SEBLOD 
Version
2.1 GA (last update on Jan 20, 2012)
Rating
Compatibility
Votes
Favoured
221
License
GPLv2 or later
Non-Commercial
Type
Views
182041
Date Added
28 July 2009
Uses 1.6 Updater?
- Yes
A simple and 100% open source environment to meet the most specific needs...
Based on the concept of CCK (Content Construction Kit), SEBLOD enables the advanced management of content types while remaining compatible with all Joomla extensions. It's well possible to produce custom catalogs to showcase products, real estate, films ... But also directories, calendars, or more complex Extranet applications.
Main features:
Total integration in Joomla!: Use com_content, com_categories, com_users...
Advanced forms & content types: Drag&Drop Interfaces, AJAX, over 40 field types...
Multi criteria search & list views: Custom criteria, list of results templates...
Template Framework: 42 positions...
Out of the box applications: Create / import /export your own apps (including content types + search features + list templates...)
Multi-site system: One Joomla installation for many sites, separated front and admin for each site, so easy to use...
Custom storage: Data Table Field, JSON, XML...
Flexible Plugin system: Field, validation, typo, storage, link, live...
Images
This is absolutely perfect, i was looking for this since the very firs joomla, is the advanced joomla backend.
Personally i got many discussions with other developers that question joomla to be a child CMS comparing it with drupal, and a very hard and useless CMS comparing it with Wordpress. With this component the gap between those CMS is closed.
Now you can have you can have and advanced website on the frontend and a friendly backend for management.
I must say that at the beginning looks very frightening, but with a couple of days of working with it the magic starts appearing everywhere.
A must have component for advanced CMS developers, but not recommended for beginners.
Personally i got many discussions with other developers that question joomla to be a child CMS comparing it with drupal, and a very hard and useless CMS comparing it with Wordpress. With this component the gap between those CMS is closed.
Now you can have you can have and advanced website on the frontend and a friendly backend for management.
I must say that at the beginning looks very frightening, but with a couple of days of working with it the magic starts appearing everywhere.
A must have component for advanced CMS developers, but not recommended for beginners.
Impressive work. Joomla now has almost infinite possibilities. The more I use it the more I realize the flexibility that has to do everything. Some people say it's complicated, I say it can not be more simple, intuitive. You must know Joomla obviously. It's all right to do whatever one wants to do. My most sincere congratulations for the work.
Also have great forum with great documentation.
You have greatly improved version of the branch 1.X.
Many thanks!
Also have great forum with great documentation.
You have greatly improved version of the branch 1.X.
Many thanks!
This is an excellent product. I can tell that it would do exactly what I need. But I can't afford the time and frustration of figuring it out by myself. It's a complex product that desperately needs the documentation promised by the developers a year and a half ago. They're great guys, and I appreciate that they're doing this for free, but I would be willing to pay a fair price for jSebold if it came with comprehensive docs.
I am speechless to the needs this has come to the rescue for me on. My thoughts are simple... Where have you been my joomla life?????
Thank you!!!
Thank you!!!
Please consider that this extension is deeply integrated into Joomla. Article writting will change a lot and will become extremly complex to manage. If you want to uninstall that software I recommand to restore a backup.
After several tries I didn't manage to remove it, in the worst case, my site when totaly down (back and front office).
After several tries I didn't manage to remove it, in the worst case, my site when totaly down (back and front office).
Seblod is so feature-rich it can be difficult to put together a complete description of what it does. I've broken my review into specific components that I hope clarify various aspects of Seblod.
I'm still getting full up to speed with Seblod, but I've seen enough to know that this is the CCK I can build with.
OVERVIEW:
There are several goals you can accomplish with Seblod:
1. Get creative about how you build Joomla articles and pages.
2. Create forms for both administrative and front-end use.
3. Use forms to create authoring systems -- site visitors can create content from the front end.
4. Create community sites with your own ideas for profile fields.
5. Make connections to database tables, then display that information dynamically.
6. Integrate other Joomla extensions into Seblod and present the results dynamically.
7. Creatively integrate Javascript and PHP into your forms.
Behind each of these goals is a set of linked options and actions. By combining all the elements of Seblod, you can dream up ways to gather and present data on your site, then set up actions to make everything act and look like what you envision.
THE SYSTEM:
On the back end, you create forms that gather input. These forms produce Joomla articles laid out the way you want. You can present these forms on the admin or front side (you can even determine which fields get presented on each side). It creates native Joomla articles, but with far greater detail.
