I spend a lot of my time training people new to joomla so I think, and hope, that I have a pretty good idea of the trials and tribulations that they face.
Looking at joomla for the first time can be, for some, a daunting prospect. With so many options and so much power and flexibility it is easy to be overwhelmed and quickly drop joomla in the trash.
Fear not, joomla help is easy to find.
Perhaps the most surprising thing for me is the number of joomla tips and tricks which are essential for me and yet may be unknown to even the most experienced joomla web site developer.
Every day in conversation on skype and twitter I see bad or questionable advice. This is not down to a lack of skill or knowledge by the developer but more often a lack of formal joomla training.
We all come to joomla with a varying level of experience building web sites and that is the root of the problem. If you are an experienced dreamweaver/drupal/flash/wordpress (delete as appropriate) developer you will transfer that knowledge and working practice across to joomla.
You will curse that things were so much easier to do before joomla
The reality is very different. Things are easy to do in joomla you just need to learn the joomla way and not try to apply the techniques learnt in other applications. If you do you will just become frustrated, waste time and fail to achieve your, and your web sites, potential.
So no matter how "experienced" you are, bite the bullet and spend some time learning the joomla way. A few hours spent on quality training will save days of work, and frustration, in the future.
Over the next few blog posts I will be reviewing and rating "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" of the joomla training and help resources. Everything from books, videos, online tutorials, wikis and forums.
