Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

kevinpotts · 2009-02-12 03:18:06

I have been combing through the dozens of posts regarding how to build community-driven sites with Textpattern, and I have come to the unsurprising but still deflating conclusion that what I want to do is simply beyond the capacity of TXP as it stands now. I have been using the system since 2003, and I understand, on a very explicit level, what is possible through its core and most of its plugins. And it is not a CMS that is built for creating an online community. This is no fault of the developers — the system is beautiful (really), and excels at everything I have wanted to do up until this point, and I have done some really complicated stuff.

I have a small-time client that is looking to build a fairly simple member-driven site. Essentially:

Every member (not visitor) of the site would have a profile. This would include about 15 or so fields of reasonably specialized info, so custom fields would be required.
Subscription management would be part of this. This is not complex — essentially, members pay annual dues through PayPal, and the status of their membership would be displayed in their profile.
Their user account would be integrated with a discussion forum. Username / password would be the same in profile management and the forum.
Members could be publicly listed, and are searchable.

That’s about it. It’s not a dramatically tall order, but it is beyond TXP. I have used and/or experimented with all of the commonly cited plugins, including Manfre’s brilliant work, as well as ign_password_protect and others. All of them achieve some small piece of the puzzle, and I imagine with some work they could be patched together into a half-assed solution. But the forum integration is still missing, and to my knowledge, elegant handling of custom fields in user registration does not exist.

The problem, such as it is, is that there is no holistic architecture to build from. Unlike the handling of text- or image-based content, plugins are difficult to come by because the underlying architecture does not support what people are really clamoring for. Maybe I’m wrong on this — I am not a programmer — but I think five years without a single comprehensive solution, native or though plugin, speaks to my observation.

As a comparison, I have been doing some serious research into ExpressionEngine, which offers all of this out of the box. I think what people who want to use TXP for their community- or member-driven sites are really looking for are really seeking what EE offers right now. Obviously the entrance fee is steep for some, including my client, who are the definition of “shoe-string budget”. (And those that suggest using Drupal for such things should be smacked. The learning curve on that system, especially for longtime users of TXP, who appreciate simplicity and elegance, is just stupid.)

I’m not sure I have a concrete point to this post. It is more observation than anything, and leaves far more questions unanswered than answered. Thoughts? Flames? Amens? Am I missing something obvious? (I hope I am.) Thanks for your time.

Mary · 2009-02-12 03:42:12

Drupal.

*waits for the smack*

Have you examined Joomla and it’s extensions at all?

renobird · 2009-02-12 04:29:54

Kevin,

You are spot on with this. For all the things that make TXP amazing (and there are a ton) – this kind of functionality seems to be lacking.
That being said, maybe wanting/needing TXP to serve these purposes is like using a wrench as a hammer? I don’t know. I do know that it would be amazing to accomplish the things you mentioned above using only TXP.

I hope this thread will open up a discussion about some of this stuff on how it can be accomplished with TXP going forward.

Drupal? Please excuse me for a moment…I need to tear my hair our with a pair pliers, and run screaming into the woods.
OK. Maybe that was a bit much. But you’re right – Drupal is not an option. :)

TXP. TXP. TXP.
Sorry. Didn’t think I’d used it enough above.

:)

—
Tom

Last edited by renobird (2009-02-12 04:32:42)

wet · 2009-02-12 06:21:25

From the “Suggesting the Others’ Dog Food” Dept.: BuddyPress.

Which allow the conclusion that a clever collection of plugins can transform a single user publishing tool into a community platform (kind of). All that’s lacking is a bit of code.

hcgtv · 2009-02-12 14:51:35

Kevin,

There was a time when I wanted to mate Textpattern with PunBB.

With what has transpired over the years, my desire has been somewhat diminished. I still strongly feel that Textpattern would make an excellent content system to place in front of a forum. It’s light, has an excellent templating system, rivaling ExpressionEngine, and to top it all off, it’s free.

