Nooku Server with MageBridge
Sunday, 17 July 2011Nooku Server is a Joomla! distribution based on the Nooku Framework, and we are happy to announce that - as of today - we fully support MageBridge running on Nooku Server. This means that, besides Joomla! 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.7 and Molajo, you can now also use Nooku Server to build Joomla!/Magento combinations.
Running MageBridge on Nooku Server
When testing MageBridge on Nooku Server, we actually came across just some minor issues: Some of the icons, we were using within the MageBridge control panel were based on Joomla! images, and we replaced those images with MageBridge-based images. Also some database queries needed to be rewritten because they were not compatible with the Nooku database abstraction layer.
It should be noted that MageBridge is still primarily a Joomla! extension. But because every Joomla! extension (supposedly) runs on Nooku Server, we felt that we could support Nooku a bit by putting it on our list of supported platforms. It does not mean that MageBridge code is based on the Nooku Framework. We have some plans for integration between the MageBridge API and the Nooku Framework, but those will fall under a seperate "experiment" and not under "the main MageBridge extension being supported on Nooku Server".
Where can I get Nooku Server?
If you haven't heard of Nooku, you might want to find out more about it. However, Nooku Server is still in development - as is the Nooku Framework on which it is based. We only recommend PHP-developers to take a peek at Nooku Server, as it is primarily aimed at developers who need to build their own Joomla! extensions (err, Nooku extensions) quickly. Where to get Nooku Server? Just follow the SVN instructions on the Nooku site. If that's too difficult, most likely Nooku is not the right choice.
Will there be a MageBridge distribution?
Because we have just released support for Nooku Server and Joomla! 1.7, and simultaneously we have released a Joomla! 1.6 based TurnKey virtual machine for running MageBridge, a simple question will come forward: Will there ever be a specific MageBridge distribution? The answer is no.
A distribution (in regards of MageBridge) would mean that we could ship a Joomla! core, some templates, MageBridge itself and perhaps some more extensions preconfigured in 1 package. But because the Joomla! core now already exists in multiple distributions (Nooku, Joomla! 1.5, Joomla! 1.6, Joomla! 1.7, Molajo), it wouldn't be very flexible. Installing MageBridge is sometimes a bit more complex, but this is almost always related to the hosting environment, and not to the Joomla! core. Choosing Joomla! means choosing flexibility, and we don't want to take away that flexibility.