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#61 2007-12-06 17:48:51

milkshake
Member
From: Linz, Austria
Registered: 2007-06-24
Posts: 80
Website

Re: Introducing "xPattern" Workgroup

Logoleptic wrote:

I’m kind of curious about the EE-hate in a few recent posts.

Not to start yet another CMS comparison, but just to share experience, I found EE to have the following problems:

  • Feature overkill (smilies, anyone?)
  • It’s blogging roots are just below the surface everywhere
  • A reinvent the wheel approach (its own forum, when there are many better dedicated forums available)
  • Related to the first point, many many preferences.
  • As hcgtv pointed to, it’s closed source, which is an issue for me
  • In general, it feels like a “heavy” app you must adapt to, as opposed to the “lightness” and shrink-to-fit nature of txp

Last edited by milkshake (2007-12-06 17:49:20)

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#62 2007-12-06 18:23:57

maverick
Member
From: Southeastern Michigan, USA
Registered: 2005-01-14
Posts: 976
Website

Re: Introducing "xPattern" Workgroup

Well . . . no EE hate here. . . . . And With the same disclaimer as Milkshake . . . .

Some of things I find less appealing about EE.

I have a site running EE and a site runnning ModX. I did them mostly to keep abreast of what’s out there. I used pMachine prior to switching toe TXP.

I use the EE site as a blog; it replaced my experiment with WordPress. There are some good things about EE. I recommended it to a friend who wanted to upgrade from MT and wanted a great deal of built in power without having to deal with plugins, design, etc. It fit how he worked a bit better than the current version of Textpattern.

  • Personally, I find that Textpattern’s approach to publishing “fits” my personality a bit more than EE. I think that makes a bigger difference than many people realize. It probably is the base reason behind all that follows.
  • I find it takes me less time to post what I want, the way I want with TXP. EE has a couple more clicks to get to the write field. The write field has limited characters, so if you have a long post, or even if you have several long URLS you may have to break it up between its excerpt, field, extended fields. But you don’t know that until after you save it. It doesn’t have a “draft” status that I can find. Many times I start a post, but don’t finish it. You can set a publish later date, but if you don’t get back to it in time, it publishes in rough draft form. I do like the way EE handles the interface for setting the dates to publish and expire – that works well for me. I have been frustrated with its html, safe html, convert html characters to entities settings. For example, using “safe html” played havoc with basic urls I included in a post.
  • I get more spam comments with EE. Not much, but more than any of my TXP sites.
  • My ability to update the presentation portion of my sites is faster with TXP. I always seem to miss something or have to work harder with EE’s approach to templates to do the same thing.
  • I find that it is easier and quicker to upload images with TXP. I find EE clunky in the image department. In EE I end up ftping the image, remembering the the path, and then coding it in by hand. But maybe there is an easier way I haven’t found.
  • Upgrades for EE are not hard, but for a basic upgrade it “feels” more difficult compared to TXP. Though, in fairness, as I have added things like simple pie and custom javascript, etc. upgrades for some of my TXP sites have become more involved.
  • I think EE’s CP has some positives, but I’m never completely comfortable with it. Overall I like it much better than my experience (now outdated) with WordPress, Mambo/Joomla, and even Modx. However, TXP seems a bit easier and more elegant to use. I grant EE probably has more options and it tries to make them easy to use; I don’t use it enough to remember what options are hidden in which layer. :) Again, in fairness, I’m not sure but what TXP’s CP would be more challenging with the same options. UI design is part art, part skill, part science, and few ever make a great UI – especially as complexity grows. And TXP also occasionally frustrates me on the Admin side – but when it does, it does it less than any of the others! :D

Personally, I’d encourage you to learn what EE can do. For some projects it might be the better CMS. I’m pretty sure that in general TXP can hold its own with the current version, and Crockery will take the competition to a new level. :P

fwiw

Mike

Last edited by maverick (2007-12-06 19:19:48)

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#63 2007-12-06 18:47:13

Logoleptic
Plugin Author
From: Kansas, USA
Registered: 2004-02-29
Posts: 482

Re: Introducing "xPattern" Workgroup

That’s some great information. Thanks, guys. :-)

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