It's really difficult to pin down everything that's possible, but Seblod works in four basic areas:
1. Fields
2. Content Types
3. Templates
4. Search Types
Fields include familiar form elements we often see (with some extra ones specific to Seblod). You create your fields, giving them names according to what you need them to do (for example, fields for “author name,” “title,” “ingredients,” “cooking instructions,” and “cooking time”).
Content types are where the structure comes together. These are actual “articles” you display in your site. For example, you could have a “recipes” type, and use it to pull in the “author name,” “title,” “ingredients,” “cooking instructions,” and “cooking time.”
Seblod templates are like regular Joomla templates, with the same set of files (index.php, CSS, JS, etc). To get page layouts for your output, you work with these files. There's a bit of PHP involved, but mainly it's classic CSS and HTML. You can edit the template files inside Seblod, or work in a text editor of your choice then upload them back into Seblod. There are templates for admin forms, site forms, and published articles produced from the forms. I'm not good with PHP, but it did not take me long to figure it out.
The search component lets you set up extensive “search types” for site visitors to find precise information. For example, you could set up a search based on the “recipes” content type and let people search based on author, title, ingredients, or cooking time.
DOCUMENTATION:
With all the power of Seblod, it really needs instructions! Here, unfortunately, is a weak spot in the Seblod universe. Many Seblod functions appear in buttons and screens that do not have obvious logic. The names of the interface functions often does not give you much of a clue. There are tooltips throughout the administrator interface, but often they are unclear due to a language barrier.
With the lack of documentation, I found myself learning through experimentation on a test site. After a while, I got the hang of it. But there are still a lot of functions that are hazy to me. Rather than experimenting, I'd rather have some written guides.
COMMUNITY:
There is an active forum community around Seblod. People there are friendly and try to help. Because the application is so extensive and complex, and there is little documentation, the community is essential. Although people do their best to help, I don't think the developers have enough time to offer the technical assistance most learners need. You can't expect to get all the answers as quickly as you want from the forum when you're learning this application. Questions often go unanswered.
Still, with kindness and persistence you will slowly get the material you need from the community to understand Seblod.
ADDRESSING CONFUSION:
Keep in mind that Seblod is not a “normal” extension. It's really in a different class. It adds a new layer to Joomla. Such an extensive application will not be easy to learn. To be blunt, when you first look at Seblod's administrative interface, you will feel overwhelmed. I did. Save yourself some stress and assume this will happen. The best way to get comfortable with Seblod is to be patient and go one step at a time. Don't try to take in the whole thing at once. Don't expect the community to answer all your questions in a few forum posts. But you will learn it if you stick with it. Once I slowed myself down, I felt less confused and became more confident.
CONCLUSION:
Seblod takes some patience and work to get going. But it's worth the effort, because what you can product with it elevates your sites to a whole new level.
I'm still getting full up to speed with Seblod, but I've seen enough to know that this is the CCK I can build with.
OVERVIEW:
There are several goals you can accomplish with Seblod:
1. Get creative about how you build Joomla articles and pages.
2. Create forms for both administrative and front-end use.
3. Use forms to create authoring systems -- site visitors can create content from the front end.
4. Create community sites with your own ideas for profile fields.
5. Make connections to database tables, then display that information dynamically.
6. Integrate other Joomla extensions into Seblod and present the results dynamically.
7. Creatively integrate Javascript and PHP into your forms.
Behind each of these goals is a set of linked options and actions. By combining all the elements of Seblod, you can dream up ways to gather and present data on your site, then set up actions to make everything act and look like what you envision.
THE SYSTEM:
On the back end, you create forms that gather input. These forms produce Joomla articles laid out the way you want. You can present these forms on the admin or front side (you can even determine which fields get presented on each side). It creates native Joomla articles, but with far greater detail.
It's really difficult to pin down everything that's possible, but Seblod works in four basic areas:
1. Fields
2. Content Types
3. Templates
4. Search Types
Fields include familiar form elements we often see (with some extra ones specific to Seblod). You create your fields, giving them names according to what you need them to do (for example, fields for “author name,” “title,” “ingredients,” “cooking instructions,” and “cooking time”).
Content types are where the structure comes together. These are actual “articles” you display in your site. For example, you could have a “recipes” type, and use it to pull in the “author name,” “title,” “ingredients,” “cooking instructions,” and “cooking time.”
