Drupal vs Joomla Case Study

Drupal vs Joomla project introduction

Posted on 03/12/10
Updated on 05/7/10

Make sure to read disclaimer at the bottom of this post, thanks.

So what is this all about?

Well It has been a huge debate of mine, as I am sure it has many, whether to use Drupal or Joomla as my CMS for my websites. I have been using Joomla for some time and have built few sites under the joomla CMS, although with many frustrations. I have recently been semi-converted over to Drupal by some of the amazing features it includes. (such as multi-site capability, admin ui, integration, and ease of maintaining)

Because of the fact that a Drupal users seem to always swear by Drupal and a Joomla users visa versa, any research I have done on these two CMS have been very biased. Under the rare occasion I may come across a review where someone claims to have used both, generally in my opinion the person had a bad experience gave up and switched without giving both a fair chance.

The game plan

So this is my goal for this project, I decided to run it so to get an idea for myself to what makes the overall best CMS out of these two. I have a client (CB Aviation) I am constructing a pretty intensive web site for, I am going to construct it using both Drupal and Joomla at the same time. While doing this I am going to document any problems I run into on both sites, as well as solutions I find, and the amount of effort they both take, etc. During this process I would love input from both communities as I would like to create a fair environment to compare these two CMS.

Site requirements per request

Posted on 03/13/10
Updated on 03/16/10

Intro to requirements

I have broken up the needs of the site into two parts. The first is more of a check point for me to look at each site and evaluate whether I should keep going with both versions or not. The second "phase" will be perfecting and extending usability. For now information here is pretty brief but will expand as I go and as I work more learning the clients needs.

Theming

Clean and simple look, feel, and navigation. Simplicity vs fancy.

Overall theme should be of grey color tones with a "carbon fiber look".

Site broken into Sections

Categories for each section of the site divided into inventory, services, about, users, places, and a Pilots section.

(following is requirements for each section)
Home Page: Simple and attractive attention grabber. Keep prospect from leaving site! Sleek carbon fiber menu.
Inventory: two categories consisting of turbo prop and jet aircrafts. Initial menu items should lead to a category view for each with plane listings.
Services: Similar as inventory.
About: A well constructed page giving prospects confidence in the company.
Users: A strong user interface for each sales reps information including contact.
places: sync with users to show location for each office on a map?
Pilots lounge: Useful tools for pilots; essential focus is to have a form to collect information (more work needed)

Completed so far

Off to a good start..

Posted on 3/12/10

So far I have spend almost a week studying and getting to know the Drupal ui and I am ready to start building my two versions of the CB Aviation Web site. You can watch my progress as I go using the following urls.. The Drupal instance can be found at http://cbaviation.umbrin.com , the Joomla instance can be found at http://cbaviation2.umbrin.com. Here I go, wish me luck :) I will update my progress in a bit!

Heres what I got so far. Tracking down a theme/template for each with the flexibility I need was a rather easy task. Although we'll see how flexible they each are as I get more into the development ;) For Drupal I chose to go with the theme Zero Point and for joomla I chose joofree2

Content templating and display in Joomla

Posted 03/16/10
Updated 03/18/10 at 10:30 PM mst

I have got the view pretty much figured out in Joomla, I am using the "content templater" module along the JCE editor to make each listing consistent in it's layout and to predefine content. This very simple method works very well the change the template and define repeated content. Although it will not do well for changing the content template dynamically as it is applied each time a piece of content is built rather than when the user call it.

For more in depth content handling Joomla has a very complex module "Sobi2" which handles the content and diplays very well. This method does not integrate with the Joomla default com_content however. It is a stand alone type cck within Joomla.

Progress made on Displaying "Content Types" in a predefined clean layout on Drupal

Posted 03/18/10 at 10:30 PM mst

What the goal was

I was working on getting the inventory section of the site. What I was looking to accomplish here is essentially an inventory list based on all inventory as well as a couple predefined values, specifically "turbo prop" and "jet". In addition to each of these list pages my objective is to create detail pages for each aircraft to include: all details, image gallery with "shadow box" type functionality, video presentation of aircraft, as well as a link to a PDF file that can pop up in a light-box type window.

I wanted for all of these pages of content to be built dynamically based on a simple inclusion of "predefined fields". What I mean by this is that when my client goes to add a listing, they can simply login, choose a menu item on their "admin menu" that refers to "Add inventory" which than will take them to a list of "predefined fields". From here they can fill each one in for the new aircraft as well as upload all the images for the gallery, video, and PDF file to include. Once saved, the information is stored and pages are created.

Getting the results

Spent a lot of time on this one for Drupal. I found there does not seem to be an easy solution for this to be done out of box or with any simple module. I tried using many modules after given the recommendations from various posts on the Drupal forum. Without coding different template files none of these modules accomplish the templating of content as well as displaying them. After trying many of these modules I came to the easiest solution for this in the following.

So after much research, here is the verdict for what I have found is the easiestway to template and display "content types" in different views.

First step gathering the modules

Modules I used here are CCK, Display Fields, and Views. Download these and make sure they are enabled before continuing to the next step.

Defining CCK fields for content type

First here I am referring to a custom content type. Once all fields are determined for each view create a new content type and add each new field to your custom content type. Place these fields in the order you wish to enter them later. After this step you should have completed creating a new custom content type with every field you need to make up the content in each view you desire to use (ie teaser, full, rss, etc).

