Yesterday I posted about my Joomla template toolkit and so I thought I would put together a list of Joomla extensions that I think are essential to developing a Joomla site. I know there have been plenty of posts like this made in the past and I always enjoy reading other people's personal favourite Joomla extensions for using when developing Joomla sites, so I thought I would add my 2 cents to the discussion.

The following is a list of components, modules and (cough) Joomla admin templates that I think are crucial for putting together a foundation for your next Joomla site. It doesnt include any specific slideshow, rotator or any other fancy content display extensions since their use varies depending on the type of site you are putting together, but moreover the extensions in the list below are used to augment the Joomla core ... in other words, I install these components before doing anything else.

So here goes ...

JCE - Joomla Content Editor.

Im fairly certain that JCE would be on the list for most Joomla users and there's is a good reason for why its number one on the list. JCE is simply put the best content editor for Joomla. The editor that ships with Joomla, TinyMCE, is a good base but the additional features and functions that Ryan Demmer puts into JCE really step it up another level when it comes to managing and editing your Joomla content.

The image manager is worth the subscription for the JCE extras itself (JCE itself is a free component) but when you throw in other managers like the caption manager, file manager, media manager and template manager its makes managing your content a breeze. There is so much under the hood in JCE, plus lots of JCE features that people commonly miss thats its worth reading the documentation to get the most out of it.

XCloner

This might be a little controversial because most people will swear by Joomlapack as their default backup manager but I really find that xCloner (formerly Jomcloner) really matches my needs in terms of backing up and cloning Joomla sites. Again the choice over Joomlapack is probably more out of habit, I started using JomCloner around three years ago, but its very easy to create a site, pack it up and either move it or clone it onto a new server or the sites final destination. You have to be careful with the permission settings when you finally unpack the site but thats the case when you set up Joomla anyway.

XMap

Everybody needs a site map and XMap is my site map component of choice. I use XMap here on Joomlabamboo and judging by the reviews at the JED for Xmap its a very popular extension.

JUpdateMan

Update Manager for Joomla is an unbelievably smooth Joomla update manager. Remember making manual updates for Joomla, hell I even remember waiting for Fantastico to update its Joomla version before I could update my Joomla sites when I first discovered Joomla. This is definitely something that should be incorporated into the Joomla core, its such an effortless way to update Joomla if you manage one or more Joomla sites.

Crisp Admin

I feel a bit cheeky including this in my list, but I certainly load our new Crisp Joomla admin theme everytime I start developing a Joomla template. For me Crisp simplifies and speeds up the Joomla interface, which we know can be an issue on a slow connection or a slow server and as a designer it also helps my writing process if the admin a little prettier to work with.

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