[mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

mapu · 2007-11-12 13:34:18

-http://openswitch.org/journal/why-i-love-textpattern

New URL: http://openswitch.org/2007/11/11/why-i-love-textpattern/

Nice roundup.

Last edited by mapu (2008-01-09 10:53:38)

hcgtv · 2007-11-12 14:42:26

I’ve never understood why Wordpress is so popular, the templating system has to scare the crap out of a newbie, what with all that PHP in there. So I figure most newbies just grab a ready-made template or hire someone to create one for them.

frotzed · 2007-12-13 21:31:31

Either that or they cut and paste PHP from the WordPress Codex. You don’t even know all the times I was frustrated beyond belief with the PHP in WordPress.

thebombsite · 2007-12-13 22:37:10

I used WP before TXP and I have to say that pre-made templates are a God-send for many WP users.

Last edited by thebombsite (2007-12-14 13:20:33)

mapu · 2007-12-14 06:59:53

Btw, Ben, you promised to release your former TXP template, didn’t you? :-D

Algaris · 2007-12-14 10:04:49

hcgtv wrote:

I’ve never understood why Wordpress is so popular, the templating system has to scare the crap out of a newbie, what with all that PHP in there. So I figure most newbies just grab a ready-made template or hire someone to create one for them.

Before I started using Textpattern I looked at Wordpress. I read through it’s documentation and started learning how a Wordpress site could be fitted together. But your right, when it came to creating the layout for my site the PHP did scare the crap out of me, and made me run for the hills.

And then I found Textpattern, and haven’t looked back since. I love the tag based system, it’s so easy to use and understand, which is one of the main reasons I stay with Textpattern.

Bloke · 2007-12-14 11:44:06

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. My background was one of hand-crafting pages: I’d never even heard of a CMS up until the end of 2005 (tsk, late to the party as ever!)

But when I was writing some code for a new site and trying to make it easy on myself by modularising and templating stuff, I was unwittingly building a type of CMS of my own. I figured there had to be someone who’d done this sort of thing before, Googled and whaddya know…

Spent a good few months trawling through every option open to me, trying stuff out: Smarty, Mambo, Joomla, etc. Everything was just far too involved or bloated. I’m not scared of PHP but I looked at WordPress and figured it was a clumsy approach for my tastes. Expression Engine wasn’t free; trying to get Drupal and MovableType to behave logically was like teaching rugby players to crochet.

And then I stumbled upon Jon Hicks’ site and he recommended this thing called TextPattern. First I’d heard of it despite all the Googling so I checked it out: wow. Simple, elegant, lightweight out of the box, a sensible development time frame (not too far apart; not one every 2 weeks to warrant constant maintenance), infinitely extensible for hackers like me if I so wish, and a community of the kindest folk on the planet who pointed newbies like me in the right direction without being condescending like so many other forums.

Dream-tastic.

While I remain intrigued by ModX, TXP opened my eyes to a better way of doing things. One thing I will say for it, coming from absolute zero to TXP is a biiiiig learning curve; the nomenclature and “the TXP way” was a fundamental shift in the manner I approached page design and I really struggled for the first few months. This forum helped me immensely, absorbing posts by, especially, Stu ‘TheBombSite’ and Rob ‘WilshireOne’ whose unending desire for good-looking, functional and standards-compliant pages left me in awe of how code with such a tiny footprint could work this beautifully.

To be fair I’d have probably struggled with any CMS but, whereas I’d given up on the others through interface frustration or bloat, I could truly see TXP’s potential from the wealth of examples in the forum. So I persevered and now everything else seems kinda, well, backwards in comparison.

10 sites later I’m still learning and refining how I use TXP every day, and finding better ways of doing things. It might not be perfect but it’s so damn flexible there’s always a simple, elegant way to achieve something with a bit of lateral thinking or 5 lines of PHP; and I’m quite sure I’m not fully taking advantage of if_different yet…

zero · 2007-12-14 14:04:48

I had learned XHTML and CSS from books and built a couple of sites with Metapad (kind of a Notepad) and so was quite chuffed that I didn’t need Dreamweaver or other such software. I then stumbled across blogging but did not like Blogger at all as it took all my control away. Someone told me I had 3 choices – Movable Type, Wordpress or Textpattern. Now unlike many people I usually read the manual before installing anything, so when I found the MT documentation I thought this must be the best. But on actually trying to plough my way through the installation instructions, I realised anything so complicated couldn’t be good. So I tried WP and it was a similar story. Then TXP – minimal instructions but such a simple installation! I struggled with the concepts of categories and sections, forms and pages and tags for a week or two but once I got the hang of that there was no looking back.

I haven’t gone on to learn much about PHP because I learn things on a need-to-know basis. I haven’t needed to know very much that is complicated to use TXP, except for once when I had to find out about includes because my front page was non-standard. By the time I’d figured it out, there was a new txp version which enabled me to get the same results but using a much simpler method. And that’s the way it has often been – I find a problem but can only think of a complicated solution but someone has a method or a plugin that makes it really simple.

I think Textpattern must have the best coders around to be able to see things so clearly and simply.

frotzed · 2007-12-14 14:46:52

mapu wrote:

Btw, Ben, you promised to release your former TXP template, didn’t you? :-D

Yes, I did. I still intend to as soon as I can get some free time ;)

Pat64 · 2007-12-14 16:18:25

Just to tell you this :

As Stef siad, I’d never even heard what is a CMS in 2004. I remember, the first time I discover TXP main website in 2005, I’d not understood what is it. Confused with Textile, I’d thought it was a kind of new tool just to transform html pages into another code :)

Just an idea. Do you think a newbie can understand exactly what is TXP when he/she arrive into TXP main website? Perhaps TXP must have a more marketing approch… like WP website?

Concerning WP, last weeks, I’d talking with a member of a very very big French marketing agency specialized to the web. I’d trying to talk about TXP but without any results. All the staf members use WP. My opinion is this choice is just to be hype cause millions of people still use it.

mapu · 2008-01-09 10:56:22

I changed the URL in the original post of this thread. Sad to see that Ben went back to WP.

frotzed · 2008-01-09 14:06:18

LOL! Interestingly I’ve just hooked two of my friends up with TXP because they needed more functionality than what WordPress offers. Doing a tumblelog like I am it’s just a little easier to use WordPress with Sandbox ;) . I still love TXP!

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#1 2007-11-12 13:34:18

[mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#2 2007-11-12 14:42:26

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#3 2007-12-13 21:31:31

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#4 2007-12-13 22:37:10

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#5 2007-12-14 06:59:53

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#6 2007-12-14 10:04:49

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#7 2007-12-14 11:44:06

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#8 2007-12-14 14:04:48

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#9 2007-12-14 14:46:52

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#10 2007-12-14 16:18:25

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#11 2008-01-09 10:56:22

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

#12 2008-01-09 14:06:18

Re: [mention] Why someone prefers TXP over WP

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