Having used Joomla for years, I can positively say that if you want to worry about SEO and a general flaky feeling about your content, but you want it to look great anyways, Joomla was it. Wordpress was reliable, is far better and more reliable for SEO and pinging, etc. but i have come to hate it with regard to one simple process that is probably the most important part of using a content management system - the entry of content. I could care less about widgets, addons, ratings and everything else if the process of entering my text is an unweildy process that takes 30 minutes longer than it should for a simple article with a few pictures. Case in point is the visual editor that seems to make Wordpress the useless tool that I thought it was years ago. (1) Visual Editor is blind. Unless I'm missing something, there is no easy way to right align an image. It looks fine in the editor but once you save, it's left aligned. The only way I've worked around this after searching was to manually code in a style for each image in the "code" section. You can't just select the image and use the dropdown. Nor can you insert padding and instead get horizontal and vertical spacing. The problem with using a style sheet (and there are probably those better at this than I) is that all my img tags are affected if I predetermine this and I'm guessing that it's some hierarchy, e.g. content.img that will allow you to have these items preset. I'd appreciate it if someone could point me to this but it still doesn't change the fact that the visual editor is worthless for pictures. (2) Multiple pages are single. Out of the box even with some fancy styles I have, all pages aren't paginated, they are one long post. In Joomla you just click the button for "paginate" and it's done. Unless I'm missing something, you don't even have the "more" tag for a cutoff of the "preview" text on the visual editor and you still have to look through code to find your page breaks. VERY inefficient. So where the heck is the "page break" button? I can't find it anywhere. So I did a search and found that if you stick in <! -- nextpage -- > then it will page break. Well, that didn't do the trick either. In addition, unless you've got 2.3 (which I'm in the process of upgrading to), I couldn't find a solution that automatically gave you a previous and next page along with the numbers and "page x of y" on the bottom. I'm not sure that wp navipage will do this properly for me either but it's still not an option with version 2.2 which I'm running. (3) IE7 is here. But WP doesn't seem to like it very much. I won't elaborate and you know what I mean. Perhaps this explains why some of the people I saw got frustrated with the direction of Wordpress. The first time I saw the disarray of information that still exists at wordpress.org (the forums are a joke that puts the cackle in cacophony) I wasn't sure how well organized the software was given the inability to even do the simple things right. I really don't care to go back to Joomla and the mess that is version 1.5, legal problems and all, lack of attention to SEO, and ability to flake on you with ease. For all the extensions it has, it's a wanna be social networking tool that is a management nightmare on the backend still and doesn't consolidate items into a user account on the front end (with or without the incredible effort that is community builder and which shoves a square pet into a round hole.) But hey, the do have actual forums where you can easily find information. They do have a directory where you can find plugins and read reviews. It's not the jumble/free for all that is Wordpress. So can I fix these frustrations? I realize that I'm still a little new to WP but even searches tell me "well, right now there is a bit of hand coding needed in WP..." and that is just not acceptable - especially after this much development. I have to believe that there are solutions to the above and that my friends here who use WP have found some solutions. To me, if you're using SEO, Joomla is still a serious liability.
For issue (1), yeah you probably need to set up multiple classes in CSS--you don't want your images all spaced the same? For (2), try this plugin. What are the issues with IE7? I got fed up with Joomla and have moved a few sites to WP from it, never looking back.
I use Joomla for my blog and rely on ARTIOJoomSEF and a component called MojoBlog. I get to use WordPress plugins simultaneously with Joomla mambots. I use a blog style template with 18 module positions.
