CCK for Joomla? Say hello to K2!
Our friends over at JoomlaWorks.gr have been sneaky little devils over the past couple of months (either that or we’ve just been to darn busy crafting away on our own secret projects to stay in the loop) working on something which has been much needed in the JoomlaSphere.
For any of you who are familiar with Drupal and the much loved extension, CCK (Content Construction Kit), you will know how incredibly powerful this extension is to literally any website. What it does is allow you to create any type of custom content your heart desires.
Whether its a product page, blog, directory listing, news or customer testimonial – the options are endless! This is something i have personally missed in the Joomla! Community for a long time and one of the initial reasons why i got my hands dirty with Drupal.
Since Joomla! 1.5’s rise to stardom, there was initially only one option which did something along those lines. In the mean time, the lads over at Youtheme have also secretly (up until recently) been working on a CCK type extension, called Zoo. They have a basic free version, which would already be a great improvement to most Joomla! 1.5 websites and a commercial version which offers some more bells and whistles.
Then, out of the blue i got a message on skype from one of our good friends, John (who along with his wife Linda, are the brains and brawn behind the awesome CMS Expo that i had the privilege of attending last december), asking me whether i’d seen “K2”. I was like, erm?
Well, safe to say i was pleasantly surprised when i popped over to the K2 website and read what it was. CCK. For Joomla. For FREE! Mr Fotis and his team have done it again! With an already solid artillery of really useful extensions, they have once again outdone themselves and in my personal opinion, more so than ever before!
It was 3am as i was heading to bed, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation to install it and kick the tyres a bit! The whole setup process took about 30 seconds and i was ready to start playing. Having used CCK extensively in the past, everything felt familiar to me out of the box. The whole interface is so simple and straight forward that anyone would be able to make sense of it in a couple of minutes.
The control panel is broken down into Items, Categories, Tags, Comments, Authors, Extra Fields and Extra Field Groups. Pretty self explanatory, right? In a couple of minutes i’d setup a number of different Custom Field Groups, each with a bunch of custom fields (currently you have a choice of text field, textarea, drop down selection, open multiple selection, radio buttons or links, but i am sure these options will increase soon). Next i created a couple of “items” based on my custom content types i’d just created. Easy peasy.
The categories option allows you build up your very own category hierarchy structure, which goes far and beyond Joomla’s 3-tier system (section, category, content). In Joomla’s defense, it looks like we’ll get a much more improved taxonomy system (among many other great advances) in the upcoming Joomla! 1.6 release.
Another gem built into K2 is how it seamlessly integrates with the AllVideos & SIG Pro (Simple Image Gallery), both also available for free from the JoomlaWorks.gr website.
One last feature, which i thought was a nice touch, was the full integration with the core Joomla! menu system. Adding a menu item linking to K2’s categories or a specific content item is a breeze. I could see this being improved a bit more in future versions, allowing users to link to a specific category, or different “views”.
I can only see good things to come in the near future, as we can look forward to a commercial version (which in my opinion is great to hear) and i am positive many many many more features in K2. I personally have a bunch of ideas, that i am bursting to share with Fotis and his team and see all kinds of awesome possibilities in terms of collaborations, getting other 3rd party developers involved as well as lots, no LOTS of community involvement.
Here are my predictions for K2 in the (hopefully) near future:
- Directory for installable custom content types, where users can share and contribute their own predefined content types.
- Plugins / addons market place, where 3rd party developers can provide the community with both free and commercial addons (think Apple Apps Store).
- A bunch of new extra field types.
- Lots of integration with popular social communities (twitter, facebook, flickr, etc). To give credit where due, the guys from Youtheme are already working on this and already have some good options to choose from. I think this was an incredibly smart move on their part and am pretty certain Fotis and his team will follow suite (if they aren’t already!).
- Template providers taking full advantage of K2 and offering vertical specific solutions based on it.
- Improved templating system, which will allow us to easily create custom html / css templates based on a particular content type (hint hint if your reading this Fotis!).
- A bunch of modules that will allow you to easily extract information from your various content types.
Well, i think its pretty obvious that i am VERY excited about K2, but what about you guys/gals?
Tags: development, Drupal, Joomla, technology
Hey k2 is an awesome component. I’m actually helping out with documentation and I totally agree on the added features you hinted on. As I was watching the cck and views video by lullabot I noticed that they’re version was much more advanced and tie into the core Drupal modules (any content type, taxonomy etc), with advanced field options as well as contributed modules. I think that that k2 is an awesome add to the community and can only get better.
The added services is really going to be plus and I’m looking for to seeing it bloom.
Hey Lanessa :)
Yup, awesome indeed! Though, i have yet to see something from the JoomlaWorks lads that isnt awesome :P
I’ve had a couple of chats with Fotis and a lot of the stuff i hinted on is either planned or in the works.
