K2 
Version
2.5.7 (last update on May 9, 2012)
Rating
Compatibility
Votes
Favoured
446
License
GPLv2 or later
Non-Commercial
Type
Views
574663
Date Added
14 April 2009
Uses 1.6 Updater?
- Yes
--- WHAT IS K2? ---
K2 provides an out-of-the box integrated solution featuring rich content forms for items (think of Joomla! articles with additional fields for article images, videos, image galleries and attachments), nested-level categories, tags, comments, a system to extend the item base form with additional fields (similar to CCK for those acquainted with Drupal), a powerful plugin API to extend item, category and user forms, ACL, frontend editing, sub-templates and a lot more!
Using K2, you can transform your Joomla! website to a news/magazine site with author blogs, product catalogs, work portfolio, knowledge base, download/document manager, directory listing, event listing and more, all this bundled under one package!
Give K2 a try and you'll instantly love it! It's easy to use and fun to develop websites with! If you need any help or want to contribute to the project, join us at the K2 community.
--- FEATURES ---
Since K2 is extensible with additional fields to its base item form, you can easily create category-specific content types, e.g. article, blog post, product page, directory listing.
K2 offers as standard:
- nested-level categories (no section/category restrictions)
- commenting, integrated with reCaptcha
- tags
- item image (useful for articles/catalogs)
- image galleries
- videos
- attachments
- user pages (author blogs/user profiles)
- ACL for content
- Unique plugin system to extend item, category and user forms
- ajax-based frontend editing
- ajax-based comments moderation
- Google AJAX Search integration
- Native JSON/JSONP content output
K2 fully supports the Joomla! API, which means all Joomla! plugins will function properly within the K2 component & modules, either in the frontend or backend.
--- AMAZING PERFORMANCE ---
ImpactWrestling.com, OnSports.gr, Gorillaz.com, Groupama-Transport.com, Cloud.com (Citrix), the High Court of Australia, MTV Greece, Jaguar Greece are just some of the thousand "big sites" around the world, fully powered by K2.
--- REQUIREMENTS & LICENSE ---
K2 is PHP 4/5 compatible.
To utilize the built-in video & gallery features you need to install AllVideos (free) & Simple Image Gallery Pro, both provided by JoomlaWorks.
K2 is developed by JoomlaWorks & licensed under the GNU/GPL v2 license.
--- WHAT NEXT? ---
Try K2! Install it, hit the "import" button to bring your Joomla! articles inside K2, start playing with the component to see the flexibility it provides first-hand. Moreover? You no longer need a dozen of components and even more modules to do things like run a news site or a blog. Drupal and Wordpress have certainly met their match now! ;)
--- USEFUL LINKS ---
Visit the new K2 website & community: http://getk2.org
Images
If your not using K2 you are limiting your sites potential.
I wouldn't have a Joomla site without it. I have categories within categories within categories! It really takes shape after you modify the template or make a few.
I wouldn't have a Joomla site without it. I have categories within categories within categories! It really takes shape after you modify the template or make a few.
If you need an all-in-one solution then K2 is a good choice. Lots of the most used add-on functionality are already presents.
I don't have a good feeling with this "I do everything" packages. Is not always possible to replace the components I do not like with 3rd party add-on.
Documentation is poor and dated.
Well, this is only my personal judgment. If you need a simple way to use Joomla with a lot of stuffs then give K2 a try.
I don't have a good feeling with this "I do everything" packages. Is not always possible to replace the components I do not like with 3rd party add-on.
Documentation is poor and dated.
Well, this is only my personal judgment. If you need a simple way to use Joomla with a lot of stuffs then give K2 a try.
Read bunch of great comments and thought the K2 is great. After installation, i struggled for 2 days and now going to dump the K2.
Used latest K2 for Joomla 2.5.
1. The transfer of items from Joomla was not good - unwanted junk was transferred but the new categories that I created did not transfer. But hey this is small! Categories I can retype manually.
2. More important - comments do not work as promised.
Any unwanted user-spammer can type in his URL link and there is no way to switch it off, unless you ban the user. I did not find an option to forbid outgoing links.
While searching for the solution in K2 comments options - modules etc ( did not find any option to switch off URL from unregistered user) but found CAPTCHA option. Turned CAPTCHA on and it does not work at all - on the page there is claim to put in 2 words , but no words displayed. So no user can use it at all now.
Even worst - that CAPTCHA option disappeared form the module - WOW - not able to turn on, or turn off.
Too many bugs.
