Manish Choudhury

If you have ever tried to create a database driven portal in Joomla – you know how much of a pain it can be. I’ve created all kinds of sites in Joomla. From classified ads sites, to real estate directory, and even a order tracking system, Joomla can be used to create almost any kind of a site. But it is definitely not easy.

Joomla was primarily designed as a easy to use open source CMS. I’ve seen it being used to create complex applications but it is difficult to create forms and databases.

For example I once created a order tracking application for a international foodgrain exporter. They needed it to be able to track shipments. I used Fabrik – a form and database component of Joomla. Fabrik is nice – but it has almost no documentation. If you want documentation – you need to sign up for a paid membership. I decided not to register as a paid member. Instead I tried to tap the forums and blogs. It was not an easy task.

I managed to build the application and my client was quite happy.

I recently discovered the CCK module in Drupal – I wished I had discovered it earlier. This module makes user maintained databases very easy to create. It took me just a couple of days to create a real estate portal, where users can post advertisements for free. I also create a classifieds travel portal for Darjeeling.

The concept that I’ve used in both cases is the same. I’m  creating a new content type with the fields I want. A content type correlates to a table and each content article is a record. I’ve created a new content type and when the user needs to create a record in the database – he simple creates a new piece of content.

Later I can use Taxonomy and Views to view the content and create the navigation.

Very neat.