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As I look through the many templates that have the word Postgresql on it, I note they have a familiar phrase which just happens to be copied directly from the Joomla announcement page for Joomla 3.0.

MySQL 5.1 +; MSSQL 10.50.1600.1 +; PostgreSQL 8.3.18 +

Don't believe it. Joomla 3.0+ is compatible with a few issues, but for the most part. Meaning you can install the base package. I have not found a single template that is compatible right off the web. They have all required some modification to get them to install. The problem is MySQL syntax. MySQL's current versions are more compatible these days with standard SQL statements, but developers of these templates insist on using the MySQL specific syntax which renders the statements useless in other SQL databases and therefore the templates can't be used.

Here is a recent error message that I got while trying to load T3 Frameworks which has the compatibility phrase above:

Database query failed (error # %s): %s SQL=UPDATE m2eij_extensions SET `enabled`='1' WHERE `type`='plugin' AND `folder`='system' AND `element`='t3'

One support web site that claims to support Joomla 3.x, complained that the client wasn't providing the error message so he couldn't fix it. The problem is simple. No one but MySQL uses accent marks to enclose any value that represents a field name. The accent marks are not required, yet developers continue to use it. The accent marks are only around the field names and would be an easy fix. Just search and replace every accent mark with nothing and both MySQL and Postgresql would work fine. Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg. Postgresql is case sensitive and problems crop up with field names that have mixed case. Another problem is usernames. Those would be case sensitive also which can cause problems if the web didn't force the case on that field. Obviously that could have impact on other fields and searching blogs for information.

The problem is that developers are not using the features provided by Joomla when creating queries. There are functions which ensure database compatibility, but it's just easier for developers to write out the SQL statements and execute them without going through the function breakdown. They claim they are "extending" MySQL features when they do this, but I think it's just plain laziness.

I like one client's comments on the support page I read.

"There are two ways to fix this. One is to stop advertising that the template is 3.x compatible if it won't load in Postgresql as well as MySQL. And the other is for Joomla to stop supporting Postgresql."

Certainly the template designers are not supporting it.