Hey Buddy!
I have made the switch from designing "standard" web sites to now only working with Joomla and Open Realty. To clarify things, I use
CMS Realty to bridge Joomla and Open Realty.
There are a lot of things that I like about using that combination. For example, I can set it up so that the site owner can manage listings or add content through front end registration (rather than back end admin). Just be aware that you will probably need to prepare a good info sheet for the site owners that covers things like file naming conventions, the "Check In My Items" feature on Joomla, and more.
Another benefit to using Joomla is being able to utilize the great components and plugins that are available (both open source and paid). I'm doing a lot of things with Community Builder, SOBI2, and other components. For SEO I have found that sh404SEF is the best thing out there.
Open Realty offers a lot of flexibility as well. With the site I am working on now I have done a lot of hacking in both the codes and the template structure. The preset layouts aren't bad, it's just that I needed something different for my purposes.
To give you an idea about how OR can be modified, let me tell you about my current project. Normally, when you install OR you set it to use the same Joomla database for your web site. In my case, I set up a different database to store the listings.
Using this separate database, I can now connect multiple Joomla based sites to pull in listings and set the search criteria to limit what is displayed on each site.
For example, I will have a Hilton Head Island site and a Savannah GA site that will serve their local listings only. I will then have a regional site that will display the listings in both of those areas. Then I will have a national site that will show all listings in these and other areas around the U.S.
There is a definite learning with Joomla, and I had to think about the design of sites in an entirely new way when I started putting them together. And while there are a lot of great add-ons out there for Joomla, you really need to test them out before you go live to make sure that they work as expected.
Once I complete this large project, I am converting a number of my current client sites to the Joomla CMS application. I'm that sold on it.
My advice is to set up a test domain or sub domain and play around with it for a while. You can find a few decent free and templates to get an idea of utilizing the different module positions throughout the site.
Speaking of templates, there are some very, very cool templates out there with the ability for the web surfer to change color schemes, font sizes, and screen widths (or you can lock in the settings).
As always, if you have any questions during your testing just drop me an email or give me a call. When I get a bit further on in the development of the new site I can give you the URL.
Joomla vs. Open Realty vs. Drupal
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