Keep in mind that you can achieve a lot with plugins but there will come a time when small core changes may be needed to facilitate the marriage. From what I experienced trying to get a templating system accepted, the only way I see a community based Textpattern is via a shotgun wedding.

kevinpotts · 2009-02-13 02:11:32

There was a time when I wanted to mate Textpattern with PunBB.

Related to this, I have spent a lot of time trying to marry TXP with Vanilla, which shares a similiar “less is more” mindset. It supports custom fields for user registration and has an easy templating system to achieve design consistency. However, the only resource on this is old, and has not been updated in years, and the instructions are no longer applicable to current plugins. Which sucks.

A lot of my problems lie in the fact that I am not a developer, and could not write a “hello world” PHP script if you had a gun to my head. I would love a plugin to call user profile data out of Vanilla, something as simple as <txp:xxx_vanillagrab_user variable="firstname" /> would get me 90% there. That way the profiles could be managed outside of Textpattern. I have already successfully added Vanilla-driven login fields to my test site … it’s the rest of the integration where I am hung up.

I do not expect Textpattern to steer toward community-centric features anytime soon. (Although I do think simply supporting custom fields for user profiles, like custom fields for articles, would be awesome. That would be useful for all sorts of applications. nudge nudge) I was just relegating some observations, and laying out some wishful thinking. But at this point, I guess it’s time to start learning EE; it’s comprehensive approach is too attractive to ignore.

Last edited by kevinpotts (2009-02-13 02:13:07)

smdnetau · 2009-02-13 04:31:52

For some jobs EE is just easier to implement. A while ago I sat down and cobbled together a basic job site in EE that let employers sign up and submit & edit jobs rather easily. (Custom fields, field sets and the ability to hide the EE interface based on member groups is great for this). Recently I’ve looked for ways of doing this in txp to no avail. Not because of budgetary constraints but because I enjoy using txp. I’ve come back to txp from EE for around 50% of the sites I do and I’d like to see it evolve further – not to replicate what EE is, but borrowing an idea or two would be nice :)

Regards
Martin | stillmovingdesign.com.au
http://twitter.com/stllmvngdsgn
m. 0431 968 634

Destry · 2009-03-04 12:40:39

kevinpotts wrote:

I think what people who want to use TXP for their community- or member-driven sites are really looking for are really seeking what EE offers right now.

I’m observing what appears to be more and more interest in this kind of site, thus system that can provide it without too much trouble.

There was another thread recently about a user sign-up plugin or something? Can’t seem to find that. I remember the response, though, was to use X-Y-Z plugin combination, though it was only theoretical.

The problem I see with combining plugins to achieve a single objective is too much reliance on different developers keeping their plugins updated over time. Increased risk of something breaking against any other plugins prividing different functionality, etc. Basically, more overhead and worry than what should be necessary.

Also, I am in the same classification as Kevin; a long-time Txp user and not a programmer. I push through some stuff with use of Txp’s great tags, forms, some nice plugins…but I’m stuck in the mud if I can’t work with what’s already built. (And again, I hate the risk that comes with relying on too much plugin use…look at what’s happened with netcarver, for example, and all those people using the MLP).

I have not needed this kind of functionality before, but have started running into it lately. Maybe it’s momentum from social media, who knows. As well I’m getting questions about how to do it. People who know my long-time use of Txp and have followed my few articles on it. I don’t have an answer for them. Or until now, anyway, EE.

My latest situation is to figure out a job board (like described above by smdnetau) that is private, allows employers to sign-in to post announcements, and members to sign-in and get first looks at jobs. How can I go about this with Txp? By the way, this is an evolution of an existing Txp site, so just saying use ABC CMS is not the best response.

wet · 2009-03-04 12:48:49

As an estimate of how much effort it costs to transform a Textpatternish CMS into something user- and community-driven, have a look at the previously mentioned BuddyPress which tries to be this solution based on a conglomerate of WordPress with an orchestrated assortment of plugins.

