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Textpattern Article

WordPress and Textpattern are two of the most well-known blogging platforms out there. Each has its own share of advantages and disadvantages as well as supporters and critics. Both have a great user base and power many wonderful websites! In this article, I shall attempt to provide a comprehensive comparison of both WordPress vs Textpattern. Be informed though, this piece is just based on personal experiences and most users of either WP or TXP might agree (or disagree) at will. For the sake of clarity, I've attempted to sub-divide this article into multiple heads.
Functionality
WordPress seems to be the leading CMS when it comes to functionality and ease of use. Its latest version has undergone a good revamp and the organization of the administrative back end is now as user-friendly as it can get! You can control every major section of your blog through it in a matter of few clicks.
TextPattern, on the other hand, has a slightly less refined administrative back end. Yet, it still is fairly user-friendly and very robust. The only catch is that TXP's back end looks slightly dated, in comparison to that of WP.
Customizability and Extendability
Both Textpattern and WordPress are equal customizable by means of themes and templates. On a similar note, both TXP and WP have a good quiver of plugins and extensions. However, if you delve deeper, you'll find that WP has more themes and plugins as compared to TXP. While this clearly does not mean that WP is a better CMS than TXP, it surely goes a long way in building the user base for WP. Since majority of commercially viable tech blogs and websites are powered by WordPress (not to mention the millions of blogs at WordPress.com), it is but natural that WP has a large number of themes and plugins.
If you are geeky enough, you really should not be worried as you can tweak TXP to your liking and build a website. But if you are just planning to get a blog or website up and ready with as little technical expertise as possible, WP should be your safest bet!
Usability and Operation
This seems to be the most debatable topic. WordPress has a WYSIWYG Editor that makes editing posts and articles a breeze.
<img style="max-width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weaver_elizabeth_submission_manager_screenshot_gcloaz.jpg" alt="WordPress vs Textpattern" />
Textpattern, on the other hand, has an equally awesome (though not so end user friendly) editor, which can do almost all that you want it to, but is slightly confusing in operation (at least for starters). While Textile and other related items can be your best friends if you get used to them, they really will seem mind boggling features if you are a stranger to them.
<img style="max-width:300px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weaver_elizabeth_submittable_screenshot_rpavbu.jpg" alt="WordPress vs Textpattern" />
Moving around the back end too, you'll find that installing themes or plugins, checking your blog's stats or even upgrading the CMS – all can be accomplished in WP in a way easier manner as compared to TXP.
Are they alive?
Both WordPress and Textpattern are in active development (so this sub-heading perhaps should've been different, but I couldn't resist). Similarly, both TXP and WP have a good community base and many forums where you can turn for support.
However, WP is updated on a more frequent basis as compared to TXP. Supporters of WP will be tempted to portray this as higher level of activity at their developers' end, while supporters of TXP can attribute this fact to a sign of maturity of TXP in itself.
To sum it up
With that said, lets summarize each CMS's pros and cons:
Textpattern (<a href="http://www.textpattern.com">http://www.textpattern.com</a>):
Pros:
<ul>
<li>Textile is a very popular element among TXP users, and once you get used to it, you really will find WP's interface bit over done.</li>
<li>The Template System lets you tweak your website to the heart's content.</li>
<li>Extensive documentation.</li>
</ul>
Cons:
<ul>
<li>Admin back end slightly unattractive.</li>
<li>Confusing for beginners.</li>
<li>Lesser number of themes or templates (as compared to WP)</li>
</ul>
WordPress (<a href="http://www.wordpress.org">http://www.wordpress.org</a>):
Pros:
<ul>
<li>Arguably the easiest CMS out there</li>
<li>Numerous themes for customization</li>
<li>Easy updates</li>
</ul>
Cons:
<ul>
<li>Unless you install WPMU, it can power only one blog</li>
<li>Slightly limiting back end (if you're a geek)</li>
<li>Editing article meta data is difficult</li>
</ul>
The verdict?
Well, ideally picking a CMS is a decision that is governed by the user's specific needs (and perhaps bias towards a personal favorite). Still, if you need a CMS just to power a blog or a small website, WordPress should do the trick for you. If, however, you have plans of doing something beyond the ordinary such as having multiple blogs or prefer to tweak your articles before posting them (or simply like to get to the bottom of things), Textpattern might solve your purpose.
Have you used either WP or TXP (or both) earlier? Got some opinions to share on either of these two blogging platforms? Let me know in the comments!

