If you are looking for a Flipping Flash Book Solution feel free to browse these links, they are NOT affiliate ad links...and see for yourself.

Flipping Books offers a Flash plug-in to animate books or a Desktop application to create animated catalogs from PDF. These unique and fun animated online flash books are light weight, quick to implement and are easy to deploy with little to no Flash application knowledge.

In this quick review let's contrast the Joomla! Component with the more familiar Desktop to swf/html solution.

• Flipping Book Publisher [Desktop Application]

• Flipping Book Joomla! Gallery [Component v1.5 or v1.6]

Flipping Book Publisher - if you have used these desktop PDF to swf/HTML converters, this version offers enough versitility to get most of your already created brochures and catalogs output and online with a minimal time investment. Download the free trail and check the app out! I will choose this option 100% of the time where budgets and time are a crunch. Easy enough to set a Joomla! menu item to wrap the standalone HTML for a nice full page viewable animated catalog effect. However, if you are needing to link product to a cart or pages, then you may want to consider the advantages that the Joomla! Flipping Book Gallery Component for Joomla! has to offer, since time is now your biggest investment towards the final product.

Flipping Book Joomla! Gallery - will allow you to utilize your Joomla! menu and native article content power to create animated books out of your standard Joomla! article content, and supports HTML, BUT!!! this extension WILL NOT process/export/rip/create animated books from PDF files. If you are considering this solution, may I suggest that you will also need to purchase the add-on pack to get plug-in and module support - highly recommended for the full effect!

Taking the Plunge and beyond...

Came the time to rebuild an old Gallery2 site, naturally I thought "Joomla!". Usually, I think Joomla! v1.5, but now with the dawn of Joomla! 1.6, I just couldn't resist it!

Time matters, so I embarked on a FREE J1.6 template journey where clean and dark should do for a gallery site. A Joomla! 1.6 template should be easy to find, and it was. I struck paydirt when I hit the j.org's extension repository searching specifically for Joomla! v1.6 extensions. Lucky for this little gallery site, the people over at Phoca (Gallery Component) are really on top of their game.

Had I been needing to build more then an artist's gallery site, I, for certain, would be building in old faithful Joomla! 1.5, hands down. So far, I'm loving the little site that could in J1.6 and the harmony of the Phoca gallery, guestbook, and complient template. I can report it was a clean, easy, and dreamy experience. I can't wait for the rest of the developers to update their wares and truely launch the next gen of the planet's favorite CMS. Imagine all the people, together, as a whole.

Some Native j1.6 gems I found in a 2 hour cruise on the jorg ship:

• Anything Tabs
• ARI
• Flipper Image Rotator
• jDump
• jUpgrage
• Phoca Download
• Phoca Favicon
• Phoca Gallery
• Phoca Guestbook
• qr Maker
• Xmap

I've read more then a few posts around the Joomla! circles, folks just taking the plunge with v1.6. Not one to preach to the choir I won't, other then to say to the masses, if you are married to your favorite Joomla! editor, think again before building in v1.6. And if that warning isn't enough to detour you, think of your client performing front end editing tasks with "no editor". :)  ****(After the publishing of this article the release of JoomlaCK Editor is available for Joomla! 1.6 as well as JCE Editor)

There's "a tool for every job"  - "pick the right tool" until things grow up a bit and you will Joom-long and prosper!

Joom-on!