Seblod templates are like regular Joomla templates, with the same set of files (index.php, CSS, JS, etc). To get page layouts for your output, you work with these files. There's a bit of PHP involved, but mainly it's classic CSS and HTML. You can edit the template files inside Seblod, or work in a text editor of your choice then upload them back into Seblod. There are templates for admin forms, site forms, and published articles produced from the forms. I'm not good with PHP, but it did not take me long to figure it out.
The search component lets you set up extensive “search types” for site visitors to find precise information. For example, you could set up a search based on the “recipes” content type and let people search based on author, title, ingredients, or cooking time.
DOCUMENTATION:
With all the power of Seblod, it really needs instructions! Here, unfortunately, is a weak spot in the Seblod universe. Many Seblod functions appear in buttons and screens that do not have obvious logic. The names of the interface functions often does not give you much of a clue. There are tooltips throughout the administrator interface, but often they are unclear due to a language barrier.
With the lack of documentation, I found myself learning through experimentation on a test site. After a while, I got the hang of it. But there are still a lot of functions that are hazy to me. Rather than experimenting, I'd rather have some written guides.
COMMUNITY:
There is an active forum community around Seblod. People there are friendly and try to help. Because the application is so extensive and complex, and there is little documentation, the community is essential. Although people do their best to help, I don't think the developers have enough time to offer the technical assistance most learners need. You can't expect to get all the answers as quickly as you want from the forum when you're learning this application. Questions often go unanswered.
Still, with kindness and persistence you will slowly get the material you need from the community to understand Seblod.
ADDRESSING CONFUSION:
Keep in mind that Seblod is not a “normal” extension. It's really in a different class. It adds a new layer to Joomla. Such an extensive application will not be easy to learn. To be blunt, when you first look at Seblod's administrative interface, you will feel overwhelmed. I did. Save yourself some stress and assume this will happen. The best way to get comfortable with Seblod is to be patient and go one step at a time. Don't try to take in the whole thing at once. Don't expect the community to answer all your questions in a few forum posts. But you will learn it if you stick with it. Once I slowed myself down, I felt less confused and became more confident.
CONCLUSION:
Seblod takes some patience and work to get going. But it's worth the effort, because what you can product with it elevates your sites to a whole new level.
After a few days exploring and diving, the power of jseblod seems to be enormous, just the real thing missing in Joomla to create a content rich website.
Only pitty is the lack of documentation.
Could be tackled by a responsive forum on the jseblod website, but this unfortanetly isn't the case. Since the extension is pretty technical and so feature rich it is sometimes hard to understand where the functionality was ment for, and that means sometimes misunderstanding from my side. A little answer on a forum could easily help to be put on the right track.
Only pitty is the lack of documentation.
Could be tackled by a responsive forum on the jseblod website, but this unfortanetly isn't the case. Since the extension is pretty technical and so feature rich it is sometimes hard to understand where the functionality was ment for, and that means sometimes misunderstanding from my side. A little answer on a forum could easily help to be put on the right track.
This thing is pure raw power. It's unbelievable what Joomla! might be turned into by an extension!
But. It has its price: this is much harder to learn and get used to than Joomla! itself. And I really mean it. It's just too damn powerful and you won't expect to just start using it... And this is where the bad news comes: there is almost no documentation. Whatever there is is written in bad English, quite often - obsolete, the support forum is a mess. It's pain, pain, pain. And you cannot just rely on your intuition with it, no way. There are quite many new concepts you have to understand well before you could let your intuition guide you, so it takes both really much clicking and thinking. In a way you could think of jSeblod CCK as of Linux some ten years ago - it was fantastic and powerful but usable for only a bunch of dedicated and capable hackers.
What I see here is a team of brilliant developers coding like crazy and producing a revolutionary piece of software but missing the resources (or just the motivation) to create a software *product* from it. It almost starts looking like one when they release a next (much more powerful!) version or a complete rewrite and I really wish they had stopped for a while so that ... I could get on the train. But! What I am trying not to forget is that these guys are writing pure GNU GPL open source code which they are generous enough to share with the community and ... that's all. It is AS IT IS, like it or not, use it or not, and there's nothing more to say to them than Thank You. I think we just got spoiled to quickly by having *freely* available tons of very high-quality open source software and learned to demand too much. And instead of complaining I should just sit down and write a howto for at least some small piece of functionality that I have been able to understand and make use of, even though not much for the moment... This is how the whole magic about open source is supposed to work, remember?