WordPress vs Textpattern

mike-johnston

Textpattern has often been heralded as one of the most flexible open source CMS available. With it's small footprint and straight forward interface, it's also a favorite of designers and developers around the world.  Today, we're going to take a look at Textpattern and what makes it so agile in this Textpattern review.
To start off with, the typical size (of this writing) of the Textpattern download is approximately half a meg. This is incredibly small for a CMS with such power and flexibility. Installation is pretty standard and there's not much to really show there that isn't typical to most CMS. You'll get prompted to enter your database credentials, create a config file and enter user details.
Once complete, you'll be taken to the login screen for the back end. Enter your credentials to log in and you'll see the Textpattern dashboard:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/relationships_gy8dce.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />
Note that the CMS defaults to the Write tab. This is due to the fact that this is likely the first thing most people will want to do when logging in. A simple but smart decision by the Textpattern development team. You may also note that there are no typical post buttons for bold, italics and the like. That's because by default, Textpattern uses textile syntax for formatting.
For those use to Wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editors, this may be a bit of a shock. Textile is a very easy to use syntax and personally, I prefer it. You can see more about what textile syntax looks like here: <a href="http://textile.thresholdstate.com/">Textile Syntax</a>. Once you've used it, you may begin to prefer it over standard HTML.
Textpattern is all about flexibility, however, so should you prefer to use a Wysiwyg editor, you can simply install a plugin to do so.
For testing purposes and to show how the plugin installation process works, let's go ahead and install a plugin to add a new editor to the system.
First, you would search for the appropriate plugin on the <a href="http://textpattern.org/plugins/">Textpattern Resources</a> site. For this test, we'll use the <a href="http://textpattern.org/plugins/505/hak_tinymce">hak_tinymce plugin</a>.
Once downloaded and extracted, you will see three files:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/history_zqk3do.png" alt="Textpattern Review" /> 
The plugin itself is a simple txt file. This is standard for all Textpattern plugins and, as you'll soon see, one of the reasons why plugin installation is so easy to do for anyone. For this plugin, we need to upload the tiny_mce folder to our /textpattern directory on our web host, so we'll go ahead and do that.
Once we've uploaded the tiny_mce folder, we simply open the hak_tinymce.txt file in your favorite text editor and copy the contents. Then navigate to your Admin – Plugins tab in Textpattern and you'll see a box like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/online-reputation_qxgqbm.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />Simply paste the contents of the hak_tinymce.txt file in this box and click upload. You'll be shown a plugin preview page that looks like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-7_52_33-am-580x307.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />
Simply scroll down and underneath the Plugin Help: section, you'll see an Install button. Clicking on this will install the plugin. Now, as per instructions in the plugin zip file, you need to initialize the plugin. Navigate to Extensions, hak_tinymce and click the install button (Note that this process is usually not required for most plugin installs and is exclusive to this particular plugin. Most of the time, this step is not present / required at all.)
Once you click install, you'll be given a list of options to choose from for the editor. You can either modify these settings or ignore them and click update.
Head back to Admin/Plugins and you'll now see the plugin listed in the screen below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/google_200x0_ugwxeo.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />To enable, simply click on the “No” under active.
Head back to Content, Write and on the left, you'll see a new toggle:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-8_06_36-am-580x267.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />
Place a checkmark in the Article box to turn on the editor. The result:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-8_07_16-am-580x272.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />
That's it. You now have a Wysiwyg editor.
As I mentioned during this process, the typical plugin install does not require anything to be actually uploaded, nor does it require navigating to the Extensions tab. Most of the time, you simply paste the text file contents in the plugin box and click install, then activate it and you are done.
Let's take a look at some more pieces of the admin interface, shall we?
There are two levels of tabs available. The top level represents the main tabs, while the bottom level represents sub tabs. For example, clicking on the Content tab at the top enables the following sub tabs (Category, Write, Articles, etc):
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wpi-overview-hero-splash_feta5e.jpg" alt="Textpattern Review" />
These are all quite straight forward. Let's take a look at the Images tab. Uploading images is simple, just select and upload. Once it's been uploaded, you'll be given the opportunity to crop into a thumbnail, add to a category and modify the alt text as required.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-8_16_29-am.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />Now let's take a look at the Presentation tab. Under here, you can modify your Sections, Pages, Forms and Styles. In the Sections tab, you have the opportunity to assign templates and styles to individual sections. For instance, the Articles section uses a different template and style sheet than the the About section (more about sections <a href="http://textpattern.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sections">here</a>).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/setseed8logo_aqxl58.jpg" alt="Textpattern Review" />
As you can see, you can also determine where sections are shown and whether or not they are included in the site search. The Pages tab is next. This is where you can create and modify the templates for each page.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-8_48_15-am-580x314.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />
A very cool feature of the Pages tab is the Tag builder (shown on the left of the screenshot above). This allows you to make selections form the list on the left and it will show you which code to insert into the template to accomplish that task. This is a great feature to help you get familiar with the system.
Next are Forms.
This is one of Textpattern's key strengths. Using forms, you can separate your code into reusable chunks (more about forms <a href="http://textpattern.net/wiki/index.php?title=Forms_Explained">here</a>).
On this install, for instance, I've created a form which contains nothing more than my <a href="http://piwik.org">Piwik</a> analytics code from my Statistics system.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/jfw-foundation_fvgn9u.jpg" alt="Textpattern Review" />
Now, I simply call the form in my Page template wherever I wish using this code:
<pre>&lt;txp:output_form form="analytics" /&gt;</pre>
It's as simple as that. Now, should I need to include this analytics code on multiple pages or in more than one place, I can do so with the code above. The advantage to this style of coding is that if I need to change the code for whatever reason in the future, I simply change the code in the form as opposed to having to edit each template in multiple places. Developers love this feature, for obvious reasons.
The styles tab provides an interface to edit the stylesheets or create new ones as needed.
Under the admin section, the following sub tabs exist:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-9_10_09-am-580x37.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />Clicking on the Diagnostics tab will run a quick series of tests and provide you with either an “Al l checks passed” message, or give you some suggestions.
The Preferences tab provides you with access to the settings of the CMS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-06-26-at-9_13_58-am.png" alt="Textpattern Review" />
To manage users, simply head to the Users tab.  Here, you can modify privileges and details for your users. On the Visitors log tab, you can see all of the latest visitors to your site if you have logging enabled. For the most part, it's better to use an Analytics program such as Piwik or Google Analytics.
We've already seen the Plugins section, so we'll skip over that. On the Import tab, you can choose to import content from a variety of other systems and CMS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/colors_pbpwjq.jpg" alt="Textpattern Review" />
That, ladies and gentleman, covers pretty much the entire Admin interface for Textpattern. From a usage standpoint, there's definitely a bit of a learning curve to get used to the way that Textpattern handles itself, but once you do, you'll discover the true power of this system.
For me, what draws me to use it is the minimalist nature of the CMS. I love the speed of the interface (it's lightning fast compared to other CMS such as WordPress) and I find Textile for article writing to be intuitive and produce cleaner content.
There is an active community and plenty of plugins to accomplish pretty much anything you might need. If you are looking for a system that's powerful, fast and has plenty of options, Textpattern is a great choice. If you are a developer, it's even better given the flexibility of the forms system. I highly recommend checking out Textpattern.
Website: <a href="http://textpattern.com">Textpattern</a>

