Impressions of a returning PHPWMCS user

[mazze]

I just finished my recent project http://www.zugsailing.com - which was my first PHPWCMS project within the last three years. Because I was very happy with the support in this forum (my thanks go to Pepe and Heiko), I try to summarize my impressions as a returning user. Perhaps I can give some help with this, I remember to being very thankful for articles like that in the past and in other projects.

In the past few months I had the opportunity to work with several CMS, among them an enterprise-class commercial product with a 50k price tag, because the project required sophisticated multi-language features. My next project will probably be with Drupal, because the language features will be key again. At the beginning of the zugsailing.com project, my plans were to use TypoLight as CMS, so I played around for some days before seeing that the software is way too "young" for being used in *my* production environment, but this might be a question of personal preferences...

So what remains as a summary? I simply can state: PHPWCMS is a great peace of software. One of the most important points is the fact that it is mature. Hunderts of typical problems have already been discussed in the forum. And I still like the CP and RT approach very much. The way content objects can be placed with predefined blocks is a dream, compared to other products I used. And the last point I like about PHPWCMS is often being forgotten, but nevertheless very important: CMS newbies (in other words: most of my customers) have very little problem to get used to the software, even if they have never used a WCMS before.

Of course, one can mention that there are features missing, and I agree in some points: the separation of content and design sometimes requires some workarounds. A better AJAX implementation would be great - the integration of the Adobe Spry framework for the project was pretty painful for a non-programmer like me.

But after all, I will be using it again when a similar project is on the horizon. Thanks to Oliver and all the contributors!

[Jensensen]

I completely agree!

...still like the CP and RT approach very much. The way content objects can be placed with predefined blocks is a dream, compared to other products I used.

That's me...!

...And the last point I like about PHPWCMS is often being forgotten, but nevertheless very important: CMS newbies (in other words: most of my customers) have very little problem to get used to the software, even if they have never used a WCMS before.

Sorry, hmm, is this pro or cons? How did you mean?

My experiences:
All of the customers understood "the CP {and RT} approach" and like it very much to place a certain snippet of code {CP} to either [AHH, YES clear, obvious] LEFT, MAIN, TOP or RIGHT or else and so on.
click - boom - bang - public

For me there IS just ONE thing missing for this CMS: user/roll privileges for editing articles/cp to be phpwcms one of the [insiders' tip] market leaders...


PS: don't forget - this is the only cms related web forum on the globe, where users open new threads for birthday wishes to its members!!! this is phpwcms board style...

[mazze]

I simply tried to say: the easier the CMS is to use, the less support phone calls you get:-)

And I strongly agree: the lack a user/role model makes PHPWCMS a no-go for the majority of my projects. But perhaps this will change in a near future;-)

[Jensensen]

I simply tried to say: the easier the CMS is to use, the less support phone calls you get:-)

you're right but, again, back to the question --> CP approach --> easy OR not for users?? [place it LEFT, MAIN, RIGHT...]
What was your experience? Sorry, I didn't got it.

...change in a near future;-)

hopefully soon - it's on its way - once again...

btw: which was the commercial ones you worked with?

[mazze]

I worked with two commercial ones, but one of them was an inhouse development, which was sold to crossmedia production houese. The other is better known, the german CONTENS

[salmon]

I simply tried to say: the easier the CMS is to use, the less support phone calls you get:-)

you're right but, again, back to the question --> CP approach --> easy OR not for users?? [place it LEFT, MAIN, RIGHT...]
What was your experience? Sorry, I didn't got it.

I'm a newbie to this and I think PHPWCMS is reasonably easy to use. It is easier than Typo3, which is imho unnessesary difficult.

[juergen]

Hey salmon,

you are completely right!