The Joomla! Extensions Directory ™

This is a great component for doing news, product reviews, etc... I was planning to just use the Joomla content manager but then I stumbled on K2! If you are looking for something to manage articles in a more flexible way than the standard Joomla method then you need to take a look at this component. Great Job guys!

I am going to go ahead and give this K2 a five star rating. First, because the effort to develop this extension is worthy enough, alone. Second, it is rather an awesome CCK, and I use it successfully without hiccups - as the power of it is great.

I do have some issues that I would like to raise.

Basically, it centers around the ability to develop customized templates, and some of the issues that surround it. Other issues include some documentation around tags, the way the .css file system works against templates, inner modules, etc.

I have seen some sub-templates for K2. I wouldnt call them great. just standard. I think to build a sub-template such as by a company like rocekttheme is difficult with the current state of the code. So, i hope future versions correct this.

All in, K2 is a magnificent extension, and much credit goes out to Fotis and Joomlaworks for the genius, will power, and stamina to develop it.

OK, I only decided to write a review because I am frustrated. But I will try to be fair as well.

I wonder if the owner will reply... since they only seem to pounce on the users that say bad things down there.

This component is certainly powerful and a wonderful way to extend your Joomla website. It has great potential and a lot of the features really should have been in the Core of the CMS anyway. I am currently using it in a small production website. It has allowed me to do some awesome things with my content, and with my ACL for contributors etc!

That said there are some major thorn-in-the-side issues after really using this thing for a while.

First and foremost, there is almost NO documentation for the thing. So get ready to roll up your sleeves and dig in. Setup a dev server and start hacking through it.

The forum (a ning community funny enough) is OK. The developers answer questions from time-to-time but really don't support this thing well enough. I understand it is non-commercial and they have better things to do... gotta pay the bills... but it's really tough sometimes when you simply can't find answers to basic questions. Or all you find is about 10 other posts from other users asking the same question without getting an answer. The best support I've gotten comes from working together with other users who are having the same issue(s) and just figuring it out collectively... often without a Dev even chiming in.

I would gladly pay for this component if it was slightly more mature, documented, and supported vigorously.

SPECIFICS
The "modal" window for the editor is about the worst idea I have ever seen. It causes front-end writers to lock their articles all the time by clicking outside the lightbox (now disabled in latest version)... OR folks on laptops with small screen res simply can't see the close button to check-in their item. This is terrible! I spent many hours on workarounds for this. (i know i know, it's open source and it's free).

Whitespace. Holy crap. They are using a br clearing method in all the php... and while this renders fine on FF and others... it makes for a nightmare in a webkit browser like Safari or Chrome. The k2 content module is virtually useless to me for this reason right now. Webkit browsers are rendering anywhere from 2 - 4 line breaks in a content list... around the breadcrumbs and after some titles. It's very frustrating. And I have so far been unable to find a solution within the k2 community website. But I have found plenty of people complaining and directly asking for Devs to chime in... to no avail.

All that said this IS a very good component with a lot of potential. It's almost kind of sad how much I am willing to deal with it's shortcomings just because the features it does add are so important to my website now.

Devs. Please keep up the good work on the component. PLEASE document it... and make it even better!

If a picture is worth a thousand words then K2 is worth a thousand extensions. It is a perfect extension.

I love Joomla!, but one of the missing features which I found most important was a useable CCK with template capability. For most sites, I would use mtree as a directory or product listing which worked very well, but you can only have a single installation and the categories always link to the same parent. It is meant to be used as a directory, not a CCK. K2 was released at the perfect time. I had two large websites that needed multiple directory style listings: Team listings with profiles, video gallery, article listing, photo gallery, product catalog, event calendar, internal file repository, and a support section with downloads. K2 was used for both sites and met all of the requirements. The ability to use templates for each category, style custom fields and create multiple "do anything" modules (multiple module templates) with custom templates is EXACTLY what I needed.

A big plus is the fact that all sections of the site, which would usually be multiple components, are managed from the same admin section. This makes client training a breeze! I can't wait for future releases!

K2 is the component I install first on my client websites.

Easy to install, to configure, to use, to extend, to traduce, to modify, ...

No more to say, just try !

Sooo simple to get up and running. I did read through some help files on their site before getting started, that may have eased the process.

Very easy to override HTML with template overrides. Its worth spending a few moments of your life getting to know this extension.

It has a LOT of promise and delivers! Fantastic MVC coding, these guys obviously know what they're doing.

I don't know of any viable commercial alternative? No need I guess with this awesome extension.

This is not a replacement to Joomla! content items. Just a very elegant solution to formatting custom page types. One of the many features I love is the image field. It's not hard inserting an image into normal content items. But with K2 you upload one image, it has server side resizing, and has 5 image size options as configurable parameters. This is great should you wish to show a catalog layout or company profile page. You can set the dynamically created thumbnail to display on summery pages, and your large image on the full content items. Once configured it's as simple as writing the content, uploading your image and BAMM! it's done.

