Joomla Review: Finder

Today I will review finder, a popular Joomla! search extension.
First let me outline my experience with it: I have built four sites that are currently running their RC1 version. Each with very different needs and structure.

Finder is a fantastic search system, it uses similar concepts to Google but locally for your site. Instead of matching the content simply by the keyword values or repetition it matches the content by phrases and concepts.

For example if a user types in ‘blackberry’ it will execute a fairly acute search for that term. It searches the meta, content, url and title based on the weights you give to each. Thus you can specify a higher weight to the meta then lets say the url.

How does this help? Well lets say that you have a site that uses a tagging solution like Joomla! tags. Which allows you to pool from the meta keywords of your articles. You will be conscious about what keywords you chose and thus it would be wise to give them a higher weight in the finder search parameters. In contrast if you do not even use the meta functions of articles you might as well give them a very low value and instead focus on title, content or url.

Now here comes the cool part. If the user searches ‘Blackberry not iPhone’ finder selects only content that is related to blackberry and will not output anything related to iPhone. Once again based on weight. The user can also search for ‘Blackberry and iPhone not Sprint’ And finder would discern that they are looking for the first two and not the last.

This is a very handy feature for large content sites as users can truly get relevant results based on their needs.

Finder search also accounts for phrases. Which means that results are not just matched up by keywords but by the words surrounding those keywords.

A question like “Why is Blackberry better than iPhone” will yield different results in comparison to “Is iPhone better than Blackberry?” [Provided of course that you have the content to accommodate the query.]

To top all this off finder also offers plugins for the leading components out there. Including K2 content and even the Kunena forum. In the future it will offer more and more plugins for other components.

Overall we get an outstanding search tool, and I would recommend it for any site project.

You can get further details about finder here: Finder from jxtended

Posted via email from Boris Kourtoukov – The Blog

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Today I will review <a href=”http://jxtended.com/extensions/finder.html“>finder</a>,
a popular Joomla! search extension.
First let me outline my
experience with it: I have built four sites that are currently running
their RC1 version. Each with very different needs and structure.

Finder
is a fantastic search system, it uses similar concepts to Google but
locally for your site. Instead of matching the content simply by the
keyword values or repetition it matches the content by phrases and
concepts.

For example if a user types in ‘blackberry’ it will
execute a fairly acute search for that term. It searches the meta,
content, url and title based on the weights you give to each. Thus you
can specify a higher weight to the meta then lets say the url.

How
does this help? Well lets say that you have a site that uses a
tagging solution like Joomla! tags. Which allows you to pool from the
meta keywords of your articles. You will be conscious about what
keywords you chose and thus it would be wise to give them a higher
weight in the finder search parameters. In contrast if you do not even
use the meta functions of articles you might as well give them a very
low value and instead focus on title, content or url.

Now here
comes the cool part. If the user searches ‘Blackberry not iPhone’ finder
selects only content that is related to blackberry and will not output
anything related to iPhone. Once again based on weight. The user can
also search for ‘Blackberry and iPhone not Sprint’ And finder would
discern that they are looking for the first two and not the last.

This
is a very handy feature for large content sites as users can truly get
relevant results based on their needs.

Finder search also
accounts for phrases. Which means that results are not just matched up
by keywords but by the words surrounding those keywords.

A
question like “Why is Blackberry better than iPhone” will yield
different results in comparison to “Is iPhone better than Blackberry?”
[Provided of course that you have the content to accommodate the query.]

To
top all this off finder also offers plugins for the leading components
out there. Including K2 content and even the Kunena forum. In the future
it will offer more and more plugins for other components.

Overall
we get an outstanding search tool, and I would recommend it for any
site project.

You can get further details about finder here:
<a href=”http://jxtended.com/extensions/finder.html“>Finder
from jxtended</a>

Posted via email from Boris Kourtoukov – The Blog

Joomla Review: Agora Forum

I have used the Agora 3.0 forum system since it just came out in early alpha. After over a year of following it closely and working with numerous installs I think I can provide a fairly accurate assessment of the system and the team that is creating it, among other products.

Overall Agora is a fantastic feature rich forum solution. That is 100% native to Joomla. It works and it works well.

The best aspects of it are the wide range of features, from easy image and video embedding to the robust group and permission settings.

The bb code editor that is in Agora provides a vast array of features that accommodates the needs of any community. I have used it on a wide range of niche websites, from game developers to artists. All in all it has been satisfactory.

The group system allows for a complex forum setup that could truly be used for anything. Need beta testers to have their own hidden forum that can only be seen by them and the game developers? Well you can establish that without having to promote them to moderators and so forth. You can create multi-level hierarchies within the permissions of the forums and that allows for full control over who sees what.

The Agora forum system also ads a great deal of extra features, for example the ability to make certain forums ‘one post’ forums. Which is useful when you want each user to be able to post there only once, aka introduction threads/contests. The ability to allow guests to post in certain forums with captcha validation. Powerful custom smiley editor and even community Google maps.

Agora forum has its own robust profile system, but allows for integration with Jomsocial and community builder. It also provides integration for UDDIEM pm system.

The developers have also created numerous plugins and modules that accent the forum. And a few components that extend it even further.

The support is fantastic, as are the developers. The update schedule can be rather erratic but for the most part that is not a huge problem.

To date I dare say that this is the best native Joomla forum solution and recommend it for any website that needs a community.  Just make sure that you actually need a forum in the first place!

Posted via email from Boris Kourtoukov – The Blog