Workshop Leader: Rod Martin
This session will provide an overview of 3 of the most popular open source content management systems - WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. We'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of each and discuss implementation in the real world. We'll also look at some great sites built on each product. You'll come away with a deeper understanding of where each fits in your implementation strategies.
In this session we'll take an in-depth look at WordPress. We'll perform an installation from scratch, look at some of the best plugins, and talk about how best to implement this solution. We'll also look at some of the best examples out there (feel free to bring your favs...) and talk about how WordPress can help you promote your ministry. We'll make sure there is time for a Q&A at the end.
Joomla (previously Mambo) has really taken off this year as a CMS of choice for it's ease of deployment and maintenance. With over 1600 modules (add-ons), and a huge community of users and developers, Joomla is a CMS that requires a look. We'll do an installation from scratch, take a look at the admin interface from beginning to end, dive into extensions and themes and sort out the "system" for using Joomla to its potential. (As of this moment, version 1.5 is on it's way - if it's here by the conference, we'll do an update).
Drupal is definitely a CMS worth considering. It is incredibly flexible and powerful (and hence, more difficult to implement) and offers a wide range of deployment options. We'll do an installation from scratch (again - version 5.1 is current - but 6.0 is coming), get our heads around Drupal's basic concepts, take a good look at the amazing feature set and discover some of the over 1,100 modules. Drupal is an advanced CMS - knowledge of PHP is definitely required to take it beyond the basics, but definitely worth it for a great website.