTML then css and javascript along with PHP all while having build season and a website to do? its a little hard.

Also, i went to the site you talked about, where does the $90 come in? i thought it was 60 something for one skin...

[RoboMaster]

To join Rocket Theme Template Club (and therefore have access to templates)

$90 for 365 days, comes with 3 entitlements (can use on 3 websites/domains)

[dqmot17]

Originally Posted by RoboMaster

To join Rocket Theme Template Club (and therefore have access to templates)

$90 for 365 days, comes with 3 entitlements (can use on 3 websites/domains)

Ah, thank you. I saw you could just get one for a cheaper price.

[keehun]

Get this, 99% of the websites you visit are made with a CMS. *Gasp*

Industry uses it. A custom coding solution is not only very inefficient but also not business oriented and is definitely VERY insecure against attacks in a production environment. There's a reason why CNN, Ubuntu, White House, Time, every news paper website, every university website, etc is made with a CMS.

But yeah. If what you do works for you, awesome!

[RoboMaster]

Originally Posted by keehun

If what you do works for you, awesome!

Agreed. I like CMS because a lot of functionality is already made for you; you don't have to code it yourself. But like people have said, there are some difficulties with it. Our team is able to work with these and we saw it beneficial, so we went with it.

http://sites.google.com/site/team2472/
In fact, before we got our original site, which was HTML, we used Google Sites, which worked very well for us. The above link is our old, temporary site with Google Sites. It still has all the content on it, so if you want to see more about our team while we get our real site up and running, check that out. Granted, we had to live with the cumbersome URL (we had not bought a domain yet) and the visuals weren't what you could get with something more custom, but what it does give you is great. I highly recommend it to any new team or one that can't do anything like a real website (HTML etc). But it might be nice to get a domain so you have a handy URL. We use GoDaddy and can't really complain.