Articles

Processwire Article

<a href="http://processwire.com/" target="_blank">ProcessWire</a>, the content management system currently powering CMS Critic, has released some very useful features pertaining to image editing.
ProcessWire is a free and open source PHP CMS, and was recently awarded the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-free-php-cms/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Free PHP CMS</a>.
Here's a quick video demonstrating the new image editing power ProcessWire users now have.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vlWIjeukHvc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
In case you didn't catch it all from the video, here are the highlights:
<ul>
<li>New built-in image cropping feature (in addition to existing resize features), with ability to re-crop from original source image.</li>
<li>HiDPI/Retina image support for images inserted into rich text fields (via resolution doubling and increased compression).</li>
<li>New maximize (all pixels) and minimize (fit-to-window) image tools.</li>
<li>Simpler image alignment tools with live preview (align left, align right, align center).</li>
<li>New tool for viewing all variations of an image with ability to delete any or all of them.</li>
</ul>
So as you can see from the video and from the bullet points above, ProcessWire is now far more powerful when it comes to image editing.
Most of the new features are self-explanatory, and most users will immediately recognise the benefits. One feature though, might need some explaining.
<h2>ProcessWire Now Has HiDPI / Retina Image Support</h2>
HiDPI or Retina-ready images are now the default  option on most smartphones, tablets and notebook computers. So, being able to display them on your website is pretty important.
The best way to display such images is to use an image that's double the size you want to display it at, and then use width and/or height tags to scale it to 50% of its original size. Sound cumbersome, but that's the way it works.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen_shot_2015-02-13_at_4_24_14_pm700x0.png" /> 
To make it easier, ProcessWire now enables user to check a “HiDPI/Retina” checkbox in the image editor before inserting an image into content. ProcessWire then resizes the image to double the resolution you specified, and then adds a width tag (but not a height tag) to the markup, at your specified size.
The reason it doesn't add a height tag is because this makes life a whole lot easier when it comes to handling these images in responsive layouts. So all in all, it's a pretty handy feature indeed.
As a regular user of ProcessWire here at CMS Critic, I'm personally looking forward to making the most of these new features!
To get all the details on this new batch of features, <a href="http://processwire.com/blog/posts/new-image-editing-features-2.5.19/#highlights-of-new-image-editing-features" target="_blank">check out the ProcessWire blog announcement</a>.
And of course, be sure to check out <a href="/products/processwire/" target="_blank">ProcessWire via our CMS Directory</a>.

