Crowd Fund new tutorials

[Mark]

Hi, I am just getting started with Processwire. I'm a keen newbie - I've gone through the great tutorials by Ryan and Joss but feel like I could do with a few more to get up and running.

I know good tutorials take a lot of time and effort to create, so I was thinking if it would be possible to fund a pro to make a video? I'm not talking http://drupalize.me     Maybe 2-4 hour long video just to get new users working with the interface and api.

Funding could go something like this:

http://kck.st/WLZpDG

[pwired]

http://processwire.com/videos/

[Mark]

Marty Walker's Thumbnail video really helped. Thanks pwired. 

[pwired]

Welcome to processwire

[Joss]

HI Mark

I tend to stay away from Videos myself, basically because I believe people should absorb information at their own pace - well, that and have you tried copying and pasting from a video??

I will come up with more tutorials; I have a couple planned.....

Joss

(PS: if you want to pay me to make videos, I am happy to oblige! Been in media production for 35 years .... I am not cheap, however  )

[Mark]

Hi Joss, 

Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge, the tutorials you have posted on the wiki have really helped. I see why they call you a Hero Member.

I look forward to the new tutorials, do you have a release date in mind?........no pressure

I'm off to sell a kidney so you can make one of your high production videos.

[Joss]

Make it both Kidneys - oh, and your dog's kidney too.

The one I really want to do is going to take the longest (for a variety of reasons), but I think I will do one about creating and managing blocks of information in traditional CMS style.

Can't do it immediately, however, as I have some orchestral stuff to arrange first, which always messes my spare time up.

[Mark]

Joss, I look forward to the tutorial. Will the blocks of information be laid out HTML 5 semantic style "<article> and <section>"?

The kidneys are on ice!

[Marty Walker]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the compliment. I'd agree with Joss that written tutorials are better for learning at ones own pace. I think video tutorials work in cases where I have show off some broad concepts - I usually record a tutorial for a client after I've finished a build just to cover the basics of how to do the main things they need to.

I'd be reluctant to record any tutorial vids where code is involved for various reasons:

• The code I hash together might not be best practice considering my php noob status.
• *I* understand what I've written but it might not make sense to someone else - it's more than likely very verbose and not at all DRY
• videos aren't searchable as Joss pointed out

Cheers

Marty

[Mark]

Hi Marty, Thanks very much for your valuable feedback. 

You guys are right, learning at my own pace will give me a solid understanding. “We learn from failure, not from success!”

Looking at your profile, I see you have been an active member for a while now. Can you remember how you worked through the documentation and how long did it take you to grasp the main concepts of processwire?

I think I need to step back and review the valuable info found on processwire.com. I hope the penny drops for me!

Your work on smd.net.au is a real inspiration. 

[diogo]

Mark, I don't know where you are having trouble, but PW is really easy to grasp. I can tell you that my first step was to print all the docs from the API and read them in one of my favorite places (on a coffee table by the river looking at the ducks). Once you understand the API everything will seem possible to achieve

[Marty Walker]

Hi Mark,

You're too kind. I am not a PHP bod by any means. Coming from tag-based cms's like EE and Textpattern has been a bit of a struggle but oh so worth it. If it wasn't for the patience and help of everyone on these forums I would probably still be struggling.

The first site I worked on was my own and the code has gone through a few revisions as I learn new things. You're right, I learned from things not working, asking questions and a little perseverance. I still have much to learn.

I can't exactly remember how I started learning the code - it was probably trial and error for sure. The same principles apply to PW as they do to other systems when it comes to getting lists of entries/pages. It time permitted I'd could bang on about how much more flexible PW is compared to anything else I've used.

Building a site in PW is second nature to me now to the point where I don't even look at any other system. I just know what I have to do to make it work - most of my sites a pretty straight-forward though.

If you want to know about anything I've built - as in how it works - just let me know.

@diogo: Send me a duck post card

Regards

Marty

[Mark]

Thanks so much for your help guys.

I really like the admin in PW, the way the data is displayed within tree like structure is very well thought out and easy to understand, I just need to learn how I use the api within the html markup....the hard part.

Great idea Diogo, I will print out the api and maybe highlight the the ones I think I would use frequently. My favorite place is indoors in front of the fire at the moment - its cold and wet in England The duck post card would cheer me up!

Thanks Marty, I will try and gain some understanding of the api section today, I have a feeling I may need to ask how you build one of your sites if that's ok?

[Marty Walker]

Mark,

Just let me know which site and I'll go my best to explain it.

[ryan]

I have to admit that I like learning from videos and books. They help to get across bigger picture concepts much better than copying and pasting. They build a foundation. So when it does come time to writing code (or copying pasting it), you've got the understanding of it. The problem with copying/pasting is that it's like building without a foundation, which can be dangerous. When you've got the foundation, all the other pieces just kind of fall into place. I think this is especially true of ProcessWire. If you understand the big picture and how simple it is, the rest of it becomes simple as well. And there's no reason not to learn the foundation, because it's so darn simple.  It seems like a lot of people start working with ProcessWire while thinking of it in the context of some other CMS. So there is inevitable "un-learning" that has to take place, as people are looking for complexity where there isn't. This is a recurring theme. What I think would do an even better job of establishing the foundation would be two printable PDF documents that are maximum 1-printed page each: 

• ProcessWire in a nutshell, a cheat-sheet – Covers everything you need to know to understand a typical site profile. Pages, Fields, Templates, then $page, $pages, and PageArray. 
• All you need to know about PHP to use ProcessWire – This one would focus on the general PHP concepts necessary to use it like a template engine with ProcessWire. Covers things like PHP tags, double-vs-single quotes, echo, if(), foreach(), and comparison vs. assignment.

[diogo]

All you need to know about PHP to use ProcessWire

Love this idea

[Joss]

This is something Pete and I have been scratching our heads over.

Though I have been looking at it the other way around - basically, a simple PHP starter, using ProcessWire as the back end to give you something to work with.

Hopefully, the result would both teach someone how to do quite a lot of useful PHP and get them firmly welded to ProcessWire at the same time ....

[Mark]

I think my own downfall is that I need the information to be broken down into smaller chunks. A stepping stone of small/medium tutorials to gain confidence and feel that could achieve my goal in processwire. Having all the API on display was a little intimidating at first! If it wasn't for the friendly community and Joss's beginners tutorial I think I may of headed off to another CMS (my loss i know)  I am starting to see the power of processwire. 

I plan to go through the new PHP Code Academy Course over the next week. I will hopefully return to Processwire with a little confidence in basic coding.

http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/php

I would love to see the learning by doing type of tutorials found on sites like these:

http://www.w3schools.com/css/

http://www.codecademy.com

http://www.codepupil.com/

[DaveP]

Just a note to anyone relying on w3schools tutorials, take a look at http://w3fools.com/ first.