A love letter to ProcessWire

[Tom.]

I would like to just show my appreciation to ProcessWire and all the guys that have put work in to make it what it is now. I have use many, many CMS's in my time. Statamic, Drupal, WordPress, ConcreteCMS, CraftCMS etc... 

And they all have their strengths and weaknesses. But I can honestly say, ProcessWire is by FAR the best Content Management System I've ever, EVER used. I can honestly say the only weakness ProcessWire is the lack on eCommerce. But, that isn't even a weakness of ProcessWire. The tools are there for us to create an eCommerce system. I'm a front-end developer but with ProcessWire it empowers me to realise anything. Honestly, when one of the designers asks "Can we do this?" it feels so great to say YES!

I, with very little backend experience built a real-estate system that completely runs on ProcessWire pulling in from an external feed (Vebra) and I did it with ease!

I just wanted to say thank you, thank you for creating a framework in which, people like myself, who love front-end but find back-end daunting can pick it up and literally do anything with EASE. ProcessWire gives me so much confidence and makes me feel so good about myself.

I've recently been working on an WooCommerce website, and I can't tell you how much I've been missing ProcessWire.

Thank you @ryan for making a system that is so simple, even simpletons like myself can dream big. 

Lots of love,
Tom

 

Edit: Interestingly I feel like it would be easier to build an eCommerce system using ProcessWire than it would trying to completely reskin WooCommerce, like seriously, WooCommerce stop injecting markup and putting them in core functions. 

[Noel Boss]

@tom. I totaly share our feelings torwards PW ? 

Just interested: Have you been using CraftCMS 3? What do you like better about PW than CraftCMS (3)

Disclaimer: I have looked into Craft 2 before discovering PW but it ultimately liked in regard to flexibility of the backend and multi-langage or Multi-Site support imho… And the documentation of Craft is laking as well imho. And I was afraid to learn Yii2… But then again, NOT using a framework (PW) made me hesitant to use PW at first also. In contrast, I kind of like the "standard" approach oft Craft using twig and a mvc framework… And of course their design, gorgeous.

[Karl_T]

Hi @Tom.. I remember that you were developing an eCommerce module a year before. Why would you turn out to be using Woocommerce? Could you share any difficulties?

I actually developed an eCommerce module for my company and I am now developing the second eshop with it. It is far from perfect, but I would like to see any chance I can make it open source later, because I think Processwire do deserve an open source eCommerce system. I wish we can have a decent eCommerce system in any way. I believe this can attract more talents to join us.

[Tom.]

15 hours ago, Noel Boss said:

@tom. I totaly share our feelings torwards PW ? 

Just interested: Have you been using CraftCMS 3? What do you like better about PW than CraftCMS (3)

Disclaimer: I have looked into Craft 2 before discovering PW but it ultimately liked in regard to flexibility of the backend and multi-langage or Multi-Site support imho… And the documentation of Craft is laking as well imho. And I was afraid to learn Yii2… But then again, NOT using a framework (PW) made me hesitant to use PW at first also. In contrast, I kind of like the "standard" approach oft Craft using twig and a mvc framework… And of course their design, gorgeous.

The main reason I prefer ProcessWire over Craft is down to simplicity. ProcessWire's API is head and shoulders over the competition. Statamic and Craft both have templating systems, which I know is to combat the whole, PHP in HTML, but I don't believe using a templating system is any better. Often its more confusing as you have to use modifiers to get anything done and even then you can't do everything PHP can do. Sure it's cleaner but not by much. I also really didn't like the user interface for creating fields on Craft, it seemed way out of place. 

We did a few tests and found clients actually understand everything being in the page tree more than Taxonomies, Page Types and Post Types. Initially I thought it would be neater to have them separated out. If you feel like something needs it's own section you can use Lister Pro but it's rarely needed. 

15 hours ago, Karl_T said:

Hi @Tom.. I remember that you were developing an eCommerce module a year before. Why would you turn out to be using Woocommerce? Could you share any difficulties?

I actually developed an eCommerce module for my company and I am now developing the second eshop with it. It is far from perfect, but I would like to see any chance I can make it open source later, because I think Processwire do deserve an open source eCommerce system. I wish we can have a decent eCommerce system in any way. I believe this can attract more talents to join us.

I was building an eCommerce system for ProcessWire, which all the product related things is complete. Such as product variations etc. It was an R&D project at work in which I was going to complete in my spare time. I predicted to complete it at the start of the year, well, have Beta ready. As work started to pick up again, I haven't been able to work on it and I've been way more busy than usual, which is great! But also means projects like this sadly have to take the back burner.

I would like to start it up again soon, but would like an extra pair of hands on it to get it done in any decent time frame. 

[horst]

Definetly can confirm that with the PageTree and the rare cases where additionally a ListerPro page is needed. ?

[bernhard]

2 hours ago, Tom. said:

If you feel like something needs it's own section you can use Lister Pro but it's rarely needed. 

41 minutes ago, horst said:

Definetly can confirm that with the PageTree and the rare cases where additionally a ListerPro page is needed. ?

Little offtopic and self-promotion here, but you should definitely give RockGrid a try. It's such a great way to list all kinds of content, style it properly, add additional functionality. In the example below you get instant filtering, properly formatted currencies, referenced pages and some hover-action-icons that open that page in a panel or open the PDF invoice directly.

The pagetree is great for websites, but it's definitely not for other more complex content management applications ?

21 hours ago, Tom. said:

ProcessWire gives me so much confidence and makes me feel so good about myself.

So true ? (y)

[horst]

Thanks for the hint, Bernhard. 

Until now, I haven't had time to look at it. So, will add it to the list of things to explore / try out. ?

[psy]

@Tom re ecommerce stuff...I've used WooCommerce and come out  blue, battered & beaten at the other end. I've also integrated the BigCommerce API with PW. Am now working on site with the PW premium module Padloper.

IMHO:

• WooCommerce is horrible on every level
• BigCommerce and any other SAAS platform, eg Shopify, are easy enough to integrate into PW and while they dont always have the perfect workflow solution,  suit bigger shops
• Premium ecommerce PW module Padloper is raw, pure PW, takes a bit of getting used to and is great for smaller shops

[dragan]

Did chuckle: https://github.com/craftcms/cms/issues/805

Apparently, Craft 3 still doesn't have conditional fields...

[bartelsmedia]

Just need to chime in. With more than 35 yrs of IT history it rarely happened, that I am so in love in a software like with Processwire.

It is such a marvel. Ryan, please never stop making it the best "web tool" on the market.

Thank you all!