ProcessWire Unveils New Image Editing Features

mike-johnston

WordPress is, without a doubt, one of the most popular open source blog / CMS on the market but it suffers from several issues that make it less than ideal for complex or high traffic websites. For years, CMS Critic ran on WordPress and today, I'm going to pit our current CMS, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.processwire.com">ProcessWire </a>vs WordPress and explain why we made the switch and how things have changed.Before I get into this, however, I think its important to point out that a number of popular websites that previously used WordPress to help establish themselves as major brands, have since made the switch to different CMS. Take <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mashable.com">Mashable </a>for instance, one of the most popular websites in the world dropped WordPress in favor of a more custom solution.In a post over on Quora when asked if Mashable still ran on the WP platform, Chris Heald, Chief Architect @ Mashable stated:<blockquote>Mashable is now running on a custom technology stack. The public-facing bits are a Ruby on Rails backend, with a lot of the templating work pushed to the front-end with Handlebars and Backbone. We'll be doing a full writeup on the build in the near future.</blockquote>Now, this is just one example but there are many. Having said that, there are also plenty that are successfully making use of WordPress as their platform of choice and likely have no plans to switch. Each situation is unique. This isn't intended to be an “abandon ship for the end is nigh” post but rather to show another side of things. Sometimes the “WordPress is the best 3ver !!!?!?!” posts we see all over the Internet get a bit old and it becomes necessary to point out that it's not always the best option out there.Since our first site back in 2006, we ran on WordPress. I selected it for a number of reasons; it was easy to get up and running quickly with little effort, there were plenty of themes available for it and it was gaining in popularity which meant it would be easier to find support if needed. WordPress served us well for a number of years but we began to run into issues with the CMS that still plague it to this day. I'm going to break down the issues and address the differences in how things are handled between ProcessWire vs WordPress and why we prefer the former.<h2>Plugins – Getting rid of Bloat</h2>The #1 reason why we switched to ProcessWire from WordPress was bloat. Sadly, WordPress suffers from massive bloat issues that plague the CMS and cause countless headaches for those using the platform.What do I mean by bloat?WordPress; like a lot of CMS platforms; relies heavily on plugins for extra functionality over and above the core services. The main issue, however, is that these plugins are not actively vetted out (or tested) by core team members to ensure they use optimized code and are safe for your site. This means that by installing a plugin, you can bring down your whole site and cause yourself mountains of headaches all because you wanted to add some extra functionality.Sure, you can have an extra instance of your CMS in a development state (and you should) in order to work on it but the average joe isn't going to go install two instances of WordPress for their blog. They most likely will simply choose to install and assume everything will continue to work as it should. An assumption that should be realistic.Countless times when we were running on WP, we would have no idea that a plugin we installed broke some other functionality within our site until a user let us know. Let me tell you how embarassing it is to get an email from a user telling you your RSS feed is broken (and all because you wanted to add some fancy new widget to your sidebar).<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire_vs_wordpress_-_overwhelmed.jpg" alt="processwire_vs_wordpress" />With ProcessWire, most of the capability we require is already present within the system and anything over and above this can be added quickly and easily. We took the approach of having the author of ProcessWire (the amazing <a target="_blank" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-cramer/0/414/292">Ryan Cramer </a>) adapt the system by modifying templates and teaching us how to best utilize the platform to function better than what we had with WordPress.What did we get by doing this?A sleek system that works as intended with code that works alongside the core and does not compromise anything along the way. Yes, it cost to have this developed but this is not something you can do with WordPress. You cannot go to Automattic and ask them to build in some new capabilities for your site. Their platform is developed for a huge user base and unless that whole user base wants something, it won't be built into the core CMS.Other frequent issues we encountered when running WP as our CMS was downtime thanks to our web hosts. We initially ran on HostGator when we first started but another frequent occurrence we would run into would be some rogue plugin causing a huge spike in memory usage which would then result in an email from HostGator support stating that due to memory or CPU load issues they've taken the site offline until I can figure out what is causing the spike. Picture yourself getting this email while trying to take your kids to the local Science Center. This happened to me quite frequently.Since moving from WordPress, I've never received this email again.Raise your hands if you are sick of updating your CMS and your plugins / themes every 2 days?I'm guessing a lot of you have your hands up and rightfully so. Nothing is more annoying than the constant need to update plugins daily (I'm talking to your WordPress SEO!). While it's great that the authors are constantly updating to resolve issues and add functionality, it distracts from the sole purpose of your site in the first place, to publish content .Furthermore, every time you update you are at risk of something breaking or causing a conflict with another plugin you have installed. Do you want to spend all of your time just trying to keep your site from breaking or do you want to get that article you've been thinking about and planning published for the world to see?Me, I'm for the latter.Don't get me wrong, it's great that there are people that work hard to constantly improve their product offerings by updating to resolve bugs and add features but do we need to update daily? The problem with the way things work here is that the end user typically has no idea if they need to update right away or if it can wait so they tend to update everything every time they see that there's a need. This simply compounds the opportunity for something to go wrong with a crash or conflict.Believe me when I tell you that the plugin developers don't work together to ensure their plugins don't conflict with one another. With ProcessWire, I know that when something hits the modules directory, Ryan has had a look at it (90% of the time) and made suggestions on improvements. This doesn't mean that crashes can't and won't happen but they are far less likely (and haven't happened yet since switching in May 2013 to ProcessWire).Caching for SpeedThe next issue is with caching, WordPress has lots of great caching plugins such as WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache and many others and while they work great to a point, they suffer from the same issues that I spoke about earlier. They simply aren't vetted out to work reliably and they overwhelm users with options and prompts to buy upgrades.With ProcessWire, we have one plugin called ProcessWire ProCache that is installed, automatically enabled and simply does its job without annoying me with options or prompts to clear the cache. If I need to do so, I can turn it off or on and clear the cache with a simple checkbox but rarely do I ever need to touch it. Furthermore, our site loads far faster than it did in the past with a huge difference in response time over anything we had built with WordPress.Making the move to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.processwire.com">ProcessWire</a> was the best thing we've ever done. We have an amazingly good <a href="/products/">CMS directory </a>that was built specifically for our needs, our system is rarely down and if it is, it's because I broke something playing with code and not because of the CMS itself.As our writer, Kaya, will attest;<blockquote>“When CMS Critic made the switch to ProcessWire, it was the sheer speed of the system which struck me hardest. Whether you're creating, editing or deleting a post, ProcessWire just seems to snap into action a lot faster than any WordPress setup I've ever used – and I have used many.Furthermore, I've grown to prefer Processwire's interface over WordPress'. Post creation features like summary text, featured images, tags, etc, are all presented in a linear fashion, via toggle menus. It's all very clean and tidy. Paired together, the speed of Processwire along with its sleek interface makes the “ProcessWire vs WordPress” question well worth asking.”</blockquote>That's not to say that WordPress doesn't have its own place. It most certainly is the top blog platform out there and if you are looking for a quick way to put together a site based off of a host of themes that exist on the market, then WP is the way to go. When it comes to the requirements of a full fledged CMS (speed, simplicity, stability) then I would quickly dismiss WordPress as a viable option.I know for a fact that there are plenty of you who will disagree and that's great that you are experiencing success running WP in different environments but I will say that when I need something I can rely on, I will, in every instance, turn to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.processwire.com">ProcessWire</a> as my CMS of choice.What's your CMS of choice? Is it different than these? Do you have differing experiences? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.** Update 7/30/14 **I've noticed a few WP based bloggers have misinterpreted this article to mean that all publishers and bloggers should switch to Processwire because it's better at blogging. I'm not sure how this happened or why anyone would get that from this article but apparently a few people have so let me clarify a few things.<ol><li>I am not saying that Processwire is better for blogging than WordPress. That's ridiculous.</li><li>I am saying that WordPress has a number of inherent issues such as bloat and problems with the plugin directory (I've recently expanded on this <a href="/wordpress-joomla-and-drupal-are-not-the-best-cms/">here</a>) Anyone who disagrees with this point is simply arguing for the sake of doing so. There is no question that there are better alternatives and I've seen plenty of them. I can guarantee you I've tested more CMS than anyone out there and better options exist that do a better job of vetting out their plugins.</li><li>There are plenty of other great platforms out there for just writing. I'm sorry, WP may be the most popular but for straight up blogging, I am more of a fan of the more minimalistic options. I've provided a huge list of alternatives here: <a href="/minimalist-blogging-platforms/">Simple Blogging Platforms</a></li></ol>~ Mike

