Joomla! Out Of The Box - What Can You Do?
One of Joomla’s greatest strengths is its extensibility, and the thousands of listings in the Joomla Extensions Directory certainly prove that point.
One of Joomla’s other great strengths is its flexibility—this is harder to see, because there are many ways to build a site even when given the same brief.
I’m happy to introduce the Joomla Out of the Box challenge this month! The goal of this challenge is to showcase the many ways to build a site, using only Cassiopeia and the front end components that come installed with Joomla.
About the challenge
How does it work?
Every two months, a new design brief will be posted here in the JCM. (You can find this month’s brief below!)
Your challenge is to build a Joomla 4 site that you feel best meets the brief requirements, only using Joomla core components.
That means:
- Cassiopeia template
- Pre installed core components
You can make it as simple or as detailed as you want within those constraints. For those who want to do alternate layouts or view template overrides, that is allowed, but not required.
Third party components or plugins that only run in the back end (for easier site management) are allowed as long as they don’t change the front end of the site.
Who can submit a site?
Anyone! This is a great opportunity to not only push Joomla to its limits but also to expand your own horizons with Joomla site building and try new things.
Will there be a 'winner'?
No, but sites will be reviewed by myself (Crystal Dionysopoulos) and possibly a guest reviewer on the following criteria:
- Accessibility
- Usability
- Meets brief requirements
- Innovation (either in design or development)
- Management experience (how easy is it to make content updates?)
How do I submit?
Make sure the site is accessible from the internet somewhere, and submit it here. You’ll be asked for the link and answer a few questions about your solution.
Also, if you don't finish it in time, submit it anyway ant let us know what else you would do. There are no right or wrong answers here!
October Challenge Brief
Please submit sites by October 31st at this form. You can submit even if the site is not fully complete; just let us know what else you would have done if you had time.
Your client is a fun, modern travel agency that specializes in themed trips for small groups. Usually that means cozy and rustic ski lodges, or family reunions at a theme park, but this year they wanted to offer something different: haunted and spooky tours.
This is a pretty drastic departure from their usually cheerful brand, so they want you to build a simple standalone site just for these kinds of trips:
- 1-3 pages, including at least one page with a simple interest form so people can get in touch
- Somewhere to feature the 3 different kinds of spooky trips:
- Historical Hauntings (places that are legitimately haunted…at least according to local records)
- TV Terrors (places that either inspired horror movies, or filming locations)
- Culture & Cryptids (tours about local mythology and mystical creatures, like Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster)
- Somewhere to feature at least 1-3 reviews from people who have gone on trips in the past.
The goal of the site is to generate some excitement about their new trips among their core audience, singles and couples in their 30s-50s who love travel and adventure.
They want the site to be playful but tactfully spooky. Download the brand assets here (including logo and colors). The font used in the logo is Kanit, but you can use whatever you feel is best.
If you have any questions, comment below. I can't wait to see what you do!
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Comments 7
How to insert comments? Joomla does not have such a feature.
The only part of the brief regarding the testimonials is that they must be able to display them—it doesn't mean it has to be dynamic or allow people to submit them. You could do this in many different ways - in article text, as module, as custom fields, or something else altogether.
> Management experience (how easy is it to make content updates?)
How do we demonstrate this?
Hi Brian, I saw you already submitted (thanks!) but to make the answer available to others, you can include details if you wish in the submission form. Sorry it took so long to reply!
Joomla does not have a form module. Can I only put a view on the home page?
You can indeed set up a contact form through com_contact. There's a tutorial (although for J3) here: https://www.joomlashack.com/blog/joomla/create-a-contact-form-in-joomla/ It's very similar in J4
But I have a form on the home page so I need a module.