CCKs: from choice to dominance and integration?
At the moment I am trying to build something with jSeblod CCK after I tried FlexiContent some time ago. I have not tried K2 and others yet but I already I am starting to feel a preference for jSeblod, because I am positively amazed about the feature set. See this spreadsheet I found on Google for some comparisons - I am not sure if it is correct or up to date.
The three things I think set jSeblod apart are that: 1) it integrates with com_content so that other Joomla extensions should still work; 2) it integrates with com_user so that you can have extended user fields and profiles without a separate networking extension (1.6 is not out yet!); and 3) as said, it has an amazingly rich feature set (If you look at the spreadsheet I linked to, you will see that it has the most green boxes, and red boxes only where others also have red).
But all this comes at a price. The extension is free, but time is money as they say and I think most people will need a bit of time (or a lot of time in my case!) to get to grips with what it can do and how things can be done. Especially where the features needed are also available in other CCKs, there is no point investing time in a learning curve instead of the more intuitive and user-friendly interface of FlexiContent and (as I hear) K2.
Now that I have tried CCKs, there is no turning back. I think we will all get used to CCKs so much that before the end of this year many of us would consider it only normal if a CCK was integrated in Joomla as fairly basic functionality for a CMS. I do not expect that to happen this year, but I do expect that for some time next year. When it happens, I think it will be much like FlexiContent and K2 but with com_content integration.
In the mean time FlexiContent and K2 will fill the gap, but once integration becomes reality I think these CCKs will struggle to find their role in online life. On the other hand, I expect that jSeblod CCK will become dominant as the pick of the choice, and will continue to add value once CCK is integrated in Joomla.
All in all, I think CCKs are probably the most important development in the Joomlasphere and I wonder what everybody here thinks of it. Have you tried CCKs? What for? Which is your most or least favourite and why? Do you think you will use CCKs more often? Do you see integration in Joomla happen? What do you expect for the future of these CCKs?
Views: 126
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Comment by Gobezu Sewu on March 2, 2010 at 4:04am -
here is my idea of the current situation (referring to jed)
resource - the most complete one so far in terms of feature and very much similar to flexicontent, and with a very good support through their forum (but i don't know why it seldom gets a mention). I have understood that a new version, not with that much new features but with various performance improvements is due in less than a month. Some of the more powerful field types are though commercial, but hey, I guess they need to make a living as well and the prices are reasonable. One thing I miss from resource is an advanced search mechanism as one currently resort to the common search plugin or filters, simply not enough.
k2 - cool, easy and good for blogs but it being cck, i really can't get it. Available extra fields doesn't give you required flexibility you need of a cck, and extending the available ones is not easy and neither is adding your own. I tried to extend the available extra fields and ended up doing most of the rendering in mootools on the client side, sorry for the plug but wanted to make it concrete). Additional issue I have with k2 is the lack of documentation and the close to zero activity of the developers within the community. Now that's maybe less of an issue if your usage domain is as I mentioned above blogs or similar, b/c k2 is really easy to use. But if you want to push the limits than you are on your own.
flexicontent - promises a lot more than any of the currently available ones and with such ease to use it's going to be the show, but the release date from being 1:st January now in March we still have no sight on the release (ok, the upcoming release seems to include front end submission) and looking in the svn I see that the front end submission is there but far from done as it doesn't load the various fields associated with a content type, and is in general buggy
jSebold - your mention makes me want to try it, so i have just downloaded it and will spend the rest of my day and see if it fits the bill of my upcoming project
as a last note, well sure, its good if the cck:s had used com_content so that one can use other available extensions for com_content. but so far of my use i have managed to navigate away, and in addition each extension developer seem to provide extension that compensates and some times even exceed what one can get otherwise
thanks for this timely blog post and hope to hear many wise advices from others
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Comment by Elvis Sedic on March 2, 2010 at 4:07am -
For me CCKs (and maybe template frameworks) are the best thing that happened to Joomla since 1.5 release.
I've tried K2, jSeblod and FlexiContent, but due to the lack of time for learning and experimenting I've sticked with K2 which has IMO the easiest learning curve. But it's far from perfect, it still needs some hacking to satisfy my needs (tags system layout, SEF urls with non-latin characters, expanding possibilities of custom fields...).