ProcessWire vs WordPress

The free PHP open source CMS, <a href="http://processwire.com/" target="_blank">ProcessWire</a>, has made some announcements to do with its latest project.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pwpw_200x0.png" /> 
ProcessWire 3.0 Alpha 1 is here, with promises of its own namespace, multi-instance support, and more. There have also been improvements made to the current version of ProcessWire, <a href="http://processwire.com/blog/posts/processwire-2.6.20-and-surprise-processwire-3.0-alpha-1/" target="_blank">via version 2.6.20</a>.
As far as a release date is concerned, the ProcessWire team has simply said that a stable release won't be available until spring 2016.
<h3>What's New with ProcessWire 3.0?</h3>
At this early stage, ProcessWire 3.0 is identical in functionality to the current dev branch (2.6.20).
However, it differs greatly on the code side:
<ul>
<li>ProcessWire 3.0 runs in its own PHP namespace. Previous versions of ProcessWire ran in the root namespace.</li>
<li>It supports the ability for modules to optionally use alternate namespaces. Modules that use dedicated namespaces also benefit from more autoloading options.</li>
<li>Multi-instance ProcessWire support is partially there already, though not quite ready for you to use just yet. What is multi-instance support? That means you can have one script that's issuing API calls to multiple installations of ProcessWire, different databases, and so forth.</li>
<li>ProcessWire have done a lot of code cleanup, getting rid of old-style API calls, deprecated methods and more.</li>
<li>Composer support is partially there and in progress.</li>
</ul>
According to ProcessWire, “the above [list] is how this version is different now, but of course there's a lot more on the way”.
As many readers will know, CMS Critic is currently powered by ProcessWire, and as a free and open-source project, we're always eager to see how it evolves at a platform.
More information on this Alpha release <a href="http://processwire.com/blog/posts/processwire-2.6.20-and-surprise-processwire-3.0-alpha-1/" target="_blank">can be found on the ProcessWire blog</a>. To download the first Alpha for ProcessWire 3.0, <a href="https://github.com/ryancramerdesign/ProcessWire/tree/devns" target="_blank">visit GitHub</a>.
And as always, be sure to check out <a href="/products/processwire/" target="_blank">ProcessWire through our CMS Directory</a>.

