Wordpress vs Content Management : A Case Study

[JeevanisM]

Hello All,

This is just simple thought of mine over a simple a WordPress work I had to take recently. I am just discussing how I felt about WordPress is falling apart on the Content Management.

My Article is here

P:S :- My blog is still uses WordPress ?

[JeevanisM]

Content Management with WordPress : A Case Study

 

4-5 minutes

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We all agree that wordpress is the leading CMS in the arena, the most famous one. But how much it really helps the user to fulfill the purpose : ‘ Manage Contents ! ” .

Well, Lets see, recently I had to create a website in WordPress, nothing fancy or custom requirements, but a simple school website. So there was a purchased theme I had to integrate with contents. All these sounded cool but once I started to do the actual work, I realized a few bits and odds about the WordPress which I will share with in this article.

I am a developer with a basic sense of design layout. So I see the design first, then fill the content into the layout once its finished. So this content has to be free and separated from the design layout. A person who manages the content should not be worried about the design layout tags ( Row, column, padding, margin etc ), hence the content management system serves its purpose. But in this WordPress theme, everything is inside the design itself. I will show you an example.

In modern WordPress Themes, they come with lots of plugins packed. One of the most important plugin is the Visual Composer which is a kind of cool plugin helps the user to drag and drop HTML elements ( like text block, image, wp components etc ). This looks good at first but once you finished, your home page, for example, the Page Editor will show you the source code like this below.

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1461134371794{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_hidden-xs”][stm_spacing lg_spacing=”112px” md_spacing=”112px” sm_spacing=”112px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1461134371794{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][rev_slider_vc alias=”hero”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Those are the Short Codes generated by this Visual Composer. Now what if you want to edit / add content to the page, say in Home page ? well, you have this edit with Visual Composer feature which shows as below.

This is how to add some new content elements to a Page

Now you can see, if you want to edit or add content, then you will need to do it with lots of options, which requires a little more technical knowledge than a normal Content Manager. For a Web Developer as I am, this seems ok, but what if this is for a Normal User ? For example, this school website, there will be a teacher or a school staff is going to manage the contents. Now, they have to learn the WordPress way of managing contents including Row, Padding, animation, margins etc etc.

Look above, we have a plethora of components to be added to a Page / Post as in content, which is good for a Developer/Technical person. This reduces works in code level editing but this is an overkill for the purpose of Content Management System.

The idea of separate the content from design is the backbone of a content management system ( CMS)

But now the content is actually very much strangled inside the design. The Normal User cannot manage the content any more, so the requirement is now doubled.

One can argue that, even in WordPress we can do the old fashioned way to separate content and design. But the complicated structure of WordPress is not at all user friendly for Rapid Dev in that manner. WordPress’s basic structure is built on Posts > Categories | Blog way. Now a Page in WordPress is either a single post content or compilation of various posts, which means, to manage the content in a single page, the user has to edit various posts. Now this issue is overridden by this Visual Composer thing, but the Content is strangled in Design. In addition to these the user who actually manage the content should be aware of all the design elements and its repercussions. One of the advantage of using WordPress is that You Have A Plugin for Every Requirement. But these plugins are third party, may not get updated as with the WordPress versions, which arises another extra responsibility for the content manager, again requires some technical skill.

Considering all these, I prefer and suggest another Content Management System known as ProcessWire to my clients. PW is well designed in a way that to serve the purpose of Separate the Content from Design.

[tpr]

A former experienced colleague of mine put it right (regarding Bootstrap, but applicable here as well):

If you don't know coding, it's a bless, if you do, it's a curse ? 

[pwired]

Wordpress case studies are already posted in all flavors so many times by others and chewed over . . . .