Tried to find info on the K2 forum and see that similar questions about comments and CAPTCHA are sitting there for months without any forum support.
So, K2 is for heavy programmers who love to struggle with bugs and debug things.
Frustrating experience.
Used latest K2 for Joomla 2.5.
1. The transfer of items from Joomla was not good - unwanted junk was transferred but the new categories that I created did not transfer. But hey this is small! Categories I can retype manually.
2. More important - comments do not work as promised.
Any unwanted user-spammer can type in his URL link and there is no way to switch it off, unless you ban the user. I did not find an option to forbid outgoing links.
While searching for the solution in K2 comments options - modules etc ( did not find any option to switch off URL from unregistered user) but found CAPTCHA option. Turned CAPTCHA on and it does not work at all - on the page there is claim to put in 2 words , but no words displayed. So no user can use it at all now.
Even worst - that CAPTCHA option disappeared form the module - WOW - not able to turn on, or turn off.
Too many bugs.
Tried to find info on the K2 forum and see that similar questions about comments and CAPTCHA are sitting there for months without any forum support.
So, K2 is for heavy programmers who love to struggle with bugs and debug things.
Frustrating experience.
Owner's reply
Replying...
1. Migration from the default Joomla! article system is done manually. It's not automatic (why would it be). If you saw "junk" coming into K2 then junk was placed in your Joomla! articles. Of course new categories that you create in the Joomla! article system will not be reflected into K2 unless you import them first.
2. Comments work EXACTLY as they should. You just need to have a clue of the technologies involved before using them. E.g. for reCaptcha to work, you need to get to keys (free) from recaptcha.google.com. Had you read the tooltip explanations on each K2 parameter you would've known that of course. Got a problem with real human spammers? Cut them off by enabling the built-in StopForumSpam.com support and/or enabling comment moderation. K2 not only has the best possible anti-spam protection, it also protects your entire Joomla! site from spammers when you enable the built-in StopForumSpam.com options.
To recap things, you've mentioned no bug so far, just misconfiguration from your side. And if you got no response, that's because the answer was sitting right there for you in the K2 parameter tooltips.
Lastly, if K2 was for programmers only, a) it would not have 750.000+ downloads so far and b) it would not be used on high profile Joomla! sites worldwide...
The component is really great, combined with K2 Store it's even greater:). Thank's a lot.
Good for a free extension,not excelent...and has a lot of bugs yet.For example I have K2 on a site and have set the 'print' and 'email' buttons to show on all items. The Print button works fine but when I test the Email button, the form appears but upon hitting send I get an error message, "Email could not be sent".
So if nobody helps then why using it?
So if nobody helps then why using it?
I like K2, its one of most popular joomla componets. and I'm really sorry to say that this component is not SEO friend because each item in the website is reachable with different URLs. Since 2 months ago that I installed K2, I have thousands of duplicated articles in my "google webmaster" account, and this problem will affect strongly on google organic traffic, so your site will die as my website. I tried to find a solution on official K2 forum but there were many request about this problem without reply or solution.
Owner's reply
This is not entirely true. Let me explain...
Duplicate entries depend on your menu structure. If you have a menu that maps all your K2 categories (or at least the most imporrtant ones), then you won't have duplicate entries.
To further mitigate that, one of the things we want to add in K2 v2.5.7 is canonical URLs to prevent Google from seeing duplicate item entries (if they exist).
That should further improve K2's SEO features.
Unlike the default Joomla! content or other CCK extensions, K2 already sports much better SEO. From the "read more" links which contain the item's title, to the images, to author links etc. etc. ;)
I love this component, use it on just about every site I do. I have always been impressed with everything you guys do! Keep up the good work. Cheers.
As simple Joomla! user I was fully satisfied with standard Joomla CCK (if it can be called that). Few months ago I just found it's not enough and just doensn't fit my needs and requirements. So I've checked some free CCKs here and there and finally found K2. I was just overwhelmed by countless options, configuration stuff, possibilities, etc. However - after few hours with K2 Forums, some help-sites and dozens of teste, tries and mistakes I (at last) found this component really easy to use. It wasn't hard to learn, you just need to spend some time with it and play with anything you can find there (on some backup copy of your site, or fresh Joomla! installation for testing purposes only).
Now I can say that K2 is probably the best free CCK ever created for Joomla! It perfectly fills all my needs (and probably yours) - tags, comments system, social buttons, images, videos, extra fields and 10 billion/trillion/gazillion configuration options... looks scary at the beginning, but after few hours the best becomes the beauty, and the curse of complexity becomes a blessing.
