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Here are a few ProcessWire sites I've launched in the last month or so. Nothing real big or exciting here, but figured it's good to post new stuff here when available. Blue Ridge Beverage This is a beer distributor for the state of Virginia in USA. I designed it back in 2009, but the client only recently came back and wanted it developed and launched. A friend did most of the development and did a great job getting everything working in ProcessWire. The client is still populating content here, so there are a few holes, especially in the Beverages database. Almanac of Architecture & Design Before you click on this one, note that this is using the default ProcessWire "basic site" profile (the client fell in love with it and didn't want to change… what can I do). But don't let that fool you, because this is actually quite a large and comprehensive site, particularly the Architecture Firms database. This one has dynamic maps, graphs, search engines and stats galore. There's also some fun stuff in the Buildings section. This site is an on-going project, so some sections are built out more than others, and stuff will be continually added to it. Jamaica Villas I just did the development on this one (not the design, other than tweaks). The design they had was very much in line with the Kickstart framework, so I stuck with it when producing in ProcessWire. I enjoyed using it, and was nice to use a framework developed by another ProcessWire user. I've worked on a few other villa sites in the past, and this one is smaller in terms of quantity of properties, though still involved a lot of work. This one has a full calendar and availability tracking system built into it (all running on ProcessWire), so it can search by availability or look at availability calendars and such. So there's a lot of power packed into this one. I just wish I'd had the opportunity to do the full design on this one, but it was still a satisfying and enjoyable project (as most are, when using ProcessWire)

Eketorp is an open-air museum located in the south east of sweden on the island of Öland in the Baltic sea. The museum is a part of Kalmar Läns Museum (Kalmar County Museum). The site's front end is based on Twitter Bootstrap and Jquery Mobile. The ajax search was kindly developed by Soma after a request on the IRC channel. Big thanks to you Soma! If you visit Öland you really should go, it’s a pretty cool place. Thank you Ryan for an excellent system! Happy midsummer! Mats

I want to add in that ProcessWire does have a pretty nice RSS feed module included in the core. There is a good example of using it in the Blog profile in the posts.php template. I mention it only because it was the first item on your list of things PW doesn't have. As far as the quantity and scope of modules go, that's more an observation about the age of the platform than anything else. Had ProcessWire been open source since the early 2000s then I'm sure you'd find the same depth of modules that you do with the likes of Drupal and WordPress. And I actually think our plugin/module system is far better than theirs too. Growth in the quantity and scope of both free and commercially supported modules is something I would expect to happen with ProcessWire over time, so stay tuned. You've correctly identified some of the major compromises that come with a markup generating CMS like Drupal. I don't like that aspect of it any more than you do. But to the positive points of that approach, I think it gets to the heart of what you are talking about. Something that generates markup is by nature going to be able to provide more ready-to-go, plug-n-play functionality than something that doesn't. The compromise is that you don't have much control over that markup, and the markup is usually a mess. But if it's doing everything else you want, then it still may be worthwhile. As designer/developers we are perfectionists and we take our markup/code as seriously as the visuals, so it's hard to look past the mess and the inherent drawbacks. But you get a nice reward for putting up with this mess, which is lots of bolt-on functionality that you don't have to write any code for. It's a compromise like anything else. Unfortunately I've been unable to keep up with Drupal in my toolbox. I've used it on a couple sites, and have had to continue maintaining them. I was able to get past the wretched smell in the code after a lot of effort. But I absolutely dread doing any kind of administrative task or development task in the system. It's a giant time suck that I really don't like using. At the same time, I recognize that many enjoy using it, and I have a good respect for Drupal and all that is possible with it. So if you've found yourself liking it and it's answering some needs you have, add it to your toolbox (alongside ProcessWire). But only use Drupal when you have to. If you don't want to go very far with code, then I think it's good to keep one markup-generating CMS (like Drupal) in your toolbox for the times when it fits. And only use them when they are going to save real time. Use ProcessWire for everything else. Though for those that like working with code, I wouldn't bother with any markup generating CMS, as I think once you know what you are doing with code, they end up costing, rather than saving time. Also want to bring up the other one you mentioned, Expression Engine. There are some quality add-ons out there for it. If it's doing something that lines up with a given project, go for it. If you are doing work where people pay you for it, the cost of EE and any add-ons should be a non-issue. Your time is worth much more than the cost of these things. You should be passing along the costs of anything you purchase to the client. For me, I can't stand using EE any more than I can Drupal. But if you can stand it, then use it in the situations where it makes sense. EE at least gives you far better markup control than Drupal.

It's a completely different approach. PW is built around "custom content types" by design. You can have whatever fields you want. Textpattern (like a lot of other CMS's) is built around the concept of an "article" or "post". There are a lot of plugins (modules) for Textpattern, and some of them are super powerful. (smd_calendar for example). I built nearly every site you see in my portfolio with TXP, before I discovered PW. There's something to be said for that. All that said, I honestly think you should keep your head down with PW and get through the PHP learning curve. PW's approach is unlike any other system, so if you are happy with how it handles content, then you are in the right place. And remember, every time you learn something new with PHP, that's a skill that has value and can translate to other environments — learning the ins-outs of a tagging language is great, but it doesn't lead anywhere other than to mastery of that particular system.

You could also just set it to sort by "date created" (reverse) in the parent's sort setting? This used to be the case up until last month, but is no longer. PW will let you sort by any fields even if they aren't auto-joined.

This is intended as an installation profile, so not something that is ready to plug into an existing installation. Though you could certainly copy the templates, install the BlogAPI module, and re-create the fields and pages it uses in an existing install. Though I do plan to make the BlogAPI module installable, so that it can install everything needed by the profile into an existing site. But going to wait till the profile is pretty well nailed down before doing that-- it shouldn't be far off. Also an update about the profile: the next version is going to be running on the Skeleton responsive framework instead. I'm just finding that framework to be a little better for the blog profile. However, I'll still include the Foundation template and CSS file as optional, so that you can still use the Foundation version if you prefer it.