Wordpress is the Devil...

I agree: the way WP handles themes is absurd. If ever there were proof of how crystal meth destroys lives, that’s it. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh.... after all, if WP is the product of crystal meth, what hard-core substance abuse must I use to describe Drupal and Joomla?

I’ve been working on a plugin that makes WP more like MODx Evo (i.e. it makes WP suck less):
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-content-type-manager/

MODx is the gold standard in template flexibility. I do like how WordPress has handled the interface for their "custom post-types". The API is insane (see previous comment about crystal meth), but it does offer a good way of organizing types of content (at least, it does once that plugin is installed).

I kinda feel like WP has peaked... the # of API hooks and events is obscene, they aren’t documented well, and chances are good that 3 random devs came up with half-assed solutions to any single problem, so figuring out which of 3 different functions to use for any single problem is always a crapshoot. That project has to be very difficult to maintain at this point.

Quote from: Everett at Mar 02, 2011, 07:51 PM

I agree: the way WP handles themes is absurd. If ever there were proof of how crystal meth destroys lives, that’s it. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh.... after all, if WP is the product of crystal meth, what hard-core substance abuse must I use to describe Drupal and Joomla?

Everett!
You know I trust your opinion. But whatever you do, don’t knock my crystal meth!! It’s my favorite, and it’s the only thing that keeps me going with these psycho clients! So my teeth aren’t doing so hot, big deal - other than that, it rocks!

In fact, I pretty much agree, even though I’m a WP fan. For instance, with WP just try to make an inner menu, or any seriously customized menu. Hello many lines of PHP code, whereas we have a 1-liner in MODx.

Yours truly,
Seth on Meth

Haha... yeah, I actually like WP too, for certain use cases. But stuff like menus is really a pain. That’s another WP plugin I’m working on:
http://code.google.com/p/wordpress-summarize-posts/

Quote from: Everett at Mar 03, 2011, 12:52 AM

Haha... yeah, I actually like WP too, for certain use cases. But stuff like menus is really a pain. That’s another WP plugin I’m working on:
http://code.google.com/p/wordpress-summarize-posts/

Everett,
Wow, that looks cool. You are clearly very qualified to rip on either system!

While I’m whining... I answer questions on the WP forum, too, and because it’s so popular, the questions are getting more clueless every day. Nowadays these are the most popular questions there:

- I just #$%#$ed my site, what do I do now? Help help URGENT!!! [no description, no info, no link, of course]

- What theme can I use to make a site that looks exactly like BLAH?

- I upgraded WP, and now my site is dead. Btw, I use 376 plugins.

- I want to have a large ecommerce site. I did the 1-click WP Godummy install. Now what do I do?

As soon as Revo gets rock-solid and really takes off, MODx better beware... the Great Unwashed will descend upon us!

Seth on Meth

Haha! Yes, I think you’ve captured the essence of the WP forums. I also posted about my experiences there: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,61756.0.html (Check out the YouTube link).

I’m imagining some migration tools that could attach to a WordPress/Joomla/Drupal database and slurp it into MODx. xPDO would make that a fairly straightforward operation. Devtrench posted about doing this migration and he said it really wasn’t too difficult: http://www.devtrench.com/first-impressions-of-xpdo-wordpress-to-modx-migration-tool/

Few weeks ago a dude I met at WordCamp called me to pick my brain about the wonders of this business and I showed him MODx. We have a Test Track, a demo of our standard build that I use in sales meetings. I walked him through it.

He was blown away.

This guy has been using WP with the Genesis Framework to build his sites. He is an average designer, his true love is marketing and his knowledge of code isn’t proficient.

I think what we have seen is that people with lower and average code skills (which hey, for us design types many times may be us) can use WP and don’t feel stupid when faced with a project, they can ask questions and aren’t alone in their ignorance. It’s hard to ask stupid questions in public. I know. At the same time, they might feel overwhelmed by MODx. I know when he asked me questions, he talked in terms of themes and plugins and when I answered in terms of divs and classes and scripts and then tried to show him how those were used in MODx in the templates and snippets and chunks, he got quiet. MODx is powerful, but the learning curve doesn’t come just from the fact that people have to learn the software, a lot of times, people also have to learn code.

As a designer, I have often thought people should have a license to own Photoshop. I think similar thoughts about WP.

