Is Textpattern right for me?

Splatt · 2005-04-16 05:03:34

I’m currently using e107 for a news/community type site. It has built-in forums, articles, news, etc. The available plugins are excellent.

I have it set up now so users can post articles, news, reviews, images, etc., which can be moderated if I elect to do so. For images I’m using a Coppermine plugin.

I like it so far, the plugins are extremely easy to write, themes are easy to create and in general it navigates well.

I feel it’s a bit bloated though and at times things don’t work the way you expect.

I’ve been looking at Textpattern and I really like the base package. It’s nice and clean, very well coded and fast. It looks like there’s a lot of community support in the way of plugins, etc. So that leaves me with these questions:

1. Does Textpattern integrate with any forums and if so does the forum take on the site theme?

2. Is it possible to allow users to post articles and other content and if so can it be limited to a specific user group?

3. Can it display RSS feeds in a “block” on a page?

4. Is there some sort of image gallery?

5. Has anyone used e107 and can they give a comparison?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

soulship · 2005-04-16 05:27:10

You should really did into the plugin section of the forum. Everything you describe above I believe has a plugin (or multiples) that will do everything on your grocery list, with more being created weekly by all the creative (and very helpfull) folks around here. Including one for PunBB (which handles this forum). I have not used it though. And from what I’m told plugins are fairly easy to implement yourself if you are a php person. I would at this point be surprised if txp couldn’t be bent to do just about anything.

Welcome to the forum!
Jamie

Last edited by soulship (2005-04-16 05:28:02)

davidm · 2005-04-16 10:06:37

Splatt, I use e107 and TXP so I might have some insight here. Agreed, e107 is a great portal system, and remember to check the next version, 0.7 which will be a big step up (I am testing the beta looks promising).

Now you need to have something in mind : e107 is a package, an integrated solution. That makes it useful because you have one single login, forum, download management, user profiles… etc. But it also makes it a little bloated sometimes (though e107 is not the worst, by far, among portal systems).

I don’t agree with soulship about the plugins solving the problem of managing a community website. For starters, there is no login integration (yet) between punBB (or any forum for that matter) and Textpattern. True, textpattern now handles downloads, but as far as customisable / extended profiles, there is nothing. Idem for granular privileges..

To answer :

1) No, you have to match your punBB (or other forum) CSS with your TXP CSS “by hand”

2) You have a basic user management feature, but it does not allow you to control which can post in what section or category. Also you have to install a plugin for self-registration.

Here are the details from TXP help files :

About Privileges

Publisher

* can create, edit or delete any article, link or comment * can change article status * can edit site preferences * has access to all site design areas * can edit sections and categories * can add and remove authors * can grant and restrict privileges

Managing Editor

* can edit and delete any article, link or comment * can change article status from Pending to Live * can edit site preferences * has access to all site design areas * can edit sections and categories

Copy Editor

* can edit any article, link or comment * can edit page Page and Form HTML

Staff Writer

* can create, edit, publish and delete own articles * can upload images

Freelancer

* can create and edit own articles * can change article status from Draft to Pending

Designer

* can edit Page HTML, Forms, and CSS

3) You can display RSS feeds wherever you like : there is no “block” system in TXP, you have way more control over content than you would have in a portal system (you can “break” contents into smaller units).

4) There are many image gallery plugins for TXP, check Textpattern.org

5) Yes I have used e107, as I said. You can’t not do a real comparison, since the two systems have radically different approach to content management. e107 is aimed at community management, handles users and privileges well, is packaged to work without much knowledge or effort. TXP is built to handle web publishing and might just be the best existing tool for that : customizing your website’s look without ANY kind of limitations, controlling precisely your typography and generate semantically rich code, also good at standard compliance. TXP requires more work, but results are far more spectacular.

I would say in your case, be prepared to put in quite some work to built a community website with TXP :
- create a login integration script
- develop an advanced user management plugin
- hack into the privilege management code to make granular control possible…

I’d dream to do that, but I am not certain it will be as efficient as a portal system. I have tried an alternative approach of this kind with BLOG:CMS which is a Nucleus + PunBB + DocuWiki + Singapore Gallery integration by Radek Hulan (formerly known as Nucleus Extreme Edition). But it’s not convincing.

The only CMS that would fit the bill for me would be TikiPro but it’s still in Beta and the community is almost inexistant… Mambo 4.6 would be an option, but it’s not expected for a year or so…

Splatt · 2005-04-16 13:14:02

Great replies! Thank you!

davidm:
I agree with your statement, You can’t not do a real comparison, since the two systems have radically different approach to content management. Textpattern is really appealing to me, I like the overall “feel

davidm · 2005-04-17 08:50:43

You’re welcome :)

Also LLLOOOVE textpattern, and wouldn’t mind having some kind of login integration with punBB.

I’d dream to manage community site with it… the closest thing is drupal, right now. You could also try LDU (forgot this one)

marvincooper · 2005-06-08 09:21:22

davidm wrote:

“I have tried an alternative approach of this kind with BLOG:CMS which is a Nucleus + PunBB + DocuWiki + Singapore Gallery integration by Radek Hulan (formerly known as Nucleus Extreme Edition). But it’s not convincing.”