ProcessWire 3.0 Alpha 1 Released

Those who know me know I am a huge fan of simplicity and minimalism and when these two traits can be found in a CMS, well, you pretty much have my interest piqued. Simplicity and minimalism doesn't mean a lack of functionality, however, and in the case of ProcessWire, it means a whole lot of features packed into a no-nonsense CMS without the fluff. And that means, Mikey likes it (for those old enough to remember <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYEXzx-TINc"> this commercial</a>, you'll get the joke there.)
Before I get into the review, I recommend you watch this video which gives a great overview of ProcessWire and helps you get an understanding of the product before reading below.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wl4XiYadV_k?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<a href="http://processwire.com/about/what/">Here is a great explanation</a> as to what ProcessWire hopes to achieve as well and it's a good read for those considering this CMS.
For this review, I'm using the Blog Profile that Ryan Cramer (ProcessWire's founder) has put together for those who are interested in using this CMS for their blogs or who wish to incorporate a blog into their existing ProcessWire sites.
What I personally find amazing about this blog profile is the fact that Ryan quite literally started this June 8, 2012 and already it is packed with features comparable to some of the more popular blog platforms.
Take a look at this list of features:
<ul>
<li>Mobile-friendly (responsive)</li>
<li>Customizable categories and tags</li>
<li>Monthly and yearly archives</li>
<li>Comments may be browsed with posts or on their own</li>
<li>Author biographies</li>
<li>Customizable and sortable sidebar widgets</li>
<li>Recent comments and recent posts widgets</li>
<li>Can be connected to your Twitter account with the Recent Tweets widget</li>
<li>RSS feeds for posts by date or category</li>
<li>RSS feed for recent comments</li>
<li>Built-in lightbox photo gallery</li>
<li>Built-in YouTube and Vimeo video embedding–just paste in the video URL!</li>
<li>Multi-language ready</li>
<li>Custom search engine for blog posts</li>
<li>Markup and styles based on the Skeleton boilerplate CSS framework.</li>
<li>Built around well documented, easy-to-understand and easy-to-modify ProcessWire template files and CSS. This makes it easy for you to use as-is or as a starting point for your own completely custom blog.</li>
</ul>
Now think about how quickly he managed to build this blog profile using ProcessWire and if that doesn't tell you something about how powerful this system is, I don't know what would.
Here's how it looks when you first install it (by the way, the installation is about 5 steps and it's super easy so no need to include screenshots of that process here.)
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/instant-resume-website-2xl_yotrxp.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
As you can see, you start with a standard three column template with a menu on the left, nice comment counter beside your title and everything you'd expect from a typical blog (ala WordPress, etc). Ryan has included a number of awesome ways of displaying your posts within the site. You can browse by Categories, Tags, Archives, Comments and Authors. Here's how each of these views looks to the end user.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-2-620x338.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" /> 
ProcessWire Review – Posts by Category
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pablo_14_fgmrpr.png" alt="ProcessWire Review - Posts by Tag" /> 
ProcessWire Review – Posts by Tag
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-4-620x264.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review - Archives" /> 
ProcessWire Review – Archives
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-6-620x264.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review - Posts by Author" /> 
ProcessWire Review – Posts by Author
You can also view recent comments from the Comments link:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pablo_11_vopagb.png" alt="ProcessWire Review - Recent Comments" /> 
ProcessWire Review – Recent Comments
With each blog post you write, readers are able to leave comments as well, here's how they link at the bottom of a blog post:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-7-620x711.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
As you can see if you read the comment in the screenshot above, Ryan has thought of pretty much everything and has enabled comment moderation by default, but should you choose to do so, you can disable this. You can also install the Akismet module (powerful spam protection from the makers of WordPress) from within ProcessWire and use it to help trim spam comments.
Perhaps you are interested in writing a post that includes a gallery of pictures? ProcessWire can handle that with ease. Not only does it come loaded with a lightbox effect for your images that pops the picture up over the post but it also nicely organizes the images into a thumbnail gallery for you. As part of the sample content that ProcessWire starts off with, you'll get a nice post that explains how to quickly generate an awesome looking gallery post. Here's how it looks when published:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-8-620x439.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review " />
Here it is again showing the effect that happens when you click on a thumbnail:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-9-620x477.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review " />
That, in a nutshell, is the blog profile for ProcessWire.
Now that you've seen some of what it can produce, you must surely be wondering where all of this magic takes place? Why, in the CMS itself of course! Let's take a look!
Here's how ProcessWire looks when you first log in:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-11-620x329.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Were you expecting more clutter? You won't find it here.
There you have it, the ProcessWire backend. Where all of the magic happens. On this first page, we've got all of our types of content neatly organized and ready for editing, moving, viewing, etc..
When you are ready to add content you simply click on the type of content you wish to modify, in this case we'll go with Blog Posts and select ‘New'.
Let's do a sample post shall we?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-12.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Once you've entered your Title and slug, you'll click save to proceed. You'll then get this page:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-13-620x573.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
As you can see, I entered some text in the body of my post, uploaded a picture and entered a description for it. Scrolling down, I'd be able select my category, enter any tags I wish and view any comments (including those that might need moderating).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-14-620x236.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
To further modify the post, I can click on the settings link and make the necessary changes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-15-620x573.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Once published, here's how it looks within the blog profile on the site:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2017-07-01-at-54732-pm-lg_w67kr7.png" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Now that we've seen how adding content works, it's time to look more at the admin interface so let's take a look at the Setup menu where templates and fields can be created and modified.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2017-07-01-at-54546-pm-lg_h9lnvj.png" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Opening the Templates menu, we can see a huge list of all templates within ProcessWire. This is also where you would go to create or modify them.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-18-620x500.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Each template makes use of specific instructions and fields that you choose when creating the template (or modifying an existing one). Within this blog profile for instance, we have the templates above and a list of fields that looks like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-19-620x463.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
New fields can be added easily and made available within templates. To do so, you would simply click on Add New Field and you'd be presented with a screen like the one below where you would enter the name for the field, select the field type, enter a label and a description.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/17917160_409518032760518_467998378344912777_o_ljfxwb.png" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
Once this is complete, you can enter additional details for the field:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/processwire-26.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" /> 
Formatting options
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-blocks_qh1yp2.gif" alt="ProcessWire Review" /> 
Input Field Settings
Once the field is customized to your liking, you simply go back and choose which template you'd like to add it to your chosen template by editing it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-100-blocks_ik55ou.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
That's how easy it is to add a new type of content to a template. Quick and simple. Templates can be heavily modifed to your liking and there are tabs for URL settings, access privileges, caching and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-twenty-pages_gnstey.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" /> 
URL Settings
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-home-pages_p1hxwp.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" /> 
Output Caching
Perhaps you'd like to add additional functionality to your ProcessWire installation? There are plenty of modules to choose from. Simply navigate to the Modules link at the top of your Processwire admin area and you'll get a list of Modules to choose from. There's also a handy button to check for new modules that you've uploaded since when you first did your install.
To install a module, click the Install button (hopefully that's obvious from the screenshot below):
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-blog-functionality_a3ezg7.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
ProcessWire comes with an advanced permissions system as well. You can control every little detail if you wanted to and be obsessive with your permissions, or you can choose to use the defaults. You can create new permissions, roles and users from within the Access page and you can go as granular as you wish.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-seo-settings_aae6zw.jpg" alt="ProcessWire Review" />
That, ladies and gentlemen, is ProcessWire in a nutshell. For those of you who are still not sure if it's the right system for you, be sure to read their about page where there's a good sample of sites running Processwire ( <a href="http://processwire.com/about/"> http://processwire.com/about/ </a> ) and check out <a href="http://processwire.com/videos/"> these videos </a> showcasing some additional functionality within the system or even better, <a href="http://processwire.com/demo/"> try their demo </a> .
<h3>What do I like about ProcessWire?</h3>
ProcessWire offers simplicity, power and flexibility in a small package that, with a small learning curve, is quick to pick up and learn. They have an awesome, tight knit community that is quick to offer suggestions and help to those who need it and there are plenty of modules.
They are also in the running in our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/"> Critic's Choice CMS Awards</a> so if you like them, go vote!
For those looking for an awesome CMS with a ton of power that's easy on the resources, you'd be remiss not to <a href="http://www.processwire.com"> check out ProcessWire </a> .