And after all I guess when they are done with Seblod 2.0 they will have all their great ideas already materialized in code so they will have nothing left to do but fix, polish, support and document ;)
But. It has its price: this is much harder to learn and get used to than Joomla! itself. And I really mean it. It's just too damn powerful and you won't expect to just start using it... And this is where the bad news comes: there is almost no documentation. Whatever there is is written in bad English, quite often - obsolete, the support forum is a mess. It's pain, pain, pain. And you cannot just rely on your intuition with it, no way. There are quite many new concepts you have to understand well before you could let your intuition guide you, so it takes both really much clicking and thinking. In a way you could think of jSeblod CCK as of Linux some ten years ago - it was fantastic and powerful but usable for only a bunch of dedicated and capable hackers.
What I see here is a team of brilliant developers coding like crazy and producing a revolutionary piece of software but missing the resources (or just the motivation) to create a software *product* from it. It almost starts looking like one when they release a next (much more powerful!) version or a complete rewrite and I really wish they had stopped for a while so that ... I could get on the train. But! What I am trying not to forget is that these guys are writing pure GNU GPL open source code which they are generous enough to share with the community and ... that's all. It is AS IT IS, like it or not, use it or not, and there's nothing more to say to them than Thank You. I think we just got spoiled to quickly by having *freely* available tons of very high-quality open source software and learned to demand too much. And instead of complaining I should just sit down and write a howto for at least some small piece of functionality that I have been able to understand and make use of, even though not much for the moment... This is how the whole magic about open source is supposed to work, remember?
And after all I guess when they are done with Seblod 2.0 they will have all their great ideas already materialized in code so they will have nothing left to do but fix, polish, support and document ;)
I was looking for this kinda M/P/C for joomla 1.5 and I found it, I was searching for long time for this M/P/C and I've used it it's easy to configure and easy to use just a piece of cake, Many Thanx for the devs and hope to see you for some fantastic work in the future.
Regards.
Shahrukh A. Khan
Regards.
Shahrukh A. Khan
Firstly this is meant to be the area to download and review version 1.8.2 for Joomla 1.5, not version 2.0 for Joomla 1.6 (which at this stage is not even a final release). Some people seem to be forgetting that.
What this extension will do:
- enable you to create fantastic custom solutions for clients (literally anything you can think of)
- integrate any existing extension or jQuery script into your content type/template
- allow easy front end submission and editing of form based content, automatically populating your category/section of choice
- allow you to build systems for those who have no technical skills. Automatic image scaling (generating multiple sizes), drag, drop and repeat are brilliant features.
- allow you to do all of the above for free!
What this extension won't do:
- teach you PHP
- teach you CSS
- give you a web development degree
- build you a great website at the click of a button
- cook you dinner and give you hugs on cold nights
Seriously! Some people expect way too much and are very quick to judge.
If you know basic HTML, PHP, CSS and JS, what can be achieved with this extension is mind boggling. If you don't, I suggest learning these things first instead of whinging that you can't use the extension.
I personally feel sorry for the Seblod team. This is an amazing piece of work and I could understand some of the criticism if it were a commercial product but it isn't.
I also fully disagree with comments about the forum. I find the Seblod team very responsive and helpful.
Thank you and keep up the good work Seblod team, this is fantastic.
Tom
What this extension will do:
- enable you to create fantastic custom solutions for clients (literally anything you can think of)
- integrate any existing extension or jQuery script into your content type/template
- allow easy front end submission and editing of form based content, automatically populating your category/section of choice
- allow you to build systems for those who have no technical skills. Automatic image scaling (generating multiple sizes), drag, drop and repeat are brilliant features.
- allow you to do all of the above for free!
What this extension won't do:
- teach you PHP
- teach you CSS
- give you a web development degree
- build you a great website at the click of a button
- cook you dinner and give you hugs on cold nights
Seriously! Some people expect way too much and are very quick to judge.
If you know basic HTML, PHP, CSS and JS, what can be achieved with this extension is mind boggling. If you don't, I suggest learning these things first instead of whinging that you can't use the extension.
I personally feel sorry for the Seblod team. This is an amazing piece of work and I could understand some of the criticism if it were a commercial product but it isn't.
I also fully disagree with comments about the forum. I find the Seblod team very responsive and helpful.
