Versatile catalog system – Create catalogs for all purposes

In our last blog post we described the CCK feature of our new ZOO extension in detail. This time we want to take a closer look at the catalog system.

One great thing about the ZOO is that with a single installation of this component you can create unlimited catalogs. This means you can create for example a product catalog, a download archive and a news magazine. All these use cases are basically catalogs with different contents. Furthermore, different templates and styles can be assigned and each catalog will have its own individual design and layout. Using Joomla's powerful overriding features you will have full control of all ZOO layouts. Finally, you can use ZOO for very different purposes on a single website. Take the YOOtheme website for example, since our Joomla 1.5 migration back in January we use the ZOO component ourselves to manage our download section and also this blog you are reading right now. So you have been using the ZOO component for quiet some time... ;-)

Working with categories and items

Joomla itself is rather limited by its two level section/categories hierarchy. The ZOO catalog system comes with a multi-level hierarchy for categories. Managing those categories is easier than ever. Categories can be copied and moved within a catalog and also into other catalogs easily. In Joomla articles can only be assigned to a single category. The ZOO catalog system can link your content items to multiple categories of as many catalogs as you want. You will never have to create the same content twice only to show it in different catalogs. We are also very pleased with the performance when working with the ZOO. We tested it with over 10.000 items and 1.000 nested categories, and it works really fast. By the way: Of course all your items are fully searchable via the Joomla search.

Core features in a nutshell

Basically ZOO provides two core features. The first feature is the catalog system that manages the different catalogs and categories and the assignment of all content items. Catalogs with multi-level categories are containers for content all items. So all your items can easily be managed with the catalog system. The second feature is the CCK functionality which allows you to create custom types for your content items. Each time you create an item you choose which type it should be. A type is a blueprint you create for your content items, a custom combination of elements that the ZOO provides. There are various elements you can choose from like text fields, textareas, selectboxes, radio buttons but also images and downloads.

In face of all complexity of the ZOO we focused on usability and just make things work. Like our Teamlog you can expect that the ZOO will be very user-friendly.