I think that as a community we should possibly be reaching out to the bewildered and pointing them at good training. I share WP frustrations ...planning to ditch a recent project where the client requested WP and redo it in MODx...but I also understand why it is appealing. JMHO.

Quote from: redtoad at Mar 05, 2011, 10:35 PM

I think what we have seen is that people with lower and average code skills (which hey, for us design types many times may be us) can use WP and don’t feel stupid when faced with a project, they can ask questions and aren’t alone in their ignorance. It’s hard to ask stupid questions in public. I know. At the same time, they might feel overwhelmed by MODx. I know when he asked me questions, he talked in terms of themes and plugins and when I answered in terms of divs and classes and scripts and then tried to show him how those were used in MODx in the templates and snippets and chunks, he got quiet. MODx is powerful, but the learning curve doesn’t come just from the fact that people have to learn the software, a lot of times, people also have to learn code.

As a designer, I have often thought people should have a license to own Photoshop. I think similar thoughts about WP.

Red,
Very interesting thoughts, thanks. I’m seeing a lot of the same phenomena. The designers I work with, while incredible at making nice designs, are completely at a loss, not only in PHP, but don’t even know CSS at all, which I find very surprising. [Of course, this keeps me employed.] Sure, this is a byproduct of nice WYSIWYG tools that generate all the code for you. But if I were a designer per se, I would at least want to know CSS in case there’s something that Dreamweaver generates that doesn’t work or looks bad. But I see forum posts where people who do write CSS don’t even want to calculate pixel widths, which is not exactly advanced math, so they’re not going to be signing up for anything that requires any PHP code, I’m pretty sure.

[That being said, obviously there are designers who are killer CSS writers, and even adept at PHP. But I don’t run into them in my work.]

This is why I’ve looked at Revo with a critical eye even though I like it - it’s moving more towards code, not away, IMO. While that’s certainly one valid approach, I’m sure that many designers will balk at it, and clients, too. I could be wrong, but I don’t think many designers are in on the building of Revo, mainly just programmers. That’s what it looks like to me.

I see posts here and on WP forums where designers keep asking why there isn’t something that will seamless connect [Insert WYSIWYG design tool here] to MODx or WP. The other day I saw a commercial programs that purported to do this for WP via Dreamweaver. But the basic reason why it isn’t done is: it’s difficult. And if you ask a PHP coder that question, he/she will say, because there’s no need for it.

Quote from: samba at Mar 02, 2011, 08:37 PM

In fact, I pretty much agree, even though I’m a WP fan. For instance, with WP just try to make an inner menu, or any seriously customized menu. Hello many lines of PHP code, whereas we have a 1-liner in MODx.

I have just finished a WP website with two level horizontal menu, and I completely agree with you, it’s very difficult to make one, expecially if you try to highlight menu items depending on the active menu. I tried to use Categories and Subcategories to make it dynamic, but it was so difficult to highlight the item that I decided to use the Menu system of WP 3.0, which doesn’t look a dynamic solution to me.

I also had few problems and in the forum nobody answered me (probably because there are many users and many post every day).

The other thing I don’t like is that you need a plugin for every simple thing you want to do. Many of them mess up the code adding 10 times the jquery library and other usless stuff.

Anyway, I like the simplicity of WordPress admin, but when I develop a WP website I always think "Hell! If MODx had better blog integration I’d never use it!"

MODx works as a blog, it is just different in the way it works.

@samba

This is why I’ve looked at Revo with a critical eye even though I like it - it’s moving more towards code, not away, IMO. While that’s certainly one valid approach, I’m sure that many designers will balk at it, and clients, too. I could be wrong, but I don’t think many designers are in on the building of Revo, mainly just programmers. That’s what it looks like to me.

I can see where you are coming from on that. I think we will see Revo improve in terms of usability and design in future versions. Evo didn’t get to where it is overnight and I think its just a matter of time and effort before Revo equals and surpasses it. But if you have concrete needs or suggestions, speak up. The guys are really open to (appropriate) suggestion and ...just know that it might mean helping out too. LOL. But that’s the beauty of collaboration and we all want to see the tools get better. I’m going to be working towards helping in that aspect as soon as I have a free minute, myself.

But I think that understanding that a core difference between WP and MODx is that there is a skill level difference in the core users is really key.