17. How do I interpret the requirements form the user side and decide on the right CMS that is required?
The requirements that you gather from user perspective is very important. So is interpreting right. You have to check the following regarding the requirements of data and information.
1. What data is required?
2. How regularly the content is updated and how viewers are accessing the content as they get updated?
3. What kind of interface suits the content authors?
4. How to go about archiving or categorizing old content to make it available for access on request?
5. What kind of administrative interface will suit the need?
These are the main functional aspects that can give a good insight of requirements. Comparing the answers of these questions to the features available from the content management system can give you the right answers of whether it is suitable or not for your need.
18. The CMS is considered a web application. Is there any possibility, for example from Joomla, to be controlled through a desktop application?
Yes, there is always the possibility of getting this done. Most of the CMSs have a good interface for interaction with http and other standard requests. If you are planning on developing a Desktop application, it can easily be communicating with the joomla server side with such standard protocols and get the effective management suits right into the desktop. But considering the general way of dealing with Content, there should always be cross platform support and “anywhere accessible” interface. So it is very rare for the CMS to come along with a tied-up Desktop application.
19. How can you compare Drupal and Joomla?
Both are very equally popular CMS out there. They both have a dedicated and very active user community to help you out in case of any needs with development or design regarding the system. When the CMSs are analyzed, one can see it that the Drupal can be easily maintained and improved from the developer perspective. The Joomla has much of a design oriented perspective active in it. You can easily get the desired layout and customize the template style within the Joomla easily with many readily available designs. It is still a subjective choice and it depends on your requirements.
20. When can one choose Drupal and when can one choose Commercially available CMSs?
The commercially available CMSs are mostly tailor made to suit a specific way or operation. The Drupal on the other hand with its vast base of users gives an edge to it in terms of maintenance. You can manage Drupal just by accessing the load of information available over the web and in user forums. Commercial CMS mostly depends on the support they provide. They offer your requirement perfectly and let you analyze the data in the perfect manner as required by your business. Extending it to another level may becomes problem sometimes. With Drupal, tailoring your requirement might need good technical expertise but this will come in very handy later when you are planning for extensions.
21. How can one make the most of Drupal? What are the main advantages?
Drupal is an open source CMS that has almost all the features of commercial CMS packed into it with customizations that are readily available from the community of users. You just have to tweak in the right add-ons with the help of a Drupal Expert. Once this is done the maintenance is much simple that most other CMSs. Main advantages of the Drupal are:
1. More than 7,000 modules that are on offer.
2. Active user community ready to help you in development and design oriented changes.
3. Many marketing and campaign friendly components and add-ons will make overall website maintenance very simple.
22. How can you comment on the Scalability factor of the Drupal?
There are many Drupal websites which are maintained with over millions of views every day. The Drupal has grown very much towards the optimization factor and Drupal is easily scalable across higher bandwidths with efficient and stable platform for management.
23. What the input filter settings that are imposed on a node in Drupal?
The input filters are access control that are established for nodes that come into existence. The user may be given the privilege to create the nodes. But not always does he get the permission to edit it. This is not always indicated explicitly. The administrator alone has the right to change the input filter settings pertaining to the different nodes that are created by the user.
24. Do the Content Management Systems generate the code that are compliant to the various standards of coding?
The Content Management Systems are usually developed in the idea of giving the best and optimized solution for content management. There may be at times that you have to deal with the code yourself and that is when standards come into picture. The setting up of the CMS in the right way and configuring it rightly most often will help you in getting a pretty much clean code in the back end. The generated code mostly are modularized and the CSS based ones are divided as objects clearly, and html and w3 standards are mostly compliant in the pages. This does not include the third party extensions or plug-ins though.
25. Is Joomla just a HTML based website deployment?
No, Joomla is purely a Database driven CMS. Whatever action you do at the web page level are given to the Joomla back-end as requests for specific page data from mysql database. The page in turn fetched is given as the web page.
26. Is it possible for me to change the home page to any specific component inside the Joomla?
The index page is the one that is given as the front page for a website as default. However, during the installation or later, you can change it to any other webpage or any component of Joomla, by providing appropriate page details in the “Front page” or “homepage” settings in the Joomla backend as administrator.
27. What are joomla components? Can a media content be a component?
Joomla components are the central information in any part of the website, that is managed separately in Joomla. The components can be of different types ranging from the articles, photos, images to the video feed etc. The templates that you use decide which way and in which position the component data will be displayed in the web page. There are many third party components continuously rolling out of the Drupal programmers. To get a comprehensive list of all such components you can just check out the “components” section of the Joomla website.
28. How are the Contents categorized and managed in a typical scenario?
Be it a media, image or article content that we want to manage in our website based on Joomla, Drupal or other CMSs, the most typical way is to categorize them as Sections and categories. Again the categories can be based on any aspect of the content ( for example the blogs have publication month as common category). The Sections include the different categories and each categories usually have the content list directly linked. The flexibility that we get with the categorization and management differs across the different management systems.
29. What is inline positioning and how is it different from the normal positioning of components inside Joomla?
Inline positioning means whatever content is already there engulfs the newly added item within it. So an image or media content placed inline with another wide text description, will be surrounded by the text around it, instead of having a seperate area out specially. This can come in handy in case website is talking about a tutorial or news flash kind of stuff.
30. Are the WYSIWYG editors better than the traditional way of coding for the web?
Yes, they surely have made the task of changing layout simpler. Even a person who does not have much of a knowledge about the programming aspects can easily get his work done with WYSIWYG editors, with periodic updates to the final output window. There are some glitches that still may need programming or HTML direct coding for rectification. Considering the bigger picture, these editors are sure a good way to get the maximum out of your website and creativity skills.