ProcessWire Review - Simplicity Meets Performance

If you've been waiting to cast your vote for your favorites in the People's Choice Awards, now is the time to do so.Voting has officially opened and you may now <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">cast your vote</a>! So head on over to our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">awards page</a> and submit your favorites.If you are in the running, we have created a handy badge you can use to spur interest...Simply download the graphic (shown below) and link it to <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">https://www.cmscritic.com/critics-choice-cms-awards/</a>.For those who missed it, here are the nominees in each category:<h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Open Source CMS</a></h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-open-source-cms-nominees">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li><a target="_blank" href="https://modx.com/">MODx</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.dnnsoftware.com/">DNN Platform</a></li><li><a href="/products/liferay">Liferay</a></li><li><a href="/products/processwire/">Processwire</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://e107.org/">e107</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Free CMS</a></h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-free-cms-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li><a target="_blank" href="https://processwire.com/">Processwire</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://tiki.org/HomePage">Tiki</a></li><li><a href="/products/concrete-cms">Concrete5</a></li><li><a href="/products/wordpress/">WordPress</a></li><li><a href="/products/umbraco/">Umbraco</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Small to Midsize Business CMS</a></h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-small-to-midsize-business-cms-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li>Adobe Business Catalyst</li><li><a href="/products/ingeniux/">Ingeniux</a></li><li><a href="/products/kentico/">Kentico</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.percussion.com/">Percussion</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms">Sitefinity</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Enterprise CMS</a></h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-enterprise-cms-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.adobe.com/solutions/web-experience-management.html">Adobe Experience Manager</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.hannonhill.com/products/cascade-cms/index.html">Cascade Server</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/">EpiServer</a></li><li><a href="/products/liferay/">Liferay</a></li><li><a href="/products/sitecore/">Sitecore</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best eCommerce Solution </a> (New for 2013!)</h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-ecommerce-solution-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li>3dcart</li><li>Aspxcommerce</li><li><a href="/products/bigcommerce/">BigCommerce</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/magento-commerce.html">Magento</a></li><li><a href="/products/shopify/">Shopify</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Website Builder</a></h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-website-builder-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li>Adobe Business Catalyst</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.jimdo.com/">Jimdo</a></li><li><a href="/products/squarespace/">Squarespace</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ucoz.com/">UCoz</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.webydo.com/">Webydo</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Forum Solution </a> (New for 2013!)</h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-forum-solution-nominees">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li><a target="_blank" href="http://vanillaforums.org/">Vanilla Forums</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://nodebb.org/">NodeBB</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.simplemachines.org/">Simple Machines Forum</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.vbulletin.com/">VBulletin</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.invisionpower.com/">Invision Power Board (IPBoard)</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Social Networking Solution</a></h3>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-social-networking-solution-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):<ol><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.dnnsoftware.com/products/evoq-engage">Evoq Social</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.phpfox.com/">PHPFox</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.oxwall.com/">Oxwall</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.socialcore.com">SocialCore</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://socialengine.com/">Social Engine</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Hosted/Cloud CMS </a> (New for 2013!)</h3><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="http://acquia.com/products-services/acquia-cloud">Acquia Cloud</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://agilitycms.com/">Agility CMS</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.paperthin.com/products/commonspot-cms.cfm">CommonSpot</a></li><li>Gutensite</li></ol>Best of luck to all who are in the running!

