Softaculous

[Webjack]

Hello Ryan, hello everyone, 

I've just discovered ProcessWire and I'm delighted. :-)

As a beginner with this CMS, I'd like to share one or two little thoughts that are important when discovering and evaluating this tool.

1/ I installed Softaculous for the first time, and the installer doesn't offer to integrate a site profile as with the latest version, which I downloaded and installed manually.

It was by studying the documentation that I learned about the existence of profiles (and many other things) and the installation procedure and, if I hadn't spent time reading the tutorials, I'd never have understood the concept of profiles and templates which, incidentally, I still don't fully understand, but I'm working on it ;)

All this to say that the beginner who installs with Softaculous has every chance of getting lost if he doesn't have the patience and motivation to read the docs first, which we never do when we test unknown CMSes in general. :-D

By installing ProcessWire manually via FTP, it's already much better.

Which brings me to point 2/

In the presentation of this CMS, it's repeated very often (too often) that it's simple, easy, within everyone's reach and, while it's true that someone with a bit of experience can manage it because the documentation and help systems are very well done, the lambda user who's used to CMS but isn't a developer will fear his own limitations. I myself am impressed by the quality and possibilities offered, but I feel very small when I read the various topics on these forums. How far would I go?)

Having said that, I think this is a wonderful product and thank you all warmly for having invented it and maintaining it for everyone's happiness. :)

 

[Webjack]

Ps: Sorry for my English. I'm French and use a translator.

[poljpocket]

Let me share my story first, you will see why it's important for this discussion. I am a fullstack web developer and I have always found CMSes to be very limiting because usually, their philosophy plays a big part in what you can do and if at all, how it should be done. Most of them even force you into a lot of predefined concepts for the frontend, too. Take WordPress (which to be honest, is not a CMS at all), you start with posts, comments and pages and are stuck with a weird loop concept for the frontend in which posts always get a "special treatment". In 90% of cases if you want to use WordPress as a true CMS, you can only do that by disabling most of the predefined stuff outright and installing a crapton of extensions to just have some custom structures available. 

With ProcessWire, all of that is different. You start with a clean slate. No predefined content, no structures, no nothing. You can get some niche output with a site profile but changing just anything about the frontend of these site profiles takes you straight into the code. You can't install a plugin to have a fully-fledged shop, add some products and then install a $50 theme, upload the logo and change some colors and call it a day. You have this wonderful API which - as a developer - really is a godsent and allows you to create the most complex structures and have complete control and freedom in the frontend because it literally allows you to do whatever you want. And in the end, we can offer an editing experience to our clients which is a hundred times easier to understand and use than anything done with e.g. WordPress.

I think that exactly is what PW's message on the homepage is: It is easy to use for developers while creating the project and easy to use for the clients of the developer when using the finished product. 

So, to go full circle: I think you are used to systems like WordPress, Squarespace or Wix and expect to have a working website after installing ProcessWire. But this is not the case since ProcessWire is taylored towards web developers. This is also why you need to learn at least a considerable part of the API to then go into the code and create your website, app, own API or whatever your project entails.

I don't want do discourage you and seeing new people getting into PW is always a blast. But I fear that without coding, ProcessWire might not be the right choice.

[Nicolas]

Welcome on board Webjack !!
Bienvenue dans la communauté ProcessWire.
De mon expérience, ProcessWire est en effet un CMS orienté développeur. Pour cette cible c'est un outil très agréable et efficace grâce notamment à son API.

Comme indiqué sur la page d'accueil, il est simple à utilisé pour les clients. Pour les créateurs de site il est indispensable d'avoir un minimum de connaissance de PHP. Cela dit entre la documentation qui est très bien faite et le support de la communauté sur le forum, on peut rapidement progresser.

 

22 hours ago, Webjack said:

How far would I go?

As far as you can imagine 😉

[Webjack]

Hello everyone. 🙂

WordPress, Squarespace or Wix?

Uh...not for me 😉

These commercial CMS, as powerful as they are, don't suit me and I generally use very simple CMS, Open-source and easily modulable to get my results but their rigid concept doesn't allow me to progress and it's exactly for the reasons you develop @poljpocket the arguments that I'm interested in PW that I only discovered a few days ago.

Of course, my minimal skills in PHP or other programming languages are a hindrance but, as @Nicolas writes, "between the documentation, which is very well done, and the support of the community on the forum, you can make rapid progress". 
I'm counting on it and I'll finally be able to realize my dream of building a tool that will allow me to display my data as I see fit. 🙂

That ties in with my initial post, which regretted that ProcessWire's communication didn't emphasize the fact that it's aimed specifically at developers or people working to become one.

Now, it's also an opportunity to win over tinkerers of my kind who just want to go further, and that's what's so wonderful about ProcessWire, its documentation and its community.

Thank you for your warm welcome. 🙂

[ryan]

I think it's a good point, and prior to more recent versions, PW included several site profiles. But by and large the community preferred PW to be slim and not include all the site profiles, so we changed it to just include 1 profile (the minimal blank profile). This is the preference of established users of ProcessWire. But for new users that might not already be familiar with PW, I think having something more for a site profile is preferable. The solution is for PW's installer to be able to download the other profiles automatically if the user wants them. I think this was brought up before, but I haven't done it yet, though perhaps should soon. 

[Webjack]

@ Ryan

Yes, I had understood that there was a question about whether or not to integrate several profiles into the install, and it would indeed be good if at least the beginner version were equipped with it, because what could be more frustrating than having to install again to visit the other profiles? 

I think I read somewhere that it's now possible to install another profile even after installation is complete. I'll have to find those conversations again to test this procedure myself. 😉 

[JoseFrasher]

On 12/23/2023 at 11:26 PM, Webjack said:

@ Ryan

Yes, I had understood that there was a question about whether or not to integrate several profiles into the install, and it would indeed be good if at least the beginner version were equipped with it, because what could be more frustrating than having to install again to visit the other profiles? 

I think I read somewhere that it's now possible to install another profile even after installation is complete. I'll have to find those conversations again to test this procedure myself. 😉 

Have you tested it?

[Webjack]

Unfortunately not JoséFrasher, I admit I didn't have time to think about it because discovering PW is fascinating.

I will search for you the posts that I read on this subject.