Some newbie How-to questions

owenhart · 2014-04-12 09:30:05

Hi TXP community! This is my first post here.
Ok, so I am trying to give TXP a try and see if it can be used for some of my blogs. I have been a WP user, but I’d like to add TXP skills to my arsenal.
I have some transition questions, and if you’d be so kind to please help me find answers, it’ll be great. :)
1. The default editor is Textile, I think. Is there anyway I can get WYSIWYG editor in TXP, like in WordPress? I am not too good at Textile and have been used to WYSIWYG and HTML editors only.
2. What are the best places to look for free/premium TXP themes/templates? I would’ve googled, but if you google WP themes, you most likely end up with spammy sites, so I’d prefer being safe here.
3. I have used Wordfence to secure and harden my WP install, like virus scan, IP block, login notifications, etc. How do I harden TXP? Any plugin?
4. Similarly, are there plugins for SEO etc?
Please pardon me if the questions seem too basic. Just getting started.

uli · 2014-04-12 13:15:55

Hi, owenhart, and welcome to the forum!

owenhart wrote #280198:

1. The default editor is Textile, I think.

That’s right ATM, TXP 4.6 (or was it the upcoming 4.5.6?) will also come with Markdown as an option.

Is there anyway I can get WYSIWYG editor in TXP, like in WordPress?

For a WYSIWYG approach there’s hak_tinymce.
But there are some helper plugins which will assist you writing Textile such as rah_textilebar, mck_textilebar or, with a slightly different approach, msd_minibar. All these place Textile control characters for you. (You’ll find all of them here in the Plugins section of this forum (some also in our Archives) or over at the TXP Resources website, also the following plugins.)

2. What are the best places to look for free/premium TXP themes/templates?

Textgarden offers the broadest spectrum here, completely free (or for the greatest part? I’m not a template guy). Pro Text Themes selled theirs, but I just saw the domain itself is now for sale. Then there is another one whose name doesn’t come to mind ATM, by a German user. Somebody? All in all the range here is pretty small compared to major CMSs.

3. I have used Wordfence to secure and harden my WP install, like virus scan, IP block, login notifications, etc. How do I harden TXP? Any plugin?

The closest there is smd_prognostics I believe. Other ones?

4. Similarly, are there plugins for SEO etc?

Unlike WP with its BIG plugins covering everything you can think of, TXP has by its versatile nature smaller plugins that are more of the specialised sort. rah_metas is the most advanced one for the meta tags, there’s also arc_metas for giving sections and categories pages their very own tags, also aks_meta comes to mind…
For page speed there are cacheing plugins like aks_cache (can cache parts of the page), zem_cache or asy_jpcache, CSS minifiers as rvm_css, and not least rah_minify for … what? Sitemaps are covered by rah_sitemap and jmd_sitemap, robots by abl_robots, and for URL niceties there are gbp_permlink (which is a Textpattern URL optimiser’s dream, yet undocumented, unfortunately), zem_rewrite, zem_redirect, arc_redirect, aks_header.

Phew, guys, please add what I’ve not yet covered.

Gocom · 2014-04-12 13:19:56

owenhart wrote #280198:

1. The default editor is Textile, I think. Is there anyway I can get WYSIWYG editor in TXP, like in WordPress? I am not too good at Textile and have been used to WYSIWYG and HTML editors only.

Yes, Textile is a formatting language Textpattern uses. There are some plugins such as soo_editarea, hak_tinymce, joh_markitup and joh_admin_ckeditor which can be used to change the editor.

2. What are the best places to look for free/premium TXP themes/templates? I would’ve googled, but if you google WP themes, you most likely end up with spammy sites, so I’d prefer being safe here.

Textpattern doesn’t have system that support installing changeable front-end themes, just one set of developed templates. Only admin-side supports packaged and changeable themes. That said, the place to find themes is TextGarden. There aren’t that many as themes aren’t officially supported.

3. I have used Wordfence to secure and harden my WP install, like virus scan, IP block, login notifications, etc. How do I harden TXP? Any plugin?

Hardening plugins are not necessary, nor will work. Certain events are sandboxed (loaded without plugins due to security and safety itself), so you could just bypass any plugins anyway by selectively crafting your requests. If you want to secure your PHP application, you normally want to do it before you even reach the PHP overhead. You do not want PHP itself have access to modify and knock down your security filters, nor run those features in the same userland.

4. Similarly, are there plugins for SEO etc?

Textpattern’s templates are not widget based. You can generate any type of markup you want to by using template tags. If you want meta descriptions etc. you would normally just store them in a custom field and pull them in your templates wherever you want. There are some plugins such as rah_metas that automate meta generation, but in general they aren’t needed, nor they should be your primary option. Automatic metas do not have much benefit.

Gocom · 2014-04-12 13:24:56

uli wrote #280202:

or was it the upcoming 4.5.6?

Major.minor.patch and patches can never add features. Version numbers present what the release contains and its compatibility. The first release that can contain Textfilters is indeed 4.6.0, but 4.6.0 isn’t necessarily where the current dev branch lands.

Last edited by Gocom (2014-04-12 13:28:15)

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#1 2014-04-12 09:30:05