Thanks man. I used OpenSEF and have conversed with Marko - a brilliant programmer and true gentleman. He had very good reasons not to push himself with 1.5 and that whole mess. If memory serves correct, ARTIO is encoded. Regardless, the whole seo function on Joomla is such a horrific mess with regard to separate seo files for each component, etc. There was another great blogging software that was created but the developer also had a problem because the legal issues there are a mess and those that "control" the Joomla site have the ability to affect all the developers who want to ply their wares in the extensions directory. I was a very active user their until I got fed up. My goal was to do a magazine, which wordpress can handle for the most part and the precision of seo and widespread adoption worked out well. The templates are much nicer than drupal, which is a beast for the output layer although good for text management.
have yoou tried/seen wordpress 2.5 yet, may have some improvements > http://wordpress.org/development/2008/03/wordpress-25-rc2/
Regarding 1, this is a real job. Right align should work right out of the box! Why hasn't that been included in the standard css? I'm not sure how to get this to work and, for now, all the fixes I've seen said to individually edit each image. Not happening. I'm hoping to find a style that already works with a built in stylesheet and see how they accomplished this, but I'm still searching. Regarding the visual editor, it is inane that you can't specify the parameters you need for specific style edits on an image that will insert a "style=xxxx" for that image. That's what it's there for. What a worthless POS. That leads us to #2. THANK YOU for the plugin. It says that usage requires clicking the "page" button, which I don't have although I've used the nextpage tag. Problem is that it cuts off the page at the nextpage tag but doesn't show any of the navigation on it. Apparently looking at this it is theme related and my theme doesn't use simple.php and only a single index.php which may be part of the problem. <sigh> very little is easy. FIXED - The theme was missing this tag: php wp_link_pages(); What I've discovered is that Wordpress is one annoying POS where many items that will be used 99% of the time by users, e.g. More, Next Page tags, are NOT included in the editor. Instead, you have to hunt these damn things down to find all the ones most would need. It's insane. One would think you add in a good standard set for easy deletion of quicktags you don't want. I'm still trying to find a premade set that includes the new page. OK, next is the output in IE7. Here's one example of what a mess it is. Still, all in all, I hated the flakiness of joomla and i HATE that admin menu which was a downright major PITA which all the scrolling that has not really been fixed with 1.5.
No, still a release candidate. I sure hope to heck that they get their brains out of their rear ends and include the items that most use all the time instead of making it a bare shell that requires major configuration to be of any use to anyone.
hmmm....I never noticed that you can't choose a CSS style from the menu, even though that is something I've used in Joomla. That would be a nice addition. Sounds like you aren't really very happy with either Joomla or WordPress, but for different reasons. I guess I notice little annoyances less with WordPress because it is easier to extend, and there is so much out there in way of plugins that actually work.
Wordpress is so much better than Joomla. Just find some good plugins to get the features you want, Joomla is nowhere near as good as Wordpress, it isn't meant for a blog.
Yeah - I think it's a matter of screwing around with Wordpress and wasted time yahooing different plugins to see what works and comments, etc. WP is just so bloody disorganized. I think once it's set up it should work but it takes so much effort with 2.2 and 2.3. I was able to fix the css to at least get the right align to work (css issue) although I'll leave the automatic stuff for another day. Many thanks... and no... I won't go back for Joomla for probably all the same reasons you did... and hopefully 2.5 solves most of these frustrations.
one of the biggest frustrations every one of my WordPress clients have had has been with the visual editor... so I advise everyone to disable it... pre 2.5 users go to Users then Profile and then make sure visual editor is unchecked... regarding images... remember that WordPress uses XHTML and CSS so HTML tags won't work properly (align right, align left) so use the img quick tag in the editor and then if you want to align it, and you don't want all your images to have the same styling as that one just use an inline style like so: <img src="yoursite.com/images/image1.gif" alt="some description" style="float: left; padding: 0 10px 0 0;" /> the example above is for left aligned image...you use float: right; for right-aligned. and then your padding could be changed to : 0 0 0 10px; hope this makes sense to you... as for IE7 and WordPress, I think it all depends on the theme you are using...and nothing to do with WordPress itself.
I can't stand the visual editor and have it disabled across all of my WP blogs. If you absolutely need some sort of "visual" solution you could try this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tinymce-advanced/ Basically it just replaces the visual editor in WordPress with a more advanced alternative. I'm not sure if this works with the new version 2.5, but it's worth a shot.