I think everyone should give it a try - remember it's free, so it will only cost you some of your time!
Now I can say that K2 is probably the best free CCK ever created for Joomla! It perfectly fills all my needs (and probably yours) - tags, comments system, social buttons, images, videos, extra fields and 10 billion/trillion/gazillion configuration options... looks scary at the beginning, but after few hours the best becomes the beauty, and the curse of complexity becomes a blessing.
I think everyone should give it a try - remember it's free, so it will only cost you some of your time!
I just can't build my sites without it! Yes, it has been a long journey learning how to use and customize it, and yes, sometimes I've felt like taming some wild beast, but if you want one of the best tools in your toolbox, you gotta invest time and energy to get to know it.
JoomlaWorks and Fotis - Thank You Very Much for sharing this gem with all of us! It has opened a lot of new doors for thousands of "joomlators". Keep up the good work!
JoomlaWorks and Fotis - Thank You Very Much for sharing this gem with all of us! It has opened a lot of new doors for thousands of "joomlators". Keep up the good work!
Extends core Joomla functionality so well that I wouldn't ever use Joomla without it anymore.
Don't let some of the poor reviews on here put you off - it is not difficult to use, the css is a dream to edit, with very little effort it turns a bog standard Joomla site into a fully featured magazine style website.
An extremely powerful extension. Great job JW.
Don't let some of the poor reviews on here put you off - it is not difficult to use, the css is a dream to edit, with very little effort it turns a bog standard Joomla site into a fully featured magazine style website.
An extremely powerful extension. Great job JW.
What can I say about K2, it is like reinventing the wheel. It offers everything the core Joomla! doesn't - comments, tags, predefined functionality for videos, galleries, main picture. It's plugin and templating system is incredible and allows very flexible solutions.
You can build amazing things with K2 with lesser time than with the core content extension.
Is there more to want? Well, sure, but still K2 is far ahead in the combination of power and simplicity of use.
What I would love to see? - IP of commenters, blocking/banning commenters by IP, E-mail. Maybe a non-intrusive anti-spam solution like Akismet or Mollom would be great. Of course there are other things to like (a bit improved picture management - auto-crop or so), but still believe me K2 is far far ahead.
You can build amazing things with K2 with lesser time than with the core content extension.
Is there more to want? Well, sure, but still K2 is far ahead in the combination of power and simplicity of use.
What I would love to see? - IP of commenters, blocking/banning commenters by IP, E-mail. Maybe a non-intrusive anti-spam solution like Akismet or Mollom would be great. Of course there are other things to like (a bit improved picture management - auto-crop or so), but still believe me K2 is far far ahead.
I love K2. My problem is the intricated schema used to put the pictures. There are no "picture" column in the "k2_items" table and the NAME of the picture is md5 crypted. It sucks! I lost an entire day to understand how it works.
The "heritage" scheme of categories is also confuse. after a couple of changes I lost the control and cannot retore the "default" status.
After all, the intricated CSS file make changes hard to do without a "error and atempt" hours expend.
The "heritage" scheme of categories is also confuse. after a couple of changes I lost the control and cannot retore the "default" status.
After all, the intricated CSS file make changes hard to do without a "error and atempt" hours expend.
According to me, being a Non Commercial Component, K2 is Simply Great and easy to use once get in to touch.. Only problem what I feel is I dont see any ways to publish a K2 Item in the Front page of my Joomla Site .. Any Ways, Nice Component
I've been using K2 since 2011 and still using it until the day i wrote this review. It is a nice and powerfull extension. But it still have some weakness, especially when you running your web project on localhost. version 2.5.0 above is not so good on producing localhost. But above all I still recomended it to all new and veteran Joomla users. Thanks
I have used k2 for several years now and i have come to the conclusion that they are not worth the time you put into it.
Do not expect to get any support with this product at all.
Personally i would rather PAY for something and get answers to my questions then be completely ignored on their forums.
Do not expect to get any support with this product at all.
Personally i would rather PAY for something and get answers to my questions then be completely ignored on their forums.
Owner's reply
K2 is a FREE extension. It's community supported. Saying K2 is "bad" because you don't get any support is like saying e.g. Joomla! is "bad" because no-one replied to some question of yours in the forums.
If you ever wanted premium support, you could have used the forum board dedicated to that. You simply post what you want done by some professional and people get in touch with you.
I would honestly consider what you wrote if you didn't have the option above, but you do. If you're getting paid for the site you deliver, you should also consider paying people to help you out.
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