I gave up on WordPress

[turbohans]

WordPress is nice, I can say that. WP adds a lot of usability that is unheard of when you normally think of bloggin platforms or even any website platform at all. Recently I decided to move on though, give up WordPress and start fresh with a content management system. The most common content management systems that you would normally think of are Joomla!, Drupal, DotNETnuke, or a many others, I decided to stick with Drupal though.


So where do you stand on this though? Have I gone to far? Or is there anything you think I should work on?


I oppose spam though! My website is totally non-commercial in nature so I figured I could give you a link for demonstration purposes. If you would like to see this conversion in action you can read the following article.
hfase.com/no-more-wordpress

 

[Oulse]

Wordpress by default is not fit for a large website, but it gives a nice framework. It is meant for a single stream of data like a blog, though there are many features like categories and pages that allow more complex systems. With some PHP knowledge, I believe Wordpress could easily be anything you want.

Due to its relative simplicity, I also have more confidence in Wordpress's security and stability. For a PHP and SQL driven platform, that is of utmost importance.

 

[Shelnutt2]

I know our front page here uses wordpress. In my project I'm using drupal. I find its easiest for me to work with and frame to my custom needs.

 

[turbohans]

That is sort of what I was thinking (as far as just the platform I use and not this WP here), simple is good! I am a little more technical so I overlook what some people may think is complicated. WordPress is absolutely the best for small/medium websites, however it lacks much of what is needed for large multipurpose/multi-user websites im my opinion. What I decided to start working with is Drupal of course, and it adds all of that simplicity with features that allow for much more than WordPress is capable of.

When you think of security there is also a few other things that come into hand though, such as user accounts and file permissions though, and that is something I have found Drupal to be a lot more flexible with.

The one downside I have noticed so far though is database usage. I think Drupal in the way I have it configured could use a lot more database than a standard WordPress installation. That is not a big problem for me though.

 

[Seebs]

I understand where you're coming from. WP is a great tool for those that want to launch a site and are not super versed in the ways of web development. It has its limitations like any tool would, but from a "noob" point of view there is no "easier" platform; maybe Blogger, but then again; that is taking it to the other extreme... Way too simple and not enough customization.

I tinkered with Joomla and Drupal in the past and always ended up going back to good old WP + phpBB for the sites I ran back then. WP, out of the gate, can be somewhat limited, but add a couple of plugins, set up a portal and you can have a fully functioning site without much investment of time or knowledge. And then there are the themes; there are literally thousands of themes. You can get some very decent free to use themes, you can find some extremely professional looking paid themes and you can have fully custom themes made for you by "theme pros".
Back when I used to run my sites; the need for a custom theme was my excuse to learn php and how the theme engine worked on WP; it didn't take me more than a couple of months to be able to put a fully functioning custom made theme with everything; and the best part is that even though I moved on to other hobbies and sold my sites/domains, I walked away with knowledge that proved valuable time and time again long after the sites were gone.

 

[David]

We have a Wordpress setup for Overclockers.com, with a fair few plugins to allow for things like vBulletin integration. It works pretty well for us - we're all volunteer staff so it needs to be pretty straightforward to get good content out onto the web.

The only thing I dislike is the lack of an image per post, which I (personally) feel would make the frontpage more attractive, but that's most likely straightforward to implement if we had dev. time.

 

[Seebs]

The only thing I dislike is the lack of an image per post, which I (personally) feel would make the frontpage more attractive, but that's most likely straightforward to implement if we had dev. time.

WP has had that built in for a while. All that's needed:
- Small edit to "The Loop" in the main.php and/or home.php. Depending on which one we use here.

- Enable post thumbnails in the functions.php

- Have authors upload an image in the required size and label it as featured.

- Do the styling on the .css file so the image aligns properly and displays with the necessary bling.

- Profit.




Here's the info on that functionality: WP Post Thumbnails.

 

[turbohans]

Yea I would say that is one of the biggest things that made me decide to switch there. WordPress does allow for a good amount of features and tweaks, but I think in the long run manual edits of hard-written php pages is something to be avoided.
For example to configure WordPress to work with multiple domains it requires a weird wp-config.php edit, and for the mod mentioned above it also requires some manual editing.

For the installation of Drupal I have there was no file editing at all done. In fact the way it is set up I can run multiple domains/subdomains all from the same installation and root directory. Also adding just about anything you can think of to a page, article or whatever is a lot easier with a standard CMS platform.

As far as plugins, I may have gone a little crazy....

