Question on building a Joomla web site for data driven content.

Question

I have developed a demo ASP.NET web site with less than 10 pages. The application connects to a MySQL (not SQL Server) database to populate tables and fields and do CRUD operations on the database. In the final version, PDF suppport, email support, registration and other stuff.

My questions are:

1. I am thinking of porting this application into Joomla. This way I don't have to worry about designing menus, moving pages around, adding user registration and lot of other stuff I will not have to worry about.
2. Within Joomla pages (articles or modules), I want to design forms, input fields etc, just as I would in a non-Joomla PHP page, and connect these to the database using PHP. They will be like embedded content which Joomla will have nothing to do with.
3. I am also thinking of having my data in a separate database (from Joomla's own database) to avoid conflicts, naming conventions etc.
4. I feel I will have a need for jQuery etc to interact with my content when the user wants to do CRUD operations.

Is this feasible and a good idea, as opposed to using a PHP framework like CodeIgniter?

(Since I have been mainly a ASP.NET programmer using web forms, I thought this will be an easier path than writing a web site from scratch using PHP. The current pages themselves will be easy to convert, they are pretty simple).

I would appreciate any input.

Answer 1

If your requirements fits a Content Management System goals with some customizations (other people will be editing your your content in an admin panel), then it's a good idea. Even Wordpress is a good choice. IMHO, Wordpress is better do work and customize than Joomla.

If not, it's better to write from scratch: you avoid needing to do a lot of "workaround" developments just to make something work on the CMS plataform.