My brother maintains a website for his company using Joomla. He has asked me to write a simple web application for him. I typically work with J2EE development (not server administration...), and he is pretty devoted to his Joomla. Is anyone familiar with this CMS and if so, is there a way to deploy a web app within a joomla site? I can't find anything in their documentation to help me.
Thanks,
Tschuss
Hi There,
Joomla! is a PHP4 (or PHP5) based contenet management system which uses a totally different means of working to the Java web service model (JSP alone, JSF, Struts etc). Considering that Joomla! templates typically embed quite a lot of PHP specific code within themself, I think integrating, say, JSF and Joomla! would amount to an intriguing but very time consuming and possibly pointless process.
I would note, though, that Joomla! is able to import "random" things into "divs" or "iframes" and without knowing specifically what you are trying to do, this might suit your brother's site or not. That is, get a JSF/Struts/JSP app running and then integrate that into a content div somehow or an iframe.
As a side note, Joomla!'s database schemas generally are not difficult to understand and can be easily accessed with a JDBC driver (of course you'd need to keep consistency if Joomla! and Java tried to access the tables/rows at the same time).
Without knowing more, this is the best advice I can give you; if you tell us more we can give more detailed and specific advice.
Thanks,
DSL
David...
Thank you so much for your response. To provide some additional detail, basically I need to construct a simple CRUD interface to a database. If Joomla were not in the picture, I would use the technologies I am most comfortable with, i.e. Derby database, Hibernate persistance, Struts, JSP and Tiles for presentation layer. It sounds like it might be possible to create what he needs using the tools available within Joomla, but I really don't want to take the time to learn the Joomla tools since I don't see myself using them for anything other than this one project. I was hoping there might be some adapter plug-in or built-in function that would permit interaction between the two. I had also wondered about having him install Tomcat and just having the two coexist and link to the web app from his Joomla site, but as I mentioned I'm not as familiar with the server admin side of the equation as I probably should be, so I may be out in left field on that one.
Thanks again,
Tschuss
You can integrate with Joomla and use Java technology simply by creating your web page to "fit" into a Joomla "wrapped" component.Joomla essentially allows you to configure a menu item that will render a url within an iframe.
If you get the width and the height right, your IFRAME'd Java web app will look like it is part of the surrounding web app.
Having said that, you will NOT be able to integrate into the authenticaion mechanism unless you use something like JOSSO which has PHP integration. But that would require you to modify some php code which Joomla users would probably frown upon.
The only reason why I even responded to this thread is because EVERY java developer should look at Joomla. You can build up a very nice site in minutes without coding a single line of code. Something that would take a Java programmer months to do. Also, they have several completely free plugin modules to make a site have things like classified ads, forums, and just about anything else you can think of that install in seconds.Not to mention all of the 3rd party skin templates which just seem to work and give you all the whiz bang of a nifty web 2.0 site.
Take a look at drop.com.It is an example of a site that is using Joomla. Then click on "Daily Deals" tab. What is rendered in that tab is actually from another server running Tomcat/Java/Struts.Same for what is running behind the Clearance Rack tab.
Joomla is way cool and if I knew PHP a bit more, I think I would have not done the integration as I did with this.
