Joomla Wordpress intergration - OpenWP from J-Prosolution.com

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Apr

2007

Joomla Blogging Options

Update: This review is out-of-date. Try Joomlify.com for a great Wordpress and Joomla integration.

Joomla Wordpress Last week talked about how having a blog hosted on your site can be a important SEO tool for your Joomla site.

This week, we've gone on to talk about blogging with a default Joomla set-up and with the commercial MyBlog component. Both of them are strong options.

Today, we're going to look at a third useful way to blog with Joomla - OpenWP from J-Prosolution.com.

Introduction

Marko Schmuck, who also develops the Open SEF Component, has integrated Wordpress 2.0 with Joomla. This is not a bridge, but a fully-loaded, plug-and-play component.

Advantages

Wordpress is the best blogging solution on the net today. Integrating it with Joomla can utilize the best of both setups.
Wide range of blog features not available with default Joomla blogging, including RSS, tags, pings, archives and trackbacks.
Its free!
Powerful comment functionality is built in, without needing to rely on another component.
It has the approval of the Joomla core developers who use it for their blog.
It is 99% compatible with SEF URLs.

Disadvantages

Development is currently stopped. Wordpress has now moved on to 2.1.
It doesn't integrate easily with other key Joomla components such as Community Builder.
Unlike the MyBlog component for Joomla, this doesn't allow you to add content within the regular Joomla Section/Category heirarchy.
Because it is integrated with Joomla, not all of the Wordpress plugins will work.
SEF URLs produce just one or two bugs in the setup, depending on which SEF component you're using.

Overall

OpenWP is a good blogging choice. It doesn't bring 100% of the power of Wordpress to Joomla, but it brings enough to make it a very solid blogging tool.

Its not easy to levarage the power of this component for too many people, because only the main administrator account has access the Control Panel. Therefore, OpenWP is recommended for people looking to a single-author blog with more power and options than are available through a default Joomla setup.

There is a major and very basic problem with the approach to integrate foreign code into Joomla components, and that problem has strictly kept me away from using them so far:

You might not get updates and critical fixes.

When the 3rd party app is updated (as has happened quite frequently with Wordpress in the past months), you may be stuck with legacy / insecure code if the dev who did the Joomla integration doesn't follow up quickly in releasing a new version.

This goes for components such as OpenWP and OpenWiki, and it went for the ancient phpBB component too, may it rest in peace.

If you're using integrated 3rd party apps, you're running a general security risk you need to be aware of. Either that, or you are that much of a coder that you can fix issues yourself, but then you're moving away from the "golden" code and have to maintain it for yourself.

My 2 cents ... as always, kind regards.
Zorro

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#2 aravot aravot 2007-04-19 01:33

I would like to see review of Mamblog, please.

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#3 Steve Burge 2007-04-19 08:17

Hi Zorro - thats a really smart way to look at it. Even with a mature application such as Wordpress, there are still essential security fixes released regularly.

For example, I think it was a wise choice by Joomla.org to go with a standalone version of Simple Machines, rather than a bridge. Because of this, the main Joomla forums are safe and update to date, whereas the developers blog is already out of date.

Hi Aravot - I'm not a big fan of Mamblog, but sure... look for Part 4 of Joomla Blogging, perhaps next week

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#4 Choudhury 2007-10-29 22:39

Hi,
I am using the mambo blog in my site softestclub.com. I am not fully satisfied to it..so I would urge everyone to be careful about it. Thanks

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#5 Praveen Ratna Deepak 2008-09-15 00:11

I use a Joomla component built on Wordpress called "mojoBlog" and its quite effective. Most WP plugins are supported as well. Only problem is it is not yet J!1.5 compatible. Only works for J!1.0. A new stable version is on the production roll.

Its still being supported and has a great forum as well. check it out.

My 2 cents,
Deepak.

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#6 Azman 2008-12-08 06:26

Website is dead....

Where the ** is the plugin. >_

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#7 Steve Burge 2008-12-08 06:36

Hi Azman - see top of the review:

Update: This review is out-of-date. Try Joomlify.com for a great Wordpress and Joomla integration.

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#8 Erlend Heggen 2008-12-16 08:35

What about using JFusion (wordpress.org/support/topic/226046?replies=1)? As there are no core hacks involved I think that should solve the concerns expressed about problems with updates or additional extensions

I've requested that a WordPress plug-in for JFusion be made, which you can read more about here (wordpress.org/support/topic/226046?replies=1).

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