Main reason for me using CCKs are:
*multilevel categories
*all-in-one solution for comments, tags, social bookmarking, ratings...
*custom fields
*integrated modules
*flexibility with code modifications
One of the main reasons for choosing K2 is that IMO K2 backend is the easiest to use for the non-IT clients/site owners.
Right now, I can't imagine working without CCK as I find sections/categories limitations very annoying.
But in the near future I must find the time and try to get more familiar FlexiContent and jSeblod and see what they can offer.
But for sure it's going to be the area in Joomla's world which I'm going to follow closely.
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Comment by Klas on March 2, 2010 at 5:06am -
Tried K2, Feksicontent and JSeblod. If you need simple things like comments, K2 is probably the easiest, but in my opinion it shouldn't be clasified as CCK at all. It's a click&play collection of extensions suitable for end users, but really unusable for anything more complex than that.
Fleksi is nice and must intuitive and uses com_content, but no frontent submission was a showstoper for me. Has a lot of potential.
JSeblod has a little steeper learning curve, but kicks ass in the terms of flexibility and features. Compatible with nearly all plugins & components (!) and beside what Ewout mentioned has the whole workflow I needed covered: create forms, store results and display them one by one, listed or searchable.
Real powertool for powerusers.
The only negative point would be ..well.. default templates. But you can easily change those.
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Comment by Ewout Wierda on March 2, 2010 at 5:28am -
@Gobezu
I had actually overlooked Resource, no idea why. Judging by the demo it seems more powerful than most but less than jSeblod, but it seems user-friendly and is packed with things like voting and commenting. All in all it probably is a good mid-way solution.
@Elvis
It is interesting that you mention that having an "all-in-one solution for comments, tags, social bookmarking, ratings" is a key driver for you. For me, CCKs are a convenient way to change the component output without having to build a component. For the remainder, I think I prefer to use other extensions comments, tags, social bookmarking, ratings and all those other bells and whistles. In that way I can always choose the best tool for the job instead of having a one-size-fits-all with an elastic belt.
@Klas
I forgot to mention that FlexiContent integrates with com_content too, which is why I had chosen it as the first to try some time ago.
And I think you are right about the 'powertool for power users'. But continuing that metaphor, I see it like this. Twenty years ago, only construction professionals used power tools. Now people by an advanced electric tool instead of a screw driver, and they get a new one just because the old one's battery life went down. Similarly I think once people get used to using CCKs, they'll want to have more and more possibilities while the initial thresholds become lower.
It is interesting to see that building component applications is made easier with development frameworks while at the same time CCKs make it easier to create custom component output without any coding. I wonder if they are ever going to meet in the middle.
To my mind, the rise of CCKs and development frameworks is making the term 'content management system' a bit outdated. I think this is heading towards web development, management and maintenance systems - for want of a short catchy phrase.
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Comment by Ivo Apostolov on March 2, 2010 at 5:38am -
You missed completely sobi2 (very flexible, but with very user unfriendly admin panel) and mosets tree (which IMO has a lot of flexibility)
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Comment by Ewout Wierda on March 2, 2010 at 5:42am
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Lol, yes I have missed Sobi, and it's definitely worth a mention. But how do you think it stacks up against the others?
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Comment by Klas on March 2, 2010 at 5:47am
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@Ewout
There is already one extension that could be placed somewherecloser the middle http://www.gmitc.biz/products/lfrm.html
But this one lacks framework part to be what would probably be an ideal for me - Nooku with CCK (90% needs covered by ready made CCK things, framework for the rest).
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Comment by Ivo Apostolov on March 2, 2010 at 5:49am
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@Ewout Wierda - About Sobi - no idea at all, I don't use it, because of its backend
Regarding mosets tree - I find its advanced search as the most important features that others lack.
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Comment by Klas on March 2, 2010 at 6:09am
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Comment by Ivo Apostolov on March 2, 2010 at 6:57am
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Klas - I checked jseblod recently, it was too complicated for a the limited time I had then.
I know from friends it is very powerful, but what I dislike is that it uses com_content. I really prefer solutions depending on the framework and not on com_content.
However, I will check jseblod once again.
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