[oldtable]Administration Development tools|7.x-3.0-rc1|Administration and debugging functionality for developers and site builders.
AdSense core|7.x-1.x-dev|Displays Google AdSense ads on your site to earn revenue. Requires at least one additional ad unit generator module.
Aggregator|7.9|Aggregates syndicated content (RSS, RDF, and Atom feeds).
AJAX Comments|7.x-1.x-dev|Module makes comments load without a page refresh via AJAX
Alternative PHP Cache|7.x-1.0-beta3|Enables the Alternative PHP Cache.
Apture|7.x-1.x-dev|Enable the Apture bar for your site.
Auto Expire|7.x-1.x-dev|An auto expire system for nodes
Background Batch|7.x-1.9|Adds background processing to Drupals batch API
Background Process|7.x-1.9|Provides framework for running code in the background
Apache server status|7.x-1.9|Automatically unlocks dead processes using Apache server status
Block|7.9|Controls the visual building blocks a page is constructed with. Blocks are boxes of content rendered into an area, or region, of a web page.
Blog|7.9|Enables multi-user blogs.
Book|7.9|Allows users to create and organize related content in an outline.
Cache Graceful|7.x-1.1|Call user functions and cache the results gracefully
CAPTCHA|7.x-1.0-beta1|Base CAPTCHA module for adding challenges to arbitrary forms.
Chaos tools|7.x-1.0-rc1|A library of helpful tools by Merlin of Chaos.
CKEditor|7.x-1.6|Enables CKEditor (WYSIWYG HTML editor) for use instead of plain text fields.
Color|7.9|Allows administrators to change the color scheme of compatible themes.
Comment|7.9|Allows users to comment on and discuss published content.
Contact|7.9|Enables the use of both personal and site-wide contact forms.
Content Access|7.x-1.2-beta1|Provides flexible content access control.
Content Access Rules Integrations|7.x-1.2-beta1|Integrates Rules with Content access. Allows to act on access events, conditions, and actions.
Content Analysis API|7.x-1.0-alpha2|Provides an API for content analyzers
Content translation|7.9|Allows content to be translated into different languages.
Contextual links|7.9|Provides contextual links to perform actions related to elements on a page.
Cumulus|7.x-1.x-dev|Provides a Flash-based 3D tag cloud.
D2C Analytics|7.x-1.3|Populates the database with statistics about your visitors and the QR Codes usage they made. This information will later be processed by consumer modules to produce graphs of your interest.
D2C Analytics Main Consumer|7.x-1.3|Processes all statistics information provided by the D2C Analytics module, building a simple interface to show interactive graphs about the use of your QR codes. This interface will be reused by different consumer modules that may add their own graphs to it.
D2C Analytics Preferences Consumer|7.x-1.3|Processes user preferences statistics like the preferred locales, used interfaces (desktop vs. mobile) and favorite browsers.
D2C Analytics Profiles Consumer|7.x-1.3|Processes D2C user profiles statistics (like top age ranges, used e-mails servers, etc.) depending on the configuration of your D2C domains.
D2C Core|7.x-1.3|Provides integration with dot2code's QR code management system.
D2C Node|7.x-1.3|Makes it easy to bind your QR codes to Drupal nodes. Each node will get a new tab with all its bound codes. It also adds a new configurable block to be displayed on every node with attached QR codes.
D2C User|7.x-1.3|Lets you link local user accounts with D2C user accounts and apply different authentication strategies using data provided by dot2code. It also lets you change the roles of incoming visitors to show different contents to regular users and D2C powered users.
Dashboard|7.9|Provides a dashboard page in the administrative interface for organizing administrative tasks and tracking information within your site.
Database logging|7.9|Logs and records system events to the database.
DB Maintenance|7.x-1.0-alpha1|Executes an OPTIMIZE TABLE query on MyISAM, InnoDB, or BerkeleyDB database tables in a MySQL database or a VACUUM on PostgreSQL tables.
Diff|7.x-2.0 |Show difference between node revisions.
Document|7.x-1.x-dev|Allows users to upload Documents, search & download them.
Domain Access|7.x-2.16|A domain-based access control system
Domain Alias|7.x-2.16|Advanced domain matching methods for Domain Access.
Domain Configuration|7.x-2.16|Advanced site configuration options for Domain Access.
Domain Content|7.x-2.16|Provides a content batch editing screen for each active domain.
Domain Ctools|7.x-1.3|Chaos Tools plugins for Domain Access.
Domain Navigation|7.x-2.16|Navigation block and menu options for Domain Access
Domain Settings|7.x-2.16|Expanded site configuration options for Domain Access.
Domain Source|7.x-2.16|Creates a canonical source domain for linking to content from other domains.
Domain Strict|7.x-2.16|Forces users to be assigned to a domain in order to view content on that domain.
Domain Theme|7.x-2.16|Assign themes to domains created by the Domain Access module
Dynamic display block|7.x-1.0 |Displays dynamic content in a block.
Entity API|7.x-1.0-rc1|Enables modules to work with any entity type and to provide entities.
Entity tokens|7.x-1.0-rc1|Provides token replacements for all properties that have no tokens and are known to the entity API.
Featured Content|7.x-1.4|Provides configurable Featured Content blocks.
Features|7.x-1.0-beta4|Provides feature management for Drupal.
Feedback|7.x-2.x-dev|Allows site visitors and users to report issues about this site.
Feeds|7.x-2.0-alpha4|Aggregates RSS/Atom/RDF feeds, imports CSV files and more.
Feeds Admin UI|7