Great Open Source extension guys, thanks heaps for your hard work on this.

I look forward to learning more about extending K2.

K2 is exactly what I needed for displaying products that had certain products attached to it. I tried using VirtueMart with the product type functionality but it never seemed to work for automatically adding a product to a product type list. But k2 has amazing functionality for adding extra fields to a product category. And it is really easy to change!!!Thanks

So. The company nags own user forum members to give a review here.

Here's one.

Component appears to have lots of promise, but doesn't deliver.

Version 2.1 has lots of flaws and other Joomlaworks products don't work with it without a lot of hard work debugging flawed code.

1) Company has never responded to any direct email
2) Company rarely responds to any questions raised in the forum.
4) Lots of promise of K2 V2.2 with bug fixes and additional features thus far not delivered.
5) Twitter about V2.3 when V2.2 isn't even out the stable yet.

If you want to waste large parts of your life fighting with this product then go for it, otherwise find another CCK.

An additional note to say that if "Open Source" wishes to become a viable alternative to commercial product, then for god sake fix deadlines, stick to them and keep consumers/end users informed effectively.

Forget promise and make actual deadlines otherwise those of us with a life and business to run will go elsewhere damned quick!

CHRI

K2 makes Joomla! more flexible than any other component I've ever used. It's mature in version 2.1, and future versions stand to be even better as it becomes documented and more robust.

See, i've been coming on this site for years, the i've used alot of great and crappy extensions, and this is the one this i actually registered to review. I love the fact that it can have multiple themes AND custom fields. Now with these two features combined, the possibilities are in fact endless and with caching and seo enabled, this extension is a monster. HOWEVER, I dont mind the lack of extensions, It makes me upset that the EXTENSION department is EMPTY, i look all over and theres virtually no modules or plugins that exists. Your site and community was useless. I tried looking for "K2" in the extension directory and the minimum search character limit is 3. So i can't even search for it... Please add some modules when you package epic components like this, Don't rush to publish. I absolutely love the fact that its free!

Never before have I spent so little time on design and capabilities when constructing a new site. Joomla has allowed me to focus on the content and K2 has allowed me to create and manage the content the way I want to.

Joomla by itseld is superb. Extended with K2, it is supreme.

Thanks!

hhhhmmmmm it is not that easy to describe K2!
It is good... no no it isnt!
It is excellent... no no it isnt!!!
It is fabulous... no no it isnt!

Tired trying to find out a description.
Let's say this.
IT IS THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT RELEASE AFTER THE JOOMLA ITSELF.

Thank you guys and keep up the excellent work you do

I have been working with Joomla since its inception and when I train others on the platform I give them a list of must have extensions. K2 is number one on that list.

I have always asked the question... What if Joomla was more like Wordpress in its ease of use? What if Joomla could easily and intuitively intergrate articles with photos, tagging, and comments? K2 is the answer.

K2 is a simple to use CCK. It uses an Joomla formula you are already familiar with and gives you advanced features that only Joomla 1.6 dreams about.

Any website I create will include k2 and I suggest you do the same.

Hats off to JoomlaWorks, Fotis & his team.

I have mentioned to many people that K2 has saved my skin on many projects now.

If you are considering a website where you want your client to have total control, K2 is the component to use. It gives you the capability to totally control all aspects of a limited 'article' page in Joomla - in K2, the 'item' page gives you "everything in one".

using version 2.1 at the moment & can't wait for version 2.2 to arrive - no doubt with more extremely useful features.

Wonderful component!! K2 has endless possibilities. Every time I wish to add functionality and possibly a new extension to one of my K2 sites I find K2 already has the function built-in!!

I like to keep things short and simple. IMO: I am very surprised (and pleased) this is a free component. Its simply brilliant. It should actually be the default Joomla content manager... I am very impressed. Its awesome...

I think this is a real excellent component. K2 is not SOBI2!, because this both don't do exactly the same. They have a lot of differences. I use both components at the same time and i have more potential to give my users different optical effects on my homepage. Items in Joomla are not syncronized automaticaly with the K2 items, so you can get more different styles for your content.

Maybe becomes the K2 CCK for the future some functions more, but for a non-commercial software ist this at the moment one of the best joomla extensions.

What a masterpiece of coding from the guys in Greece. It is quite intuitive if you are used to joomla and I have managed to achieve all that I want with it, true a bit more documentation would help but I am sure that will come later. Well done Fotis and team.

My only complaint is - I want more! LOL It is the missing link in Joomla! It does what it says and reaches new heights! Hence, that is why it is called K2!

As for documents??? That is like asking for a manual on how to walk! Hello, it is intuitive and also, sheeze already - test it yourself people! Back when it came out - I plugged it in and started playing with it on my personal demo site. Developers spend thousands upon thousands of man hours delivering us great work like k2 for free and some people have the nerve to complain cause they have to put a few hours into it figuring it out! Well, I got this to say to them - Get a life! In the meantime I am loving this product!

As for the developers - Great JOB! Woo Woo - always outstanding work from you guys!