The Most Common Roadblock With Joomla (And How To Fix!)

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Joomla is incredibly powerful, but it can also be incredibly frustrating when it comes to posting content. It doesn’t need to be. Here’s how to make it easier.

For those of us who frequently use Joomla, it might seem baffling that WordPress is the more popular platform. Though flexible enough, it has many limitations that Joomla does not – it’s not as good at managing large volumes of articles, for example, and it’s built with far more out-of-the-box features. Unfortunately, these benefits come hand-in-hand with a significant roadblock.

Complexity. For all the power it offers, Joomla comes with a steep learning curve. That may not be an issue for the tech-minded among us, but for end users it’s a huge problem.

“Simplicity is at the heart of [WordPress],” writes Tech Republic’s Jack Wallen. “Not only can you quickly post something to a WordPress site, you can then easily manage where that piece will be displayed.” That isn’t the case with Joomla, continues Wallen.

Extending WordPress does have its limits, whereas Joomla…seems completely unfettered from limitation,” he continues. “[It] also offers power and flexibility that WordPress cannot touch…But what does it matter that you can toss every known kitchen sink into your system when your end users won’t be able to figure it out?”

Even with the recent changes Joomla has made to how content is posted, it’s still not quite as easy to use as WordPress. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like it will be changing anytime soon. On the surface, then, it seems as though you’re out of luck.

Not quite. Believe it or not, with a bit of tweaking on your end, you can make Joomla simple enough that just about anyone can use it. Here are the steps involved:

  1. Define the items each user needs to access, and determine which items they don’t. Someone who’s just authoring a few blog posts for your site isn’t going to need to fiddle with the Global Configuration or Module Manager, for example.
  2. Create the necessary user groups and assign permissions based on what you determined in the first step.
  3. Customize the Joomla admin panel(optional).
    • You may wish to install extensions that allow you to modify the admin menu, change your admin icons, or rebrand the panel entirely.
    • You can also choose to install a custom HTML module for even more in-depth personalization.
    • Finally, you might consider installing a new admin template, such as JIsrael.
  4. Look into Control Panel and Authoring/Content extensions that might further streamline the content creation process. Again, this stage is optional, but still well worth considering.

Joomla’s complexity is a significant roadblock, especially where authoring content is concerned. Fortunately, it isn’t an insurmountable one. By installing the right extensions and making the right chances to your admin control panel, you can make Joomla every bit as simple to use as WordPress.

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