Review of Content Designers (Content Construction Kit) for CMS Joomla
This article talks about the so-called content constructors (Content Construction Kit) and provides an overview of the content designers for Joomla: Zoo, K2, FLEXIcontent, MightyResources, Cobalt 7 and Seblod .
Likbez
Each CMS has several fixed forms of content , the main of which is the material (article). This form has a strict set of fields and options such as title, description, publication date, author, status, etc. All this allows you to create articles as convenient as possible, but let's think for a second, but what if we need a slightly different form of content ?
For example, do we need articles to also have the ability to specify tags? What to do? Go look for an extension. And if we need a form of comments to the articles? What to do? Go look for an extension. But what if we need several feedback forms with different fields to fill in? What to do? Go look for an extension. Thus, a lot of extensions can accumulate, after the installation of which the CMS often turns into a buggy monster , because all of this must not only be managed, but also updated and monitored for vulnerabilities.
A typical case of CMS Joomla, which is initially chosen for simplicity (easy administration of the admin) and functionality (a huge number of extensions and templates). What to do? Use content constructors!
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Content Construction Kit (CCK) - content creation system or literally: a set of content design. Content constructors are CMS extensions that allow you to manage different types of content on the site in a very flexible way (to create the content you need). After that, we can create as many instances of the created type of content, to put it in OOP terminology.
Why do developers choose CCK, because you can add the required functionality yourself? The reasons are commonplace: laziness and, in some cases, fear of hard-coding. After all, it is much easier to get the result in a couple of clicks, for which they love Drupal so much with the CCK module already built in (starting with the 7th version).
Content Builder Review
For the first time the term CCK appeared apparently with reference to CMS Drupal. For Drupal 6, the CCK module and the Views module are the main modules installed by the programmer, immediately after installing the CMS itself. In Drupal 7, CCK and Views are part of the core. Without them, Drupal was hardly the one for which it is so cherished and cherished (loved and praised).
Note: in Drupal 7, the CCK module became known as Fields.
In the eternal dispute between Joomla and Drupal , the adherents of the latter usually give a simple argument, I quote: “And try to make a site on Joomla with different types of content! Not just an article site, but, for example, a catalog with many additional fields. And it’s weak to organize a search in such a directory, and not just a search, but a search by any fields, multi-search, etc.? ”
Yes, indeed, on the base Joomla this can not be done. At the moment, Joomla has not grown to its own CCK, but there are third-party extensions . Consider the most famous of them.
| Product | Description |
YooZoo
Supports Joomla 1.5, 1.7, 2.5 http://www.yootheme.com/zoo | Pros:
Rather flexible and powerful content builder for Joomla. Easy to use, because has a good visual interface for managing fields (with ajax and drug and drop). Minuses: No integration with com_content . With content filtering, things are also not very good. In the free version, only 2 ready-made applications “blog” and “pages”, other applications are available for money, but it is easy to implement their counterparts. |
K2
Supports Joomla 1.5, 1.7, 2.5 http://getk2.org | Pros:
Also, a very popular CCK system. For it, there are so many modules and plug-ins, it is supported by a large community. Easy to understand, but not as flexible as we would like. Minuses: Working with fields in the constructor, in my opinion, is not convenient. There is no interface for visual editing of content output templates. The component exists separately from the standard Jumlov com_content . With the filtration of materials, everything is bad for him, in the standard version it simply does not exist; There are paid modules that will suit not many. |
Flexicontent
There is support for Joomla 1.5 only http://flexicontent.org | Distributed quite a bit, so I think that for new versions of Joomla it will not appear soon, if at all. The interface of the administrative panel is pretty nice. There are filters, and here they work perfectly acceptable.