CCK & Views has a bit of a head start and as you say is pretty advanced. It’s still early days for K2, but from what i have seen so far, i think its safe to say only good things to come.
That is awesome that you are helping out with documentation! I saw the post about getting other people involved with the project and i think its a great idea. I’ve already been pondering about ways that i can get involved ;)
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your input :)
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris,
Have you try to contact jSeblod CCK ? It has all features you hinted on. And today it’s IMO the only originel CCK for Joomla.
What do you think about it Chris ?
Hi Durino :)
Its really funny that you say that, as I stumbled across jSeblod a couple of days ago and was surprised that i hadn’t heard of it before – especially since it has so many of the features i’ve been talking about for so long (the ability to package and install custom content types / packs alone has massive potential for template providers).
After playing with it for a while i was a bit concerned that it might be a bit complex for the every day Joomla user – compared to the likes of Zoo for example.
I think its still too early to be able to give an accurate verdict, but one thing for sure is that this is definitely one to keep an eye on – even if i have no idea what the name means (let alone remember it :P).
Another one i have been testing is Flexicontent, which seems to be a middle ground between Zoo and K2, but when it comes to theming, Zoo still wins hands down every time.
I’ll definitely be doing a lot more extensive testing of jSeblod, K2, Zoo, Flexicontent (and a few others that have popped up recently) and will do a follow up post comparing each of them in more detail.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris´s last blog ..Beta, RC and stable – Morph’s development stages explained
Wahou Chris, you are speederman.
Thanks for your reply, it’s great.
Yes, me too, I do not know jseblod CCK before, but it is on the JED since only 2 months. It’s complex but you can do everything and have the most simple interface for the end user, most simple than all other CCK, because you build what you want in adminstration interface with their CEK.
I try too other CCK and i know very good Zoo. I can tell you that the template engine of jSeblod CCK with the template manager wins hands down every time and in particular in comparaison to Zoo. They made a great work about it.
I use specially a very usefull function to create content type quickly and nobody speak about it. Have you try to do your template with your design editor, replace each content you want be dynamic with jSeblod field code, upload your template with template manager and use the option to create automatically the content type. It’s a must! I don’t create content type fields at the hand but every time like this.
Tell me your mind about this, i have never see before, I am a designer, it’s for me a super function.
Cheers,
Durino
Hey Durino,
Sounds like you and i think alike ;) Within minutes of using jSeblod i was able to see the massive potential that it has.
As for theming, i’ve only worked with Zoo and K2 so far, but i’ll definitely be getting stuck into jSeblod soon. The fact that you can package custom content types alone makes it worth looking at :P
Anywho, its exciting times in the Joomla-sphere and lots of really good innovation taking place!
Viva la cck! ;)
Chris´s last blog ..Beta, RC and stable – Morph’s development stages explained
Hi Chris :),
I take the release of version 1.5 of CCK jSeblod to ask your return on the use of jSeblod CCK. The new version is incredible. For the occasion they have released a new website, there was need: http://www.jseblod-cck.com.
It’s always my favourite CCK, i try too Flexicontent but like K2 this is not really a CCK because they are not compatible with other Joomla extensions, are not really integrated to Joomla administration and have not the power of jSeblod CCK fields.
I love your template and much more Morph toolset. So can i hope that your team work on my favorite CCK and offer some beautiful CCK pack? You can do a crazy business with CCK Pack.
Viva CCK mania ! ;)
Durino´s last blog ..jSeblod CCK Documentation
Hey Durino,
I installed the new version the same day it was released ;)
I was glad to see they had done some nice updates to the backend, generally simplifying things, as well as the new site – which makes it a lot clearer what the product is, how it’s licensed, etc.
One thing i found really strange though, was how the content templates are now stored in the Joomla! template manager. I personally found myself left confused, so i can only imagine how a normal user must feel?
I agree the jSeblod is incredibly powerful and probably one of the most powerful cck currently available for Joomla, but my concern when using it myself was that it was a bit too complicated for our users and for that reason we decided to go with Flexi instead.
Afer a couple of hours chatting to Emmanuel (the lead developer of Flexi), it soon became very clear that we share the same vision of what a good cck should be and we feel that it is the best suited for what we have planned in the future.
There is already some super exciting stuff in the works and i can assure you that it will soon be obvious why we settled on Flexi ;)
Thanks again for your shared enthusiasm on this topic – its nice to know that i am not the only one who is crrrrazy about the power of cck’s :P
Have a great day ;)
Cheers,
Chris
Chris´s last blog ..New generic quick installer for Morph now available
Does Flexi play nicely with Morph?
Yup :) We’re using it for the Morph docs site, as well as for the upcoming Prothemer site :)
Chris´s last blog ..Important and exciting changes in our team