Next choose the "display fields tab" (if display fields is installed correctly it should be the default options here) under your custom content type. Here you can define a specific placing for each field in each view while defining many variables and additional view options.

Utilizing Views

Once we get all that figured out its time to enable these changes using the "views" module. Play around with this module and study so tutorial to get the best use for each project. For my needs I added a view for my vocabulary I defined for all of the sites Inventory. I then added an optional filter to allow the user to define further individual terms within this vocabulary so to reduce results on this inventory page.

Hope all this makes sense, comment below with any questions or for further explanation on this part of the study. As well take a look at the Inventory page on the CB Aviation Drupal project site.

Summary

In my opinion, even though Drupal takes many more steps and longer to figure out, I believe it offers the better long term solution for content handling as once this content is created it is very easily maintained and manipulated to do your will as the developer.

With that said I do very much love the JCE editor for Joomla and wish an equally powerful editor was available for Drupal. This would make adding additional content and even more templating options within each content field very easy. (I will write more on editors later)

In Progress..

Posted 03/18/10 at 10:32 PM mst
Updated 03/20/10 at 9:51 PM mst

Shadowbox in the works

Right now researching on adding a field for my content that allows for easy shadowbox integration

Been working on this one for a couple days heres what I've got

Ok so first this is what I need to be able to do after looking over this for the last couple days.
I need A to be able to add the upload of these images for each shadowbox type gallery into the fields section I have created for the content type "inventory" (or not far from). For two purposes I need this ability made easy (note: I do not mean the developing of this ability but the end result), first for the clients need of the least amount of steps and simplicity of inserting each content piece. Second so that these images become easily organized to their parent inventory item.

B I need the upload of these images to be of *example 900x600 and an output of these images to a thumbnail size of 150x100 displayed into a gallery located in the top content position of each inventory node. Further allowing each thumbnail when selected to open the shadowbox displaying the full size images of the full gallery.

Quick summary, so basically in simple terms I need a "thumbnail gallery view" consisting of each aircrafts images to display in its corresponding inventory listing with ability to open full size in a shadowbox. Further while this is the output I also need a simple user upload method for each group of images.

So far in Drupal

I have been playing around with different combinations of the following modules: ShadowBox, Views, Display Views, CCK, node reference, views attach, Image, ImageCache, filefield, and ImageField. Also have ImageAPI installed. FYI I have used CCK to add most of the needed fields and am currently using the "layout" build modes included in "Displays Suite" to template the output of the inventory content.

Resolved- Best solution for dynamic image galleries in Drupal

Updated 03/21/10 at 6:16 PM mst

So after working with many modules and discovering each of there capabilities and compatibilities I have finally found the best option in my opinion to display a controllable dynamic image gallery in drupal opening with shadowbox. I will write a review in a bit and explain the modules and how and why I chose the ones I did for this site.

Still working on for drupal

Currently I am attempting to integrate a thumbnail for a flash video into the current thumbnail gallery view on my inventory pages. Objective is to allow someone to click on any image OR the flv thumb to bring up the shadowbox display. Within this display be able to watch the video as well as browse through all of the images in one unified gallery. Further still being able to add this video from an upload field in the same content type.

So far in Joomla

Update soon

Drupal vs Joomla synopsis on image control

So far with the time I have put in with both CMS on the subject of image control, if you will, here are my thoughts. First I have to say I love the control Drupal allows you to have for the most part involving content construction less than it's overall media control. Where Joomla lacks a decent core CCK solution, I have to say Joomla seems to have a better support to its core as well as in its available "opensource" extensions for images. Even when only using the JCE editor in Joomla you have a lot of control over images (stand alone or within in any content).

Maybe this is a good place to look toward in Drupal developing, not just in the API handle as being added in Drupal 7 but within the content editors themselves. In my opinion this is a very simple and effective solution to not only editing and adding text fields, so to speak, but also for adding or "including" additional content fields or even types within a content field. <--If that makes sense. If you are interested in exploring this and not familiar with JCE editor for Joomla go check it out their website is http://www.joomlacontenteditor.net. I think a similar solution to the Drupal editor would be an amazing addition. Post your thoughts under my related comments post below.

Changing Direction

Updated 05/07/10 at 7:33 PM mst

So after much time I have decided that the CB Aviation website has been working better just making the changes to the original site but I still want to continue this case study. Obviously continuing to work in this manner on the original website as well as attempt to rebuild it on the two CMS systems has been taking way too much time.

What I decided to do instead is this. I have two other websites I have been in the process of building and it just so happens that one is on Joomla and the other on Drupal. So that I can continue this case study between the two CMS I am going to work on these two site respectively and use them to determine and review differences. Take a look at the two sites I have been working on below and as i develop these I will write reviews on differences, advantages, and disadvantages I find with each.

The Joomla Site

The web url for the website I am working on under the Joomla CMS is http://expressionsbydesign.umbrin.com I am a little more ahead on this site but with much more work to do.

The Drupal Site

This url is http://umbrin.com I am working on redesigning this template right now as well add a section dedicated to downloads of pdf and mp3 files.

Additional Remarks

If anyone is interested in taking a look at the admin side of my project to help diagnose and view problem I may have or thing I might be missing, I would be more than appreciative. Register on the site and message me and I will add admin access. Thanks!

Disclaimer

This project is in no way related to CB Aviation nor do they have any part in its development. I help administer their current website at http://www.cbaviation.com and am doing this project independently to help expand it.