It's Official! Voting is Now Open for the People's Choice Awards!

<a href="https://processwire.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ProcessWire</a>, the open-source PHP platform, has some updates well worth noting.
CMS Critic itself is powered by ProcessWire, an exciting product that was recently <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-free-php-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">crowned winner of the 2014 Critic's Choice Award for Best Free PHP CMS</a>.ProcessWire 2.6.1 has been made the new master version, pushing ProcessWire 2.6.2 to the dev branch with all new field-level access control and overrides support. Let's dig a little deeper.
<h2>What's New With ProcessWire (Version 2.6.2)</h2>
Updates including the <a href="https://processwire.com/blog/posts/processwire-core-updates-2.6.1-and-more/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">page editor reminding you to save your work</a> have been made to vesion 2.6.1, making it the latest master version of ProcessWire.
Version 2.6.2 is now the latest dev release, which adds the following:
<h3>Field-level Permissions: A Whole New Level of Granularity for Built-in Access Control:</h3>
The introduction of field-level permissions into 2.6.2 has been labeled as a “big announcement” by the ProcessWire team.
Until now, permissions have been managed at a template level, meaning essentially that the superuser can decide which roles have view and/or edit access to any given template.
Because permissions are inherited from the parent page to any other pages using a template that doesn't define its own permissions, this system should be both simple and (relatively) flexible. Various 3rd party modules already provide features for users wishing for more control than the template-level access control system can offer, but lately, we've also seen increasing amounts of requests for a more granular core-level access control system.
This latest core update brings very similar access control to the fields themselves, meaning that instead of giving a specific role edit access to a template as a whole, you can actually specify which individual fields a given role can view or edit.
Additionally, these settings can be redefined on a per-template basis, giving superusers a whole lot of new control over how site content is managed (or viewed, for that matter).
<a href="http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30485604/processwire.com?p=eyJzIjoiUUIxSXpNX29GR2I4WE1EVFg0YTQ4c0ZaM3NRIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDQ4NTYwNCxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvcHJvY2Vzc3dpcmUuY29tXFxcL2Jsb2dcXFwvcG9zdHNcXFwvZmllbGQtcGVybWlzc2lvbnMtb3ZlcnJpZGVzLWFuZC1tb3JlLTIuNi4yXFxcLyNncmFudWxhci1hY2Nlc3MtY29udHJvbC13aXRoLWZpZWxkLWxldmVsLXBlcm1pc3Npb25zXCIsXCJpZFwiOlwiNmVhMjk2MTA5NTk5NDllNDhlMDJhYzQ3OWQ0M2YwZmZcIixcInVybF9pZHNcIjpbXCI5MTU4NjUxMTZhZjJjZGIwMGM0YmQ0NWE1YTNiMmIwMDMzMGJlNjNkXCJdfSJ9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Read more about ProcessWire's new field-level permissions</a>.
<h3>New Overrides Tab: Improves Manageability of Per-template Changes (Or Overrides)</h3>
Another new addition to ProcessWire 2.6.2 also affects fields.
When editing a field, there's a new tab by the name of “overrides”, and what this tab contains is a list of all the per-template changes made to the settings of the current field. Per-template values are displayed right next to global ones, making this view very easy to read and understand.
Not only does the overrides tab allow you to see changes made to field settings, but it also allows you to remove them if you so choose. Especially considering the new per-template field-level permissions, this new tool can really come in handy!
<a href="http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30485604/processwire.com?p=eyJzIjoiVDlOT01WM0VQcUVRZkVOZmJUUmlBZmRZQW44IiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDQ4NTYwNCxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvcHJvY2Vzc3dpcmUuY29tXFxcL2Jsb2dcXFwvcG9zdHNcXFwvZmllbGQtcGVybWlzc2lvbnMtb3ZlcnJpZGVzLWFuZC1tb3JlLTIuNi4yXFxcLyNuZXctb3ZlcnJpZGVzLXRhYi1pbi1maWVsZC1lZGl0b3JcIixcImlkXCI6XCI2ZWEyOTYxMDk1OTk0OWU0OGUwMmFjNDc5ZDQzZjBmZlwiLFwidXJsX2lkc1wiOltcIjkxNTg2NTExNmFmMmNkYjAwYzRiZDQ1YTVhM2IyYjAwMzMwYmU2M2RcIl19In0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Read more about ProcessWire's Override tab</a>.
For more information on ProcessWire 2.6.2, check out the <a href="http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30485604/processwire.com?p=eyJzIjoibGhRZkEycjU1NlV5eDdpd1hFUzhIWVl0dHRRIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDQ4NTYwNCxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvcHJvY2Vzc3dpcmUuY29tXFxcL2Jsb2dcXFwvcG9zdHNcXFwvZmllbGQtcGVybWlzc2lvbnMtb3ZlcnJpZGVzLWFuZC1tb3JlLTIuNi4yXFxcL1wiLFwiaWRcIjpcIjZlYTI5NjEwOTU5OTQ5ZTQ4ZTAyYWM0NzlkNDNmMGZmXCIsXCJ1cmxfaWRzXCI6W1wiOTE1ODY1MTE2YWYyY2RiMDBjNGJkNDVhNWEzYjJiMDAzMzBiZTYzZFwiXX0ifQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ProcessWire blog announcement</a>.
To find out more about ProcessWire, <a href="https://processwire.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>.
Additionally, be sure to check out <a href="/products/processwire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ProcessWire through our CMS Directory</a>.