Textpattern Review

A new release of Textpattern (<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/textpattern">news</a>) is available. This version has a focus primarily on security and introduces a number of new changes to the way passwords are handled as well as general security fixes.
Some excerpts from the release announcement:
<ul>
<li>If you are running an Apache web server, rename the <code>.htaccess-dist</code> file in the <code>/files</code> directory to <code>.htaccess</code> to prohibit direct URL access to your files.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Previously, people with privileges set to ‘None’ could log in and just not see anything — Restricted area — for every tab. Now they are not even permitted entry.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We have relied on MySQL’s <code>password</code> function for a long time now. MySQL themselves do not recommend this and, moving forward to TXP 5, our goal is to open up the avenue for using other databases, so to rely on MySQL is counter to this philosophy. We have therefore taken the step of implementing phpass from this point forward.This has the implication that passwords are now case-sensitive.</li>
</ul>
This release also mops up some bits and pieces that snuck into 4.3.0. Namely:
<ul>
<li>a few places that still used deprecated attributes, mostly in the tag builder</li>
<li>some Textile security fixes</li>
<li>a bug in <code>&lt;txp:variable /&gt;</code> when dealing with empty values</li>
<li>search engines shouldn’t index ‘Nice try’ messages anymore</li>
<li>messy mode context and <code>get_pref()</code> bugs squashed</li>
</ul>
jQuery has also been upgraded to 1.5.1.
For the full announcement, or to download, visit: <a href="http://textpattern.com">http://textpattern.com</a>

Textpattern CMS 4.4.0 released: focus on security

Minutes after posting our previous entry entitled “<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/its-official-textpattern-cms-4-20-is-available/">Textpattern 4.20 released?</a>” the announcement is up on the Textpattern website.
The new Textpattern features a very nice new admin theme called Remora. It's not active by default, but it is an option from the back-end and for those who are looking for a dropdown menu-based admin theme, it's a nice choice.
The official announcement from Textpattern.com reads as follows:
<blockquote>Textpattern CMS 4.2.0 is immediately available for download.
We’ve added new features like admin-side themes, timezone support with automatic DST adjustment on capable servers, and core support for unlimited custom fields, readied Textpattern for compatibility with PHP 5.3, and fixed a number of  small bugs. Upgrades from previous 4.x versions are expected to work seamless under usual reserve of plugin compatibility.</blockquote>
More info and downloads are available at the <a href="http://www.textpattern.com">Textpattern</a> website.

It's official. Textpattern CMS 4.20 is available.

<img title="textpattern" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/textpattern.png" />You heard it right, a new maintenance release fixing bugs and glitches has been released by Textpattern. You can read about the specific fixes at the <a href="http://textpattern.com/weblog/332/textpattern-cms-408-released" target="_blank">Textpattern</a> website.
Here are some additional resources for Textpattern enthusiasts:
<a href="http://textpattern.com/featured" target="_blank">Textpattern featured sites</a> – This area of their website highlights specific sites based on Textpattern that have done well.
<a href="http://welovetxp.com/" target="_blank">We Love TXP</a> – This is a community-driven site that also highlights some fan favourites.
<a href="http://txpq.com/" target="_blank">The Textpattern Magazine</a>
And the obligatory screenshot:
<img title="Textpattern CMS" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/textpattern-php-20301.png" alt="Textpattern CMS" />

Textpattern has released version 4.0.8

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