Top Quality Programming Team Speaks Out

The search for a good Joomla! 1.5 sitemap component

Written by Adrian Pavone

I have spent the past day looking for a sitemap component for Joomla! 1.5. I have tried my old favourite, xMap, and attempted to use the Joomap! component. However, both of these are not yet Joomla! 1.5 native, and so only run in legacy mode.

I did previously use xMap on my previous site (which was a Joomla! 1.5 RC2 install, running in Legacy mode), and I did quite like it. If all else fails, I will recode this component to be Joomla 1.5 native compliant.

The component at http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,3157/Itemid,35/ claims to be Joomla! 1.5 native, so I'll give it a shot and see...

***Some time passes, birds sing***

Ok, I now have com_jmnsitemap installed. The install was painless, with no workarounds required to install this feature in Joomla! 1.5 without legacy mode. However, this component is still in alpha version, and this is evident from the way that the "sitemap" it creates is only a listing of the items in the various menus. For my site, as a blog, this only creates links to the categories themselves rather than any of the articles. Also, it does not currently generate Google XML sitemaps. The search continues...

After taking a look at the other extensions listed under the Site Maps category in the Joomla! extension directory, it looks like users have never been spoiled for choice in this category. However, the Joomap! component has always been popular, and the xMap which I used previously definitily gets my vote. I would code/convert one myself, but I have a few other projects that I will be working on over the next couple of months. We shall just have to wait and see which already existing one decides to move to Joomla! 1.5 first.