A Look At ProcessWire's Latest Core Updates

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We had a huge number of participants and tons of vendors nominated in the Best Open Source CMS category (in fact, it's the most popular category in the entire <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">awards </a> ) and we're pleased to be able to announce this year's nominees for the People's Choice Award.
Keeping in mind that the voting stage begins on September 1, 2013..
Here are the People's Choice nominees for Best Open Source CMS for 2013:
<h3>MODX</h3>
MODX is a free, open-source content management system and web application framework for publishing content on the world wide web and intranets. MODX allows for full segregation of content (plain HTML), appearance and behavior (standards compliant CSS and JavaScript), and logic (PHP snippets).
<a href="/products/modx/"> Visit their profile. </a>
<h3>DNN Platform</h3>
DNN Platform, formerly known as DotNetNuke Community Edition, is a business solution that helps bring your website to life with captivating content and engaging interactions. Users can add and edit content through a standard browser with no IT support.
<a href="/products/dnn-platform/"> Visit their profile. </a>
<h3>Liferay</h3>
Liferay Portal is an open-source enterprise portal written in Java and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and proprietary licenses. It is primarily used to power corporate intranets and extranets.
<a href="/products/liferay/"> Visit their profile. </a>
<h3>Processwire</h3>
Build bigger, faster, stronger, easier. ProcessWire is a free PHP5 open source CMS built to save you time and make development fun at any scale. It works the way you do.
<a href="/products/processwire/"> Visit their profile. </a>
<h3>E107</h3>
e107 is a Content Publishing Solution for Website Pages, Documents, Menus, and Links powered by PHP and MySQL which gives you a totally dynamic and professional website “out of the box”.
<a href="/products/e107/">Visit their profile. </a>
Good luck to all who are nominated and be sure to check back on the 1st of September to begin voting for your favourites!

Announcing the People's Choice for Best Open Source CMS Nominees!

This year has been an amazing one and we've had tons of nominations for all kinds of great projects in all of our categories. Over this month until voting begins on September 1, 2013, we're going to announce the nominees for each category in the awards.  Without further delay, here are this year's Peoples Choice Nominees for Best Free CMS  in our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/"> Critics Choice CMS Awards</a>.
<h3>Processwire</h3>
Build bigger, faster, stronger, easier. ProcessWire is a free PHP5 open source CMS built to save you time and make development fun at any scale. It works the way you do.
<a href="/products/processwire/"> Visit their profile page. </a>
<h3>Tiki</h3>
Tiki is the Free and Open Source Web Application with the most built-in features. So whatever feature you can imagine running in your browser window, chances are Tiki does it.
<a href="/products/tiki-wiki-cms-groupware/"> Visit their profile page. </a>
<h3>Concrete5</h3>
concrete5 is a building material for the web. Working with a web designer or pre-existing theme, a site owner can create and easily change the content and structure of a website.
<a href="/products/concrete5/"> Visit their profile page. </a>
<h3>WordPress</h3>
WordPress CMS started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on hundreds of thousands of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
<a href="/products/wordpress"> Visit their profile page. </a>
<h3>Umbraco</h3>
Umbraco is an open-source content management system (CMS) platform for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets. It is written in C# and deployed on Microsoft based infrastructure. The open-source backend is released under an MIT License while the UI is released under the Umbraco license.
<a href="/products/umbraco"> Visit their profile page. </a>
Congratulations to all of these fabulous nominees. Voting begins on September 1, so be sure to check back and vote for your favorites!

Announcing the Peoples Choice for Best Free CMS Nominees!

