Cyril Thibout Community Spotlight
Cyril Thibout of Pulsar Informatique
When did you start using SEBLOD?
We started using Joomla! in 2007. Initially, we worked on worked on a ‘traditional’ basis by using multiple extensions configured to meet clients’ needs. In 2010, we started winning bigger projects, but they were at risk of failing due to the impossibility to meet the projects’ requirements with only existing add-ons. After some time, we seriously considered dropping Joomla! in favor of other solutions we were studying. However, we didn’t want to lose our years of time and investment in Joomla! so we started looking for CCKs that would help us solve our development needs. It was at that time that we discovered SEBLOD, and after that… we never looked back!

What was the first site you build with SEBLOD?
Our first real project was a multi-language, multi-site responsive project for the famous French Sorbonne University. We had used SEBLOD for other previous smaller projects but the Sorbonne project was a real deal. There was no way to achieve it without SEBLOD!

Did you try any other CCK components for Joomla, and why did you end up choosing SEBLOD?
We studied and tested a dozen of solutions then and selected SEBLOD for several reasons:
  • A comprehensive CCK that didn’t only propose extra fields but also offered a list/search unified modelization
  • They have a strong development team that could propose a real support when needed
  • It has a robust PHP architecture that allows the development of our own plugins
  • It is a solution that extends Joomla! and doesn’t compete with it. We didn’t want to get a CMS inside a CMS, and we wanted to still be able to fully use the Joomla ecosystem
  • It has great extra functions such as a real multi-site feature
  • We could participate to the growth of SEBLOD with our own fields and template plugins
With SEBLOD any new content type still remains a native Joomla! article. This is a great feature that allows easy cross functions such as SEO, content map localization, custom search engines and so on… It becomes also very easy to build your own e-commerce experience with SEBLOD and some article related ecommerce solution!

What is your favourite SEBLOD-powered website that you’ve built and why?
Since 2010 we have developped dozens of SEBLOD powered sites (such as a museum gallery http://www.picardie-muses.fr) but some projects are real web professional applications such as job boards ( www.freejob.fr) or extranets (planning tools and CRMs, not accessible for the public, sorry) we are very proud of.

There is no way we could have developed such tools with Joomla! without SEBLOD. With SEBLOD you fully exploit the power of Joomla! SEBLOD can be considered as a visual development kit upon the Joomla framework .

What advice would you give to new users looking to get started with SEBLOD?
SEBLOD is a very powerful solution that comes with a high learning curve. This is the price for being able to overcome almost any difficulties. With the Joomla! / SEBLOD couple we now can claim there is no project we can’t achieve thanks to the inner model that SEBLOD proposes.

For us this the real place where SEBLOD shines. The form/content type and list / search type model can match any project we saw so far. So don’t be discouraged when you first meet SEBLOD! In fact, if you’re just starting,  SEBLOD apps are a perfect place to start. These were not available when we first started. They offer a great solution for you to see how functionality can be built with SEBLOD, and let you start to make changes and learn to something that exists already rather than building from scratch.

Even for smaller projects, once you master SEBLOD you will find it easier to use SELOD than using other existing extensions because it allows you to make your site/application evolve with time!

Other advice I would give is to carefully decide when you have to develop some content types with SEBLOD and when existing extensions are a better deal. Actually our policy goes as follows: if you need a special content type such as Documents, Events, Directories, you probably need SEBLOD. In some cases however it’s still better to use strong and very specific extensions such as Emailing or a Forum.

Anything else you’d like to add?
Check our tutorials at http://www.pulsar-informatique.com/actus-blog/tags/tag/seblod (in French only, you will have to use GTranslate, sorry) to have a better idea of the tremendous power SEBLOD brings to Joomla!

Our moto is true: « with SEBLOD you can unleash the power of Joomla! »

Special thanks to Cyril from Pulsar Informatique

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