Making PW more userfriendly

[thetuningspoon]

@teppo - Couldn't have said it better 

[Soma]

You could also say because of this particular template setup pw lost many advanced devs before even looking further.

+1 what joss said. That's where I see PW struggles a lot. Living in between advanced and casual is always a bad idea/decision.

[thetuningspoon]

Wouldn't advanced devs also prefer the freedom of structuring the templates however they want?

I don't see PW being about casual or advanced. It's about providing an elegant foundation for building a totally custom website.

[rick]

You could also say because of this particular template setup pw lost many advanced devs before even looking further.

+1 what joss said. That's where I see PW struggles a lot. Living in between advanced and casual is always a bad idea/decision.

Wouldn't advanced devs also prefer the freedom of structuring the templates however they want?

I don't see PW being about casual or advanced. It's about providing an elegant foundation for building a totally custom website.

I don't consider myself an advanced programmer, neither am I a beginner. As I said in <a href="https://processwire.com/talk/topic/2311-processwire-on-the-web/page-17#entry99587">this</a> post, I balked at PW at first. The first articles I read referred to 'templates'. I wasn't looking for another app with a template engine, so I passed on digging deeper, and continued on with my search.

It was the term 'template' that initially turned me away. After looking at all the cms and framework files, I thought, "Great, another idea for a better mouse trap. ...Again." Each and every one of those cms and framewoork apps do not come anywhere close to processwire. Don't get me wrong, I've been using many of them for years, and I am not putting them down. They serve a purpose -- Just not my purpose.

From what I have been reading on this forum over the past few days, there is a great group ready and willing to help, and the development is heading in a direction that will support us newer members becoming a more integral part in the future. I don't see PW living between casual and advanced users at all. I see PW as it being what you need it to be. If you need casual, it fits. If you need advanced, it fits.

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[pwired]

They serve a purpose -- Just not my purpose.

I have tried them and never saw that purpose. I think it is more about history, who came first and used strong marketing.

[rick]

I have tried them and never saw that purpose. I think it is more about history, who came first and used strong marketing.

It is interesting that you say that.

What I like about ProcessWire is what I like about my choice in OS. This opinion is based solely on my developer-centric view, and not from the view of my clients.

ProcessWire to me is akin to the *NIX of operating systems. Other so called CMSs, especially the more popular ones (wordpress, drupal, et al.), are the windows wrapper versions, whereas the MVCs (and Smartys/Twigs impementations) are the mutated CP/Ms. Everyone believes they have a better mouse-trap. And Yes. You can use their self-proclaimed turbo-charged, lemon-fresh, automatic-transmission mouse trap to kill a mouse, but at exorbitant cost for the supporting systems and learning curves of the end-user.

ProcessWire is well architected, particularly so for us 'geeks', as is Unix. And that is where the trumpeted "User Friendly" rears it's ugly head. I'm not knocking the opinion of others. This is, after all, only my opinion. I don't mind so much the Gnome [x-windows, etc.] attempts to make *nix more user-friendly, but please, please, don't bastardize ProcessWire into Windows98.

[desbest]

On 9/14/2014 at 1:39 PM, woop said:

Interesting discussion! I definitely think Processwire could improve its usability but I don't think plugins is the way to do it.

I just did a clean install of PW 2.5 and documented each step in the process. Here's a .pdf with 44 slides that covers the scenario of a new user's first contact with PW: http://cl.ly/0e3V2M3w1z1B

comments appreciated

Has anyone still got this PDF?

It seems funny and full of profound design and usability insight!