Today, I am excited to announce that CMS Critic is now powered by last year's winner of the Best Free CMS award in our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critics Choice CMS Awards</a>, <a href="http://www.processwire.com">ProcessWire</a>! For the last several years, we've run our popular website on WordPress but found as things progressed, we continually ended up having to rely on third-party plugins to get the functionality we needed. With ProcessWire, we no longer have this issue as the bulk of the capabilities we require are built in.
Our WordPress platform, up until today, required approximately 30 plugins and had a database size of over 30 mb at the time of transfer to ProcessWire. Now, we are just over 5 mb in database size and our system is far, far faster than it was before. Not only that but we've had the site developed on the amazing <a href="http://foundation.zurb.com/">Foundation Framework</a>, which I personally had the pleasure of tweaking and adapting with a new style and layout. I have to admit, this is the most fun I've had in years of development work. I can truly say I fell completely in love with this framework. It's absolutely amazing how quickly and easily you can adapt your layout and come up with a unique look.
The transition to ProcessWire began after the first week of May when I first reached out to <a href="http://www.ryancramer.com/">Ryan Cramer</a> (lead developer and founder of PW) to find out if he thought his system would be a good fit for our needs. Our talks quickly led to us hiring Ryan to develop our site and I have to say the whole experience has been an incredibly awesome learning opportunity. It's been exciting and wonderful to learn to work with this CMS, from its simplicity to its logical programming. Ryan is a consumate professional and if working with a developer was always like this, I'd want to keep building things and never stop.
I'd like to think that this site now has an opportunity to expand past the borders and roadblocks we had encountered on WordPress into new realms of opportunity and I'm looking forward to exploring what we can do with this great CMS.
A big thank you to Ryan and I hope you like the new site. Have feedback to share? Please do so in the comments below.

CMS Critic is now powered by ProcessWire

ProcessWire, the winner of our <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/critics-choice-for-best-free-cms-goes-to/">Best Free CMS</a> award in last year's <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critic's Choice Awards</a>, has a new release available for public consumption. Thanks to numerous optimizations and improvements, <a href="http://processwire.com/">ProcessWire 2.3</a> is the fastest, smartest and most capable version yet.
In version 2.3 of ProcessWire, major upgrades have been made throughout the entire system. If you are using an older version of ProcessWire, now is a good time to upgrade to ProcessWire 2.3. If you are not yet using ProcessWire, version 2.3 is a great place to start. Below is a partial list of what's been added and changed.
<ul>
<li>Optimized selector engine making ProcessWire faster and more accurate than ever before.</li>
<li>Installer upgrades, including the ability to specify your admin URL at install time.</li>
<li>Multi-language page names to round out our multi-language fields (dev branch).</li>
<li>New session handling features enabling you to use your database for session storage.</li>
<li>Image support updates including custom API-level cropping support.</li>
<li>Tagging of fields and templates for admin grouping.</li>
<li>Default admin theme upgrades including improved mobile support (responsive).</li>
<li>Numerous input field upgrades and additions for greater customizability and validation.</li>
<li>Password system updates now supporting enhanced security with PHP 5.3+.</li>
<li>Comments fieldtype additions like a new website field, Gravatar support and more.</li>
<li>File and image fieldtype upgrades including support for tags and queryable created/modified timestamps.</li>
<li>Support for secured page files: now file-based assets can have access control too.</li>
<li>Great new core API functions and methods.</li>
<li>Implementation of all jQuery traversal functions in our API.</li>
<li>Great new core modules and classes.</li>
<li>Numerous other upgrades and additions!</li>
</ul>
For more details about these upgrades and additions, please see our extended <a href="http://processwire.com/about/news/introducing-processwire-2.3/">ProcessWire 2.3 press release</a>.
<h2>About ProcessWire</h2>
ProcessWire is a friendly and powerful open source CMS and CMF with an exceptionally strong foundation. With all custom fields, an easy-to-use jQuery-inspired API, and a powerful page selector engine, ProcessWire will rise to any task.
Clients love ProcessWire for its no-fuss simplicity and ease of use when editing their site. Designers and developers love ProcessWire for its thoughtful, easy and powerful API-driven approach that keeps them in control of the markup and makes development fun again. Not to mention, ProcessWire's API can also be booted from other applications or command-line scripts, bringing entire new levels of accessibility to your content.
ProcessWire is a modern SEO specialist's dream come true. It uses logical, readable and search-friendly URLs that always reflect the content's home in the tree. Meaning you'll never have to worry about multiple URLs or play duplicate content games. With full markup control, all custom fields, and support for runtime URL segments, ProcessWire lets you take full advantage of all the on-site SEO possibilities without wasting your time on long irrelevant tags and tricks.
ProcessWire is designed for the needs of today and not limited by the past. It is equally at home powering small-to-large scale standards-friendly websites, mobile websites, JSON/XML web services, Flash applications, AJAX-driven content, iPhone/Android applications, and more. This output agnosticism drives ProcessWire's simplicity and makes it support, rather than interfere with your work.
ProcessWire is a mature product that comes from a strong bloodline of content management systems developed over nearly a decade. ProcessWire runs beautifully on web servers running PHP 5.3.8+ and MySQL 5.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://processwire.com/">Learn more about ProcessWire CMF/CMS</a> and <a href="http://processwire.com/download/">download</a> »</li>
<li><a href="http://processwire.com/demo/">Try out a demo of ProcessWire</a> »</li>
</ul>

ProcessWire 2.3 Released

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