It’s not a small attempt, so with all due honesty I wouldn’t expect that such a solution on a TXP base appears out of nowhere or as a “clever hack”, but has to be driven by a dedicated stakeholder with significant development resources.

Bloke · 2009-03-04 13:11:18

Destry wrote:

There was another thread recently about a user sign-up plugin or something? Can’t seem to find that. I remember the response, though, was to use X-Y-Z plugin combination, though it was only theoretical.

Yeah, the usual triumvirate that is ign_password_protect, mem_self_register and zem_contact_reborn (and/or mem_form to make it a quadrumvirate).

What I envisage — and I’ve touched on this before somewhere — is that a “whizz bang do it all in one” plugin might actually end up being less flexible than those individual plugins put together. As wet says, trying to anticipate the needs of all the possible uses for a community driven site in one plugin is a tall order. Not impossible, just very skyscrapery. And you still have the problem of what happens when said author ceases to maintain it.

So, a simple question then: what is it that makes (for example) EE’s implementation of building a community driven site so appealing / easy / the right choice? How do they cater for all types of site? Is it the admin interface? The design of the tool itself? The suite of plugins that gel together better? What? I’ve never used it so I don’t know.

Maybe if we can find that “something” that makes it easier then we can start to look at how to put that “something” into a TXP plugin. I suspect it’ll be a whole array of things, in which case it might just not be feasible and the combined plugin approach is the best (albeit not very “clean”) approach.

I hate the risk that comes with relying on too much plugin use…look at what’s happened with netcarver, for example, and all those people using the MLP

Nearly always a problem in any community open-source project. However, to be fair, MLP lives on thanks to Graeme’s patch for the time being and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future if I have anything to say about it. The trouble with MLP is that it’s actually a massive hack. Even a daily build of TXP can (and does) break it :-(

My latest situation is to figure out a job board

Talk to jstubbs. I think he’s done something similar for the snoooz tennis site (I think).

Last edited by Bloke (2009-03-04 14:15:59)

kevinpotts · 2009-03-05 02:16:39

wet wrote:

As an estimate of how much effort it costs to transform a Textpatternish CMS into something user- and community-driven, have a look at the previously mentioned BuddyPress which tries to be this solution based on a conglomerate of WordPress with an orchestrated assortment of plugins.

Wet, thanks for this insight. It’s always good to hear this type of thing from a core developer, since I really have no clue what it takes to accomplish what I described. I guess my question is this: is it difficult to add tables to the database to accomodate additional user fields? These don’t have to be anything fancy — I envision functionality not unlike custom fields for articles where it simply provides a value that plugin developers or dumb guys like me can hook into and display attributes on that user once they are logged in. To me, and I know I am naive, it feels like Textpattern is close to this — the fact that it already supports username, password and e-mail values, as well as permission levels for editing content, makes me think that the architecture is already halfway there.

I’m not asking for a code rewrite for 4.0.9. But possibly some emerging functionality in 4.1? Textpattern elegantly covers so many other bases of a website that it’s a no-brainer for clients, and this icing on the cake would allow us faithful to really take the CMS to the next level.

Thanks.

Last edited by kevinpotts (2009-03-05 02:22:55)

wet · 2009-03-05 05:10:41

kevinpotts wrote:

I envision functionality not unlike custom fields for articles where it simply provides a value that plugin developers or dumb guys like me can hook into and display attributes

How will this fields be populated? Sketch a user story, please.

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Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2009-02-12 03:18:06

Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#2 2009-02-12 03:42:12

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#3 2009-02-12 04:29:54

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#4 2009-02-12 06:21:25

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#5 2009-02-12 14:51:35

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#6 2009-02-13 02:11:32

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#7 2009-02-13 04:31:52

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#8 2009-03-04 12:40:39

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#9 2009-03-04 12:48:49

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#10 2009-03-04 13:11:18

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#11 2009-03-05 02:16:39

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

#12 2009-03-05 05:10:41

Re: Regarding Community-Driven Sites with TXP

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