Thanks guys. I appreciate it and hope to get to 2.5 as quickly as possible. I don't understand not having a visual editor. If I wanted to look at code I'd use wordpad. The visual editor is supposed to make it simple to see basically what you're doing and easily insert tags. Many other programs use it very successfully without any junky code. There's no excuse for such a lacking package except years of disorganization. For now I've got my articles in there and it's working but it ain't pretty. Examples of how poor WP is at times is also the lack of pagination options. We're just now seeing sectional dropdowns that have existed for years that you commonly see on reviews, e.g. title of page + page number. On version 2.2 I was having problems creating any kind of decent looking menu that paginated properly such as << previous page 1 2 3 4 [page 5 of 8] more next page >> and that is basic. Still, I'm not a big fan of joomla which is a taxonomy nightmare and can be a challenge with administration and breakage. Thanks guys, much appreciated.
Have you tried the page navi plugin for that Page 1 2 3 4 thing you need? It doesn't work for single posts but it's a decent DIGG type navigation system. Now if only I can get it to work on my blog
Hi slinky, I'll try to give you the best suggestions/answers to your post. Here I go: Yes, it's blind Here's a solution that might help: all posts have a class in the stylesheet, right? (e.g. class="post"). You could do something like this: .post img {text-align:center} Code (markup): I believe this is what you need I'm not sure but I believe you're talking about themes looking odd on IE7. This has nothing to do with Wordpress. This is bad designing and bad CSS coding. My blog's current theme looked weird on IE7 too so I fixed the stylesheet myself. You might want to take a look at it now
in my opinion, it's better to stay wp 2.5 .(if your main problem is editor and multipage articles) . joomla 1.0.x is not better than wp and joomla team has created joomla 1.5 which worse than joomla 1.0.x
OP, you get what you pay for, oh that's right both are free. As with any one size fits all application, it won't do everything for everyone hence the many plugin options. If you want it all, at least what you consider as necessities, maybe it's time to look at paying someone to code an option for you. And as someone else stated, your rendering issues (images, IE7) are caused strictly by older or poorly coded themes. Find one that is coded to standards and most of your rendering issues will magically disappear.
Thanks for letting us know it's free teamshop. The frustration you hear from is all these people building large buildings and missing the point of a decent foundation. It's not a question of "one size fits all." If this is a content management system than the damn thing should at LEAST do that - manage content properly. If you think there always unanswerable questions of what is necessary, then you'll never get a project done. For a CMS most of us can clearly delineate what will be useful 90% of the time. And this is an EASY example that has been worked on for years. 1) Rendering issues are NOT necessarily caused by poorly coded themes. What I posted earlier was the admin menu using the standard "default" template. 2) With regard to the editor, not having a "more" tag for pagination is not a question to be left to the masses. It's used by most. The sparse visual editor should include the approved quicktags in there so that people can delete them. Hunting around for individual crap, half of which doesn't work reliably, is absurd. It's just sad, that's all. Instead, it seems that the WP team wants to be as lean a machine as possible that is loaded with plugins (for which there is no good order) as if that technical accomplishment changes the fact that for most purposes it requires yet another hook/hack/plug/edit that makes setting up wordpress for most people properly an endeavor. What was at least good about Joomla was, for the most part, it had those things working to get you set up. 3) Other frustrations are the lack of planning and hubris that seem to have made it in after reading several articles about the move to "web 2.0 - byline-less articles." As if throwing around flashy new words will change the way people generally interact. I've found that it's impossible for me to properly insert bylines that are separate from the article and that won't get picked up on preview text. Perhaps I need to face it. As much as Wordpress is used and has advanced they are still figuring out whether they are creating blogging software or a content management system. The lack of out of the box extensibility is sad and it will kill me to even think of going back to Joomla, which has long since allowed preview text, bylines, signatures for authors, and a plugin to easily see the author's profile and articles they have created. Otherwise, Wordpress fails to be anything more than a blogging system they keep reinventing at a snail's pace.