SkyBlueCanvas History

I began using Mambo, the Joomla predecessor in 2003 while working as a freelance web designer and developer. I really liked the system but found that Mambo and Joomla were, on my smaller projects, just too feature-rich for my clients. The development of components, modules and templates was very easy for me, but the adminstration of the site was too complicated for many of the smaller web site owners for whom I was doing work.

So in 2005 I decided to build a lightweight CMS to use on my own projects. What began as a solution for a single project proved to be very useful alternative for Joomla. I deliberately designed many of the core concepts to mimic those of Joomla. For instance, the SkyBlueCanvas Plugin API is almost identical to the Joomla Plugin API.

While building a SkyBlueCanvas template is not quite the same as building a Joomla template, developers should be able to easily recognize the similarities between SkyBlueCanvas Skin Regions and Joomla Template Positions.

Joomla component developers should also be able to easily recognize the similarities between Joomla Components and SkyBlueCanvas Managers and front-end modules. I did not design SkyBlueCanvas similar to Joomla to plagiarize the work of the Joomla Developement team but rather because I thought their design is the right way to build a CMS. But I am a strong believer in choosing the right tool for the job. For many projects, Joomla is the right tool. For smaller projects, I believe SkyBlueCanvas is the right tool.

I continue to build web sites using Joomla v1.5. It is a well-designed CMS and great for many projects. SkyBlueCanvas is not intended to compete with or be a replacement for Joomla or Mambo, but I hope that you will consider using SkyBlueCanvas Lightweight CMS for your smaller web projects.