I am also looking for a CMS that integrates with PunBB and has a photo gallery. I looked at BLOG:CMS and thought it looked promising, but haven’t tried it yet. What are your reservations about it? I thought the support seemd a bit thin on the ground…

My ideal would probably be Textpattern with PunBB and Photostack integrated. Has anyone done this succesfully?

Last edited by marvincooper (2005-06-08 09:22:12)

davidm · 2005-06-08 09:36:49

Support is not fast but OK, Radek always end up answering.

My reserverations are mainly :
- no single login, you have to login separately for each app, no good for community
- plugins are somewhat buggy, I had many problems with them…

I have turned definitely to tikipro, Beta 2 is a huge step forward there are very few bugs now, it’s fast, has gallery(either a small native app or gallery2 integration)/wiki(home made, traditionnal features)/forums(weak point of the lot, it’s phpBB, but there are some other integrations in sight, tikipro being modular..). User permission and rights management is very nice and it’s tableless, which for me it’s a huge point !

I like it so much I translated it in french…

Last edited by davidm (2005-06-08 09:37:39)

sekhu · 2005-06-08 10:19:11

What I found useful with other CMS/Publishing systems is the breadth of default and available themes- admittedly mostly 2 or 3 column, but for things like e107 there’s lots of ready made box templates where all you do is write your content and say I want it in box x, or box y and that’s it. I miss that about e107 and am looking at using it for a review site, though currently fiddling with TXP.

With TXP you have to build the design as you want it, which is rewarding and frustrating in equal measure – if you want to do something fancy and complicated and have no grasp of how to do css, then e107 would be the easier optio you would learn less than a 100th of how it all fits together design than you would with TXP. Still e107 will give you less gray hairs than TXP as I have found so far. Being good at graphics also helps.

E107+txp in one package would be my ideal solution:)

Oh and if anyone ha figured out how the heck to export from E107 into other formats, or to import into TXP I would be most grateful – I frown at the thought of copying and pasting over 300 entries.

Last edited by sekhu (2005-06-08 10:22:38)

marvincooper · 2005-06-08 11:04:44

I’d appreciate some reccomendations for a community site CMS, especially from anyone who runs a site with similar goals to my own. Here are my priorities:

*XHTML Strict code
*News publishing with multiple authors. News items to appear on the frontpage, with excerpts and a link to the main article.
*PunBB forum (not PHPBB) – preferably with user login integrated with rest of site
*Photo Gallery
*RSS feeds for the whole site.
*I’m not interested in themes as I am comfortable with html and css.

I think I will give Nucleus a try with the PunBB plugin – apparently this has the single login functionality.

Any comments on Nucleus anyone?

sekhu · 2005-06-08 17:22:59

I really dislike nucleus, only because I found it difficult to work with – it was messy and I found it easy to mess things up. Same with BlogCMS – nie idea but I just didn’t like the backend. I think TXP covers all of the above bar the forum – maybe there’s a way to get that done too, using some sort of bridge?

raveoli · 2005-06-08 22:03:09

I’ll add my vote for Drupal.

I’ve tried most open source cms / portal / weblogs worth trying. I’m quite indecisive and perfectionist of nature, so I’ve tried many.

Drupal kicks ass because:

It is quite compact for what it offers. Only around 1.5mb, and yet it offers a simple forum, user self registration, and all else I’d ever need.
It outputs valid XHTML code.
The admin / backend is intuitive and clean.
It can be scaled down to NOTHING. If you don’t want your users to be able to do anything else than some very specific things, like post recipes, or post articles, it can easily be done.
It is not a big monster like Mambo, Xoops, phpNuke, Xarara, e107, and the rest of all those portal systems. Yet it delivers all the power.
The templating engine is PHP based and renders very fast.

Why am I with Textpattern then? I think Textpattern is very adaptable. It can be used for most sites that doesn’t need all the features of bigger systems.

For what you’re asking, I’d really recommend you to go with Drupal for that project. For any other lesser projects, go with Textpattern.

Last edited by raveoli (2005-06-08 22:03:38)

sekhu · 2005-06-08 22:17:16

hmm i might take a look at drupal again the whole thing about taxonomy, and having to build so many things from scratch it was soooo long and complicated – then I found e107 then WP and now TXP :)

I think once you get your head around Drupal it seems pretty good, I’ve seen some very content/community rich sites using drupal as it’s core

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2005-04-16 05:03:34

Is Textpattern right for me?

#2 2005-04-16 05:27:10

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#3 2005-04-16 10:06:37

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#4 2005-04-16 13:14:02

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#5 2005-04-17 08:50:43

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#6 2005-06-08 09:21:22

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#7 2005-06-08 09:36:49

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#8 2005-06-08 10:19:11

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#9 2005-06-08 11:04:44

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#10 2005-06-08 17:22:59

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#11 2005-06-08 22:03:09

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

#12 2005-06-08 22:17:16

Re: Is Textpattern right for me?

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