On purity - the component is very outdated and it is obvious that the author abandoned its development. But I still included it in the review, only because it stores data in the com_content tables, but the output still performs through its component com_flexicontent, which is why many plugins do not always understand it and mess it up, also applies to modules. |
MightyResources
Supports only Joomla 1.5 http://www.mightyextensions.com/joomla-components/resources-cck-custom-content-types | Pros:
More flexible content designer compared to K2. Convenient work with fields. A lot of options for setting the visual output of content. Minuses: If you need additional templates for the design of materials, you will have to buy a paid license, and the design of these templates leaves much to be desired. When working with the component there are a lot of bugs and the resulting fuss with the settings; a lot of excess in the standard output, which have to be cleaned. Filters work foolishly. Again, there is no integration with the standard com_content component. Note: The MightyResources constructor is obsolete and has been rewritten to form a new product, Cobalt 7 (see below). |
Cobalt 7
Joomla 1.7 - 2.5 http://www.mintjoomla.com/joomla-components/cobalt.html | Cobalt is the 7th generation of content creators for Joomla, replacing JoomSuite Content and then Mighty Resources .
I didn’t have a chance to test this component in practice, so I’ll quote the translation of advertising from the official site. Cobalt uses the most advanced technologies:
As you can see - the list is impressive. As for integration with com_content, nothing is said, it will be necessary to check (it cannot be that they have done such a huge job without correcting this significant defect). |
Seblod
Joomla 1.5, 1.7, 2.5 http://seblod.com | Pros:
Perhaps the most powerful and most flexible component of CCK for Joomla. Its biggest plus is full integration with the Joomla system, with categories, materials, users, user roles, templates. Flexible configuration of lists, tables, materials. You can opt out of using third-party output modules and use only Seblod listings. Easy to transfer applications created in Seblod between different projects. Well implemented filters. Totally free. Minuses: Difficult to learn. There is very little documentation on it, and it is distributed significantly less than K2 or ZOO due to complexity. The note: Install Seblod on Joomla can be a couple of clicks. Delete is much more difficult. Its integration to Joomla is too deep. Therefore, do not install Seblod on work projects just to watch it! Then tortured to delete. We test the component only on the test server! In other matters, this applies to any newly installed component. |
So, only part of the reviewed CCK systems for Joomla integrates with the com_content of the kernel, the rest use their tables for the content and for this reason are not compatible with existing plugins and Joomla modules. Among those CCK components that integrate with com_content , not everyone does it 100% successfully (I’m talking about FlexiContent ).
It is also important that some designers have paid extensions, without which the solution of some problems may be difficult.
The current content creators for Joomla today are K2, Zoo, Cobalt 7 and Seblod.
But the real designer of the content of them is only Seblod - a full value extension of the Joomla content system. The most powerful of them, because of what is difficult to learn.
K2 and Zoo are a kind of content constructor because they are closed on themselves. What does it mean? During installation, these extensions create their own tables in the database and work only with them. For example, K2 has its own tables for articles, additional fields and other things. The whole component is closed on them. In this case, all the power of Joomla extensions created for working with content tables, namely Joomla, and not K2, becomes meaningless. That is why, using K2 and analogs, we get a lot of problems with the integration of other extensions. On the Internet, forums are teeming with questions like “How to integrate K2 with xxxxx?”. Same with Zoo.
As for Cobalt 7, as I have already said: I did not have time to check the functionality, usability and integration with Joomla com_content . But apparently this is a very promising content designer.
Eternal confrontation or rekind Holivar
Back to the Joomla vs Drupal standoff. If we discard the topic of caching, themeization, etc., then it becomes quite obvious that such a comparison is completely meaningless. Because it is worth comparing for example:
- Joomla and K2 with Drupal 6 and CCK,
- or Joomla + Seblod vs Drupal + CCK,
- as a last resort, Joomla without CCK and Drupal without CCK.
How are things in other CMS?
About Drupal already said above.
ModX has a built-in analog CCK, only under the name “template variables”. For most tasks it is enough.
In 1C-Bitrix there is also a content designer, even in the youngest version.
As is the case in other CMS, I was not interested.
Used materials
- Choice of CCK for Joomla
http://nyphalim.ru/2012/02/04/1/ - Seblod CCK Series
there are also articles on other Joomla components on the site
http://wedal.ru/seblod.html - Overview of CCK components for Joomla
http://www.amiseo.ru/joomla/extensions/obzor-cck-komponentov-dlya-joomla - K2 Screencast Series
http://ktonanovenkogo.ru/joomla/rasshireniy/komponent-k2-sozdaniya-blogov-katalogov-portalov-joomla-vozmozhnosti-ustanovka-rusifikaciya.html
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/149684/
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