Never touching <insert software name here> again

[Pete]

I've been working on a site recently that is in WordPress, and have wasted several hours on not noticing that the previous dev had used a mad-crazy image based menu system (should have inspected the CSS more closely). Since I'm not used to WordPress, I was trying to sift through the many (and, in a lot of cases for this site, unnecessary) plugins to find the fault.

So okay, it was partially my fault for not noticing that, but just the whole rest of the experience has drawn a line in the sand - everything is so difficult and time-consuming to achieve that I think even if I knew it inside out it would still be long-winded

So, no more WP clients for me, thanks all the same, even if there are big bucks on the table it's not worth my sanity any more and is too draining. I'd much rather roll out/update PW sites and enjoy myself rather than tear my hair out over the many and varied caveats of working with WordPress.

Call me lazy, but I think it's more about using the right tool for the right job.

[MarcC]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I stopped working on WordPress sites some time ago, but I offered to help a friend with his WordPress site recently and was surprised by how little had changed.

even if there are big bucks on the table

That's rarely the case, but I did have a big client request WordPress once. They were very amenable to other suggestions though, as the work got rolling. Pretty soon the WordPress site was a thing of the past, and the character of the work changed toward a more flexible, powerful collection of tools and resources.

Earlier this year I sat in a meeting with a client, across the table from a social media consultant who looked at me and said at one point, "we are using WordPress for this site, correct?" I was sort of shocked, but she didn't really know of any other software, and was used to using WP for everything. She is a bit frustrated that she has to re-train just to use a client's site, but what can I say...it's not like learning new stuff is some rare thing in our industry. This client would have been lost with WordPress.

I'm even frustrated by MODx these days, so I must be turning into a real CMS snob. Just got a client's OK to move a large, fairly prominent MODx site to ProcessWire after I built a newer, smaller site in PW for them.

So looking at my work, it'd almost seem that "the right tool" is always ProcessWire. But I think it's mostly that ProcessWire is a flexible tool that is well designed to solve common problems.

[Pete]

I think the main thing is that when you know there's an easier tool to work with it makes everything else a chore.

I was a bit surprised about the SEO person's response from your post above, but I guess I shouldn't be and thinking about it I had a very similar conversation with someone earlier this year myself who was worrying about re-training to use PW. It can be a hurdle to adopting a new system when clients think there will be a massive learning curve and it's generally just because that's what they've cmoe to expect.

I think the main point to get across is just how straightforward things can be when everything is laid out logically. We have the luxury (and it is a luxury compared to most other systems) of being able to have custom fields for everything, and being able to name your fields and order them how you like means it becomes very intuitive to the point where there isn't actually much training required.

I'm the same with MODx now - used it for quite some years and going back to it is hard work sometimes. Most of the clients I have that still use it don't need new features though so it's just a case of occasional updates, but I do try and convert them when I can.

With this current site I really shouldn't complain and should simply have done more research, but it's the case with most projects when you're taking something on that's already established that you will eventually run into something unforeseen - if you could afford to spend days checking out every aspect of a job before taking it on it would be okay, but you generally have to hit the ground running and get on with it. It helps to vent your frustrations sometimes

It's another one to chalk up to experience, but I still don't want to work with anything other than ProcessWire again

[renobird]

I think the main thing is that when you know there's an easier tool to work with it makes everything else a chore.

+1 to that. Working in anything else these days feel like a chore to me.

[Pete]

Aarrgghh! So frustrated that I need to build some functionality into another ecommerce system that would take 20 seconds in ProcessWire.

I need to add a related products feature to a blog section - in the other software this means I likely won't be able to do it or will spend a week working it out. In ProcessWire it would be soooo easy.

I'm going to make an effort this year to use ProcessWire for every type if site that comes my way - that way if I need to do some customisation I know it will be easy!

I've now changed the title of this thread so I can vent my frustrations about whatever system I have to wrestle with to do what I need it to

[typ9]

Kind of the same experience here, speaking of typo3. I‘ve never been a developer for typo3, but as a designer working together with developers I had to touch typo3 from time to time. Strange thing was: the CMS was implemented because the client wanted to manage his content himself (yeah, great idea that was) - but he felt so uncomfortable using typo3, that he called US to change his content in typo3.

And: it was the same for me. I just couldn‘t feel like "yeah, I really like working with typo3." Everything was slow, complicated, strange... Maybe it was just bad installations and bad servers - but everything was different when I first worked with Contao and Processwire.

So I‘m quite optimistic I will stay I while here...