I stumbled across Joomla by accident today and spent the last four hours reading about it and trying to get the info I need to make a decision to use it or not.  I’m having trouble finding the answers in a timely manner.  I hope someone can help me get these four questions answered…


1)   Does Joomla have it’s own built-in user management system?  I have been looking at sample Joomla sites and they all have the same login “window” so I assumed it has it’s own user management system.  I need to be able to give my registered users the ability to create/edit articles, add info to an event calendar and  add/modify announcements.  Not sure if Joomla has the ability to create roles so I can give different users different access rights to the apps.  From what I can tell it looks like there are plug-ins or components for just about any app such as event calendars, news articles, chat boards, photo galleries etc.  I’m wondering if access to these apps can be controlled per user.

2)   Is the content editor easy to use?  A lot of my users are not computer people and if it’s complicated for them to find the place where they edit the content or if the editor is difficult to use, they won’t use it.

3)   Has anybody used the iJoomlaMagazine Component?  I found this by accident and it looks like it’s just the thing I’m looking for.

4)   About how long will it take a novice to figure out how to use Joomla to get the site up and running?  I have written all my previous sites (HTML) by hand using the vi editor.  Yes, people still use vi.  All my current sites have dynamic content that are stored in a plain old ASCII text files.  I use the free software dbMan to maintain the content and have dressed up the data entry screens to make it easier for non computer people to use.  It’s very simple and crude.  All dynamic content is displayed by CGI scripts I wrote CGI scripts and placed them in SSI includes on the web pages.  Using something like Joomla is a big step forward and will be a lot different.  So… I know a little about web stuff but know nothing about CMS systems.


Thanks for any information/insight you can provide.

I can't believe how easy it was to install.  It looks like it will work for me so I wnst ahead and purchased the iJoomla Magazine plug-in.  I can't believe Joomla is free!  I'm so far behind the times in technology.