CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

OK I'm ranting, but.... I'm speaking as a Joomla! developer and I'm sure there are plenty of others Joomla! users who find the same issues I find with troubleshooting bugs that don't seem to get fully tested on Joomla! before being released and there's seemingly perpetual assumptions in forums and in documentation that one is using Drupal which are becoming more and more frustrating....

The issue at https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-18118 is a case in point...  Joshua says "  I think he may be using Joomla! where as I am using Drupal. .... but there is certainly no issue with 4.7.4 on Drupal." - and Neil replies "  It seems rather unusual to test fixes on one platform, and not test on others."

Also, the demo site never seems to be up to date which is incredibly frustrating as I can't test Civi upgrades on the proper version of Joomla. Others find this e.g "I wish whoever is in charge of maintaining the Joomla demo site would take the time to UPGRADE the site to 4.7.3, or 4.6.14 at least" (http://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/9953/pay-later-instructions-dont-show-on-membership-contribution)

It's brought me to the point where I can no longer support CiviCRM on Joomla! installations. I'm recommending new users and old Joomla! users to use drupal because I find CiviCRM to be unreliable for ongoing use within Joomla!. This means I'm going to have to go down a new learning curve and learn Drupal development just to support my current clients. - A lot of unwanted work!!

Let's be honest guys, Civi is a great system, but I think it's too much to support a system that plugs into 3 major CMS's and works flawlessly on all of them. Let's just say it works on Drupal only and stop letting the Joomla! guys down with false hopes and promises...

Hi, dflorence,

I don't think CiviCRM on Joomla! is dead, but I agree with you (maybe you didn't actually say this) that there aren't enough Joomla! developers in our community. I think I am like most CiviCRM developers in that I came to CiviCRM through Drupal, but I have customers with very functional websites in other platforms who want what CiviCRM offers but can't justify replacing a perfectly good website to get it.

I am able to support the vast majority of those clients, because CiviCRM's integration with Joomla! and WordPress is quite good, but there are some corners where we still have work to do. I just don't have enough knowledge about the inner workings of Joomla! to smooth out some of those rough corners, but I (and others in the community) am willing to work on improving the situation, with guidance from folks with expertise in the subject matter.

There are two places I think we could focus our attention:

• CiviCRM Buildkit: I don't know if you're familiar with buildkit, but it is a suite of tools for developing and testing CiviCRM. The main component is civibuild, which allows a developer to spin up a pre-configured instance of CiviCRM with the specifications of their choosing; e.g., civibuild download "mytestbuild" --civi-ver "4.6" --type "drupal-demo". This tool has myriad uses in our community: it is used in our automated testing; it is the tool most CiviCRM core developers and contributors use to set up their environments; and it is used to build the demo sites you see at https://civicrm.org/demo. It presently has support Drupal and WordPress (and their command-line tools drush and wp), but the Joomla support is lagging behind. I'm not familiar enough with the space to say whether it's that the CLI tools for Joomla! aren't mature enough yet or whether there are other problems with automating Joomla! builds, but I think completing this work would address a lot of your pain points: fix the demo site, encourage more Joomla! developers to become an active part of our community, etc. I'm sure the core team would love to have a Joomla! expert have a look at this.
• CRM-12059: Support hook_civicrm_permissions on Joomla! Okay, as a developer of fairly complex extensions which are intended for broad audiences, maybe I'm biased in highlighting this issue, but it's a problem that makes Joomla! an inferior choice of CMS for CiviCRM, and it gives Joomla! users a poor impression of CiviCRM. As I understand it, the screen which Joomla! uses to allow users to manage permissions is rendered from XML on each page load, and each component registers its permissions via an access.xml file. However, when a component like CiviCRM itself has extensions which define permissions (like CiviVolunteer), it's unclear to folks unfamiliar with Joomla!'s innards how to tell Joomla! about this. I feel like I could address this problem if someone with a Joomla! background would spend an hour or two pointing me in the right direction.

Anyway, I think my point is that our community is strongest when we work together and leverage one another's strengths. CiviCRM has been described as a do-ocracy, and in fact I see the word even appears on our community guidelines:

We value those that contribute to the project and get things done. Everyone is free to move the project forward in ways that make sense to them without asking for permission first. Any responsibility in our project can be carried by a contributor who demonstrates the required capacity and competence, and we encourage everyone to be a part of this culture. Sharing your knowledge and experience will help others, and also accelerate your own CiviCRM journey.

Rather than give up on Joomla!, I would encourage you to share your very valuable knowledge of the platform to help dummies like me resolve some of the problems with the integration points. And if you'd like to help me resolve CRM-12059, you can find me @GinkgoFJG on https://chat.civicrm.org.

Thanks!

Most of our new clients aren't asking for Joomla! sites, but I don't really hang out in Joomla! circles, so maybe I'm just not in the right place to meet them. The stats show about an eighth of our user base is on Joomla! There are only a few hundred more installs on WP.

I'm flattered Ginkgo

I would encourage you to share your very valuable knowledge of the platform to help dummies like me resolve some of the problems with the integration points. And if you'd like to help me resolve CRM-12059, you can find me

But you over-estimate my skills. - Looking at CRM-12059 I haven't got a clue.... My skill set is just not up to that level. Minor hacks of Joomla plugins is about my limit... Likewise the majority of Civi code is a mystery to me.

Its not just Civi integration causing concern about the future of Joomla!. There was an urgent major security update released around Christmas Eve last year that  nearly ruined Christmas. All unupdated sites were immediately compromised.. It was the last straw.  Decided from a business point of view, to now offer WordPress for new users, and If that doesn't suit, I guess I'll have to learn Drupal.

I do feel the days of Joomla! are numbered, WordPress outranks it in terms of popularity, and Drupal in terms of robustness/bespoke customisation (and it has Forms) 

Hershel:

I'm just wondering if we might find that the Joomla sites are using out-dated versions. I'm curious.

In my experience, older versions of Joomla! work with Civi. It's when I use an UPDATED version of Joomla! the problems with Civi start. - The problem seems to be keeping Civi up to date with latest versions of Joomla!, not vice versa....