Thank you and keep up the good work Seblod team, this is fantastic.
Tom
Seems like this extansion could do a lot but let me point things I dislike and hopefully will be improved:
- doumentation is rather poor (and since this tool is quite complex it is a must)
- video tutorials without voice narration are useless (as they are to fast, the screen resolution is sometimes to low to figure out whet the presented did)
- altough it is french product, I would say that English is international dialog language and all documentations, videos, tools, etc should be maintain in English only
- uninstalling CCk is a big problem, becasue it doesn't uninstall properly, so uless you really know what are you doing you better forget uninstalling it manuall or you might crash your site completely. the best method is to make a full backup before you install it.
- operating the tool and comonents is not very intuitive
- exiting/creating new articles ald fashion way requires every time unchecking a little check mark on the top of the admin page (which drives me nuts!)
The positive aspect is that this tool seem to be well integrated with the whole Joomla framework, but the learning curve is pretty steep and long.
What I miss the most is tutorials, good documentation, and well prepared videos.
- doumentation is rather poor (and since this tool is quite complex it is a must)
- video tutorials without voice narration are useless (as they are to fast, the screen resolution is sometimes to low to figure out whet the presented did)
- altough it is french product, I would say that English is international dialog language and all documentations, videos, tools, etc should be maintain in English only
- uninstalling CCk is a big problem, becasue it doesn't uninstall properly, so uless you really know what are you doing you better forget uninstalling it manuall or you might crash your site completely. the best method is to make a full backup before you install it.
- operating the tool and comonents is not very intuitive
- exiting/creating new articles ald fashion way requires every time unchecking a little check mark on the top of the admin page (which drives me nuts!)
The positive aspect is that this tool seem to be well integrated with the whole Joomla framework, but the learning curve is pretty steep and long.
What I miss the most is tutorials, good documentation, and well prepared videos.
This component/module/plugin is extremely powerful - perhaps too powerful for my needs. I braved the top two reviews which claimed that this extension was hard to use and was not very well documented, only to be totally confused from the moment I installed it until about half an hour later when I uninstalled it. The extension is complicated and not very clear about what it is doing. Reading the documentation on the website was not very helpful either.
A little more time spent on user experience would make this a first class extension.
A little more time spent on user experience would make this a first class extension.
Though this extension has promise its been mostly unfulfilled. It continues to be one of the hardest apps to master due to an unexplainable continued lack of good documentation. Although it is relatively simple to setup new content types getting to diplay them is hampered by a very archaic convuluted and counter intuitive templating system. In short for most people who want to actually build sites that look good there are better alternatives such as K2 and Zoo. Unfortunately as others have pointed out the community behind Jseblod leaves much to be desired. Many posts go unanswered or the answers are defensive or lack detail. As most people know the community behind an open source software is vital. Finally there are often promises of changes and new versions but the developer refuses to abide by the normal conventions of beta, Release candidate etc so releases to fix these problems continue to be overly buggy though claiming to be release or release candidate worthy. If you are planning to use this software please be aware of this break from convention particularly if you are attempting to install to a production ready site (as an RC or official release implies it is ready for). Jseblod is one of the few CCKs for joomla that use the native content system and for that reason is easier to integrate with other extensions but the price is too high if you actually want to use joomla to build sites easily.
This is an extremely powerful and capable extension that has allowed me to replace several other modules with functionality I created myself using this tool. I have now settled on jSeblod CCK after trying several other popular and highly rated CCK type extensions (commercial and non-commercial). Each one had strengths and weakness, but I have been able to do everything I desired with this extension. It is virtually the combined superset of features from the other CCK type offersings. I have found the responses from developers to e quick for well formed and placed questions that comply with their posting rules.
There is one drawback and that is as a powerful extension, it is complex, and there is little user documentation at this time. I had to invest considerable time reading the forums and going through trial and error to figure out how to do things and how it worked. But once I got it, WOW. It now takes very little effort to produce quite complicated functionality. Therefore even though it took some effort to learn, it was well worth it. Fantatic thoughtful design and functionality by the developers.
There is one drawback and that is as a powerful extension, it is complex, and there is little user documentation at this time. I had to invest considerable time reading the forums and going through trial and error to figure out how to do things and how it worked. But once I got it, WOW. It now takes very little effort to produce quite complicated functionality. Therefore even though it took some effort to learn, it was well worth it. Fantatic thoughtful design and functionality by the developers.
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