How Open Source Software is Democratizing the Web: My Adventures with Joomla.
Read on to find out how a web designer with no programming experience was able to create the RSS-powered news supersite ANewRelevance.com.
While you’re in the shower, lightning strikes and you have a great idea for a website (my best inspiration always seems to reveal itself in the shower). The problem is: 1) you don’t have the skills or know how to build it and/or 2) you don’t have the budget to build it. What a family conundrum, your brilliant website idea is in disguise and you have nowhere to go. This summer I ran into the same situation.
First, a little history.
I am a self-proclaimed junkie for news, information and knowledge. I always want to know what is happening in the world and I always want to learn. In the past, that meant a lot of time hammering away at my keyboard with the TV on in the background. These were essentially hours upon hours of alternating Olberman, Maddow, Matthews, O’Reily, Hannity, Colbert, Stewart, SportsCenter…you get the picture.
I got married. This is how this whole adventure began. He used to be single with plenty of time on his hands for my guy to channel surf. When I got married, I had to leave these friends behind, not to mention most of my stuff that didn’t make the cut from my old apartment. The interesting thing is that my wife watches more television than I do. The problem is, it’s a whole different line of programming: Bones, House, CSI you name it, and a LOT of reality TV. That’s when the challenge came: How am I supposed to know what’s going on in the world if I can’t watch my shows? Taking my programming off is like asking Derek Jeter to hit a game-winning home run with no thumbs. Those were dark times.
I went to the internet.
I figured all the information I wanted is out there, it just won’t be wrapped up in the nice little package I’ve known for all my years of being single. Every day would start the same way: start the ‘pute, log in, start Firefox and start the search. I would go site by site, trying to collect everything I could about what was going on in the world around me: Drudge, Espn, TMZ, Fark, TechCrunch, etc.
Then came the idea:
What if I could put all the top headlines from my favorite sites on one page? Or better yet, put all the news you want in one place?
Then came the problem:
I am a web designer but I am not a programmer. That is serious functionality.
Then reality came:
I can put together a good-looking site, but I’ve always dreaded the day when I have to learn how to access the backend and make things happen. Static site, of course. Dynamic site, well… serious times call for serious measures.
The investigation began.
And the focus was mainly twofold: 1) How is news delivered on the Internet? and 2) What are the best platforms to deliver it? I had to find a way to create a dynamic site that would not only collect the news, but present it in a way that was easy to use, easy to navigate, and gave me direct access to the sites I included. Of course, I had no idea how this would be done, but after a considerable amount of searching, I found that there were numerous options, including open source software, that would meet my needs.
Some information about open source.
Open source software, simply put, is software that offers ease of use out of the box, is almost fully customizable, and best of all, it’s free. You may have heard of a few: Ruby on Rails, Drupal, WordPress, Joomla. They offer feature-rich functionality for things like site development, content management, and online publishing. If you’re concerned about aesthetics, there are thousands of themes (the look of the site) available to download or purchase for free. When it comes to functionality, hundreds of plugins and modules are also available. If you can think of it, there’s probably a module or plugin for it. These downloads are also available at no cost. Basically, you can build on the site on your own that would cost you thousands if you hired a developer.
With so many options, how do I do it?
It totally depends on the purpose you want your site to serve. What do you want your site to do? Who is your audience? If you want to build a community, you probably want to go the Drupal or Joomla route. Looking to do some eCommerce? Both offer solid options for eCommerce integration. You want to publish your work online, WordPress is a great solution. The bottom line is that you should take the time to do your research, find references, and determine which options will best suit your needs. For my needs, what Joomla.
Joomla
Currently, there is considerable debate about which software is better: Joomla or Drupal. Honestly, I say “six of one half a dozen of the other.” They both “can skin the cat”, they just do it a little differently. In my experience, Joomla has been a good solution for me for many reasons:
– With no experience, the learning curve wasn’t too bad.
– Installation (remote server) relatively simple.
– The admin/user interface is accessible and easy to use.
– The supportive community is strong.
– The available plugins and modules are plentiful and well documented.
If you choose Joomla, you can be sure that you won’t be left out in the cold. The community of users and developers is large and continues to grow. It’s relevant software, and from everything I’ve read, it should be for quite some time.
The next step.
So I had decided on the software. I installed it, chose a theme, set up the database and backend, and chose a few modules and plugins that gave me the functionality I needed… except what’s new. This was the next big step. The reason I got into this mess in the first place. I needed news to be delivered, updated, and published in real time. With some more searching I found my answer.
RSS Feeds
RSS, more commonly translated as “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”, are web feeds used to publish frequently updated works such as blogs, news headlines, audio, and video. The sites provide these feeds so that instead of having to frequently log in to the site, updates are sent to you automatically. Basically, they “keep you informed”. There are numerous applications available that will deliver these fonts to your desktop. In my case, I needed to find a way to deliver them through my website. This was challenging because most of the options I found only supported a small number of fonts (1-3). Other than that, they weren’t open source, which meant that even if I got the feeds running on my site, I wasn’t going to be able to configure them. Whoops! Further searching led me to…
Google AJAX Fonts API
At first, it seemed intimidating. The name just made me go “Hun?”. Basically, AJAX (short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) helps to create interactive web applications. This service, provided by Google, allows the user to easily create a set of custom feeds and integrate them into their site simply by copying and pasting the code generated by Google. This was the perfect solution. And again, it was free. After some more searching, I found that there was a module available for Joomla that would easily translate this service to my site pages. So I installed the module, fixed it (remember, you can open source it), and achieved the desired results. My site was getting the news I wanted, but instead of the default 3 feeds per page, I got 12. My simple news site became a news super site. Aahhhh… success at last.
Now looking from the top of the mountain…
I have to say it feels good. It would be delivered to me not to give fair warning when warning is due. This project was quite challenging and required extreme patience, hard work, and MANY hours. But in the end, a small town kid with no programming experience was able to create the site he dreamed of one morning in the shower. There is a revolution taking place on the world wide web right now: if you can dream it, you can make it happen. All the tools are available and all it will cost is your time. Open source software is definitely democratizing the web. Be brave and good luck.