Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

deronsizemore · 2006-10-21 21:23:32

Just curious if anyone else is using both systems?

I just downloaded the core version a couple days ago and have been playing around with it locally just to see what’s it’s all about and it looks very powerful although I don’t really know what I’m doing yet. I’m going to try and get good at using both EE and TXP. I figure it can’t hurt knowing your way around two or even three systems (maybe one is better suited for a site than the other?), plus TXP is my first love of sorts, so I can’t leave her (if it is a she?) hangin’, lol.

If you have thoughts or sites that you’ve developed with both I’d love to see what you’ve came up with.

Please don’t turn this into a “which one is better” thread, cause that is not my intention.

hcgtv · 2006-10-22 01:55:16

Deron,

pMachine, the predecessor to ExpressionEngine, turned me on to elegant templating. Since then I’ve been spoiled, the first thing I look at in a CMS or Blog is their templating system. It’s the reason I’ve shied away from Wordpress and Mambo/Joomla!, I don’t care to see PHP in my templates.

I used EE early on, even before it was a 1.0 release and I really liked it. But one thing led to another and I went towards Nucleus CMS, it has very similar templating system. I haven’t tried the new core version but I hear that the bells and whistles are deafening ;)

As for using other systems, I think it’s a great idea. I actually have quite a lot of systems running on my home server, gotta keep an eye on what’s going on. In doing so, it brings me to a better understanding of what can be done better in the systems that I do use. You can’t request a feature if you haven’t seen a working example of it being used somewhere else and found it to be worthwhile.

Now when you have a good understanding of both TXP and EE, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

deronsizemore · 2006-10-22 03:25:07

Hey Bert…I figured if anyone responded, you would be one. :-)

I can’t say to much about EE as of yet. I’ve not actually started working on an actual site in EE, but have been reading the user guides and watching the video tutorials and it seems awesome. I’m thinking very seriously about just going ahead and dropping the $100 for the full version. That way when I need help I’ll have it from the support staff there, but you only get that support when you buy. It seems on the outside looking in (just from what I’ve been reading/watching) that it’s a pretty easy system with not much of a learning curve except learning all of the tags that you can use. I’m sure it doesn’t seem quite as hard since I’m pretty familar with TXP as they work in similar ways. If I hadn’t already been using TXP, I’m sure I’d be completely lost with EE.

Like you I don’t like to see code in the templates. Although I’ve never tried Wordpress I heard about the templates so I stayed away. I’m just not a coder/programmer at all, so I don’t want/need to see any code whatsoever. I tried Joomla before I got hooked on TXP and it was a disaster I thought. It was the most difficult system I’d ever seen, but I guess to each their own. It’s all according to how your brain thinks and puts two and two together.

Last edited by deronsizemore (2006-10-22 03:26:41)

Ace of Dubs · 2006-11-11 13:25:29

Using and loving TXP daily here, but recently a project landed in my lap for a blog/gallery/store/forum. I could probably hack TXP to get any of these functionalities, but since EE offers them out of the box, it seemed like a no-brainer for this particular site. I had messed around with EE before to make some basic comparisons to TXP, but after doing some more indepth building, I am growing to appreciate its power and elegance.

I’ve probably beat this dead horse into a pile of glue in other threads, but here are my impressions

EE Strengths

Custom Fields are unlimited and very flexible
Multi-blog from one installation
Gallery, Forum and E-Commerce Modules (obviously not free but worth mentioning)
Powerful conditional logic (else/if)
Granular control of user privileges
More overall features (though some might view this as a minus)

TXP Strengths

Small footprint
Ridiculous speed (especially with Sencer’s cache plugin)
Simple, client-friendly admin
Pretty HTML tags (EE is like Smarty)
Wealth of plugins for just about anything
Textile installed in core

Of course there is the whole open vs closed source debate, which will probably never end, but since we are simply talking about tool for the job I must say that TXP is sufficient for most of the stuff I do. There is a level of comfort I have with it and dont mind hacking a bit to get added functionality. On the flip side.. when I get a job that would require some serious hacking, tons of plugins and still not get 100% of the functionality I am looking for, I just dont see the point. EE fills this niche quite nicely.

It’s almost like TXP is my 9mm for taking out most badguys, it’s light, efficient and powerful and leaves those fools like swiss cheese. But every once in a while I will need an EE bazooka to take out those big mofos with armor plating.

Always a good thing to have more than one tool in the holster ;)

Last edited by Ace of Dubs (2006-11-11 13:27:11)

lee · 2006-11-11 16:01:38

EE looks interesting, but it adds on $250 to a client bill if their site is commercial.

hcgtv · 2006-11-11 16:26:42

Ace of Dubs wrote:

It’s almost like TXP is my 9mm for taking out most badguys, it’s light, efficient and powerful and leaves those fools like swiss cheese. But every once in a while I will need an EE bazooka to take out those big mofos with armor plating.

When you load up the Bazooka with the Gallery, Forum and E-Commerce shells. Let us know how well they splatter the enemies features.

Ace of Dubs · 2006-11-11 19:47:06

lee wrote:

EE looks interesting, but it adds on $250 to a client bill if their site is commercial.

True, but it saves me countless hours trying to integrate software that was never meant to work together. Seems like a fair trade-off to me

@ hcgtv

Will def let you know how it goes :)

leohart · 2006-11-14 22:20:07

I have used both EE and TXP and developed some small plugin for both system. While TXP has the speed advantage, EE is much easier to learn on the customer point of view. Once you get tiny_mce plugin to work in EE, the clients will definitely feel very comfortable using a well thought-out EE setup.

Of course, the unlimited categories / custom field group are definitely a plus.

URL scheme recognition is much better than txp. I have tried several txp plugin to handle url and none comes as far as EE.

Another thing that I appreciate in EE is revision of template and template group. That way my carelessness don’t get over me some time. Template group gives me a nicer way to look at pages. It is like having a page for each category so that you can access it at /{section_name}/{category_name}

EE has lots of stuff already packed in
TXP has a small core and let the functionality be added via plugin. I am just hoping for more plugin hooks.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2006-10-21 21:23:32

Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#2 2006-10-22 01:55:16

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#3 2006-10-22 03:25:07

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#4 2006-11-11 13:25:29

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#5 2006-11-11 16:01:38

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#6 2006-11-11 16:26:42

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#7 2006-11-11 19:47:06

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

#8 2006-11-14 22:20:07

Re: Anyone else using Expression Engine and TXP?

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