Joomla! Discussion Forums

Website URL:  http://www.talklfc.com

Joomla! version: 1.0.11

Template: Element red, Joomlashack (Branding removed)

Additional Extensions (Components, Modules, Plug ins):Docman, Expose 4, IJoomla Magazine, JS Lightbox, J'shack Flash banner rotator, site map,

Custom Development: Custom Graphics, edited the Rss feed to take stories from news page.

Other Features: Invision Power Board Integration

Three (at least) specific areas of my site that I'd like feedback on (design, code, graphics, etc.): I'd love feedback on the forums, downloads section and wallpapers therein, the lightbox effect on the swuad profiles page and on general design.

Additional Comments:

This was my first attempt at Joomla.  I am aware there are a few bugs and teething problems but hopefully you get the idea.

Any ideas to improve the site are most welcome

Thank you for taking the time.

Peter

Hi, really like the site it looks great and there are some good touches, like the Amazon affiliate integration. Very easy on the eye, good work.

Thanks very much D_monkey

Do you think the forums look ok?  Like a natural part of the site?

I have been thinking about moving a couple of sites over to Joomla for some time.  There have been several reasons why I haven't done it yet, but the main reasons are simple, design related issues such as sufficiently differentiating the homepage from subsequent pages, changing the page structure etc. 

Your site is so well-designed and implemented that it has effectively resolved all of these issues for me and, further, you have given me pointers to the required tools and utilities. Don't worry though, I won't copy your site! 

The fact that this is your first Joomla project has also given me the confidence to move forward.

As far as the forums go, they look absolutely fine. They are more closely integrated than many forums out there but, to be honest, people are fairly used to the 'site-independent' style associated with forums so I don't think anyone will think they are isolated from the rest of the site.

Well done and thanks
Rix

Thanks very much Rix.  I was worried about the frontpage issue aswell.  I found the solution with the iJoomla magazine component.

Our IPB forums arent actually integrated into the site, nor are they seperate, but somewhere in between.  I achieved this by copying a (html only) page from joomla and inserting it into the board header wrapper of my invision board.  Works a treat.  Although, we only do this as we dont need to allow our members to register on the joomla aspects of the site. If you wanted a full integration, then SMF might be better.

The only thing I am going to do now is remove the splash page and move the joomla frontpage to the root of the site.  This seems the best option for SEO.

Hope that helps and good luck with your sites Rix.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

Peter

This is probably a stupid question, but how did you go about installing the IJoomla Magazine?  Are you hosting the site yourself or is this something you can ask a host to add for you?
Thanks
Rix