The next version of WordPress, the most popular platform for websites, is due on the 1st of May, 2010. So, we propose to read about the most significant changes that are coming in WordPress CMS 3.0.
Combining WordPress MU and WordPress
It’s a great piece of news for those specialists who work at professional website development on WordPress. And what does it mean for CMS users?
They will be able to create multiple sites using the same admin area (without any new installations).
Custom record types
This function wasn’t added in WordPress 2.9, but finally will appear in the 3.0 version. The combination of record types and taxonomy will make WordPress a more powerful CMS. This option allows to create different types of articles for a website or blog.
Improving website menus
А so-called Custom Woo Navigation will be included in the WordPress system, its mission is to make the website navigation more convenient. Users will be able to drag and drop menu items on a special page, like on the page with WordPress widgets.
New default template
This new template supports replaceable backgrounds that can be added in functions.php:
add_custom_background ();
Templates for designers
WordPress 2.9 has an option that allows to create templates for categories with their URL (slug) in category-slug.php. So, the 3.0 version will have similar feature for WordPress website developers (a new function get_author_template ()).
Web development services is inseparably linked with online business. So our next two projects are connected with e-trade. Today no one doubts the effectiveness of online trading. Sales through the Internet shopping minimize costs, allows to enter new markets, and attract customers.
But before to make profit from website you must launch your customized online store. And this process will be related to the right choice of CMS. It is cheaper and safer to use a ready-made software for the most common and typical tasks of online business.
The best solutions among open source e-commerce systems are Magento and X-Cart. These products help to create e-shops and obtain multifunctional, high-tech sites for easy sales. Moreover they can be managed without special knowledge in programming. These are ready web sites for electronic commerce. You can add additional features or modify design according to the peculiarities of any specific business.
With the help of Oxagile software programming our customers obtained new online stores with pleasant look-and-feel:
An X-Cart based online store for a Canadian company that offers furniture, wall decor and home accessories.
As a result, we have gained experience in ecommerce and online business. So now we can easily attract more visitors and raise product sells for our customers.
What determines success in web development? Component of success are professional design, attention to customer’s needs and the correct choice of CMS. We have made certain of it from our own experience.
So we want to share the results of successful web development based on open source CMSes for our clients from USA and the Netherlands.
Let’s start with our favorite CMS Joomla. By the way, why so many webmasters choose this CMS for their projects? The answer consists of one word, and this word means “accessibility”. So accessibility has made CMS Joomla such a popular one. It is absolutely free of charge. But it does not mean poor quality or lack of functionality. In reality Joomla has incredible functionality and it was made as a software product of high quality.
So Oxagile has created two new fully functional websites and expanded its company portfolio:
CMS Joomla is very logical and consistent, developing software projects you can see it at all levels, starting with installation and finishing with text editing. It simplifies your understanding of how to work with site content.
I would also like to highlight 3 issues that you would like to know when you manage Joomla:
Security:
Joomla is free which means anyone can download it and look at the code. When hackers find a vulnerable Joomla site, the hack is able to break the password protected CMS portion of the site and upload ads for pharmaceuticals or pornography.
On the other hand, good guys from all over the world also look through the code to find security holes to report them or to provide fixes to the community. Joomla team periodically issues security fixes indeed. Please subscribe to their mailing list to be aware and to make ontime installations.
Usability:
When you are editing content and try to bold a few words or highlight certain words using a different color of text or something, Joomla may add styling code to the backend that has to be cleaned out the next time you want to edit. If it isn’t, over time your font color, style, or placement may become broken.
The issue is that Joomla provides WYSIWYG editor for content submitting. It is intended for users not familiar with programming or HTML but who know user interfaces like MS Word. It is a very hard task to convert visually formatted content into HTML automatically. Therefore it is better to paste the written text to notepad, then to the editor, and then to edit it.
Customizations and upgrades:
When performing customizations or upgrades do not touch Joomla core files, otherwise there may be damage to the system.
Joomla provides several ways for customizations: components, modules and plug-ins. Customizing Joomla with these methods doesn’t require core files modification. Thus, there are no problems with updates and no PHP knowledge is required in this case.
Summary:
We choose Joomla CMS for projects because it provides good base platform to build on. Sure thing, any CMS applies some restrictions but Joomla provides a lot of basic functionality that you have to have developed from scratch otherwise. In most cases, Joomla is more convenient for our customers.
Today costs of new IT products development can be quite comparable with profits. The economic crisis has an impact upon corporate budgets, making software at reasonable prices more and more popular. And there is nothing out of the way! A lot of managers responsible for new IT-projects consider customized open source software as favorable decision that allows to develop more with limited budgets.
While vendors increase license fees, software developers specializing in open source software install and customization offer their customers independence and flexibility. This year open-source usage and adoption is on peak again, the same situation was in 2001-2002 during the previous economic decline.
Taking as an example the most popular open source CMS for website design and development like Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress and Magento we see that these free software products help to save costs giving new technologies, innovative web 2.0 design and other great solutions.
Open source CMS offers numerous advantages and possibilities. Whereas software companies that use their own software for web development slow down innovations, thousands of independent open source developers improve their projects almost every day. Moreover open code is a key for legal and simple CMS installation and full customization, beginning from some little modifications and ending by the development of new complicated modules. It means that free full packaged software products can be used not only for standardized projects, but also for exclusive design and non-typical web resources.
Today costs of new IT products development can be quite comparable with profits. The economic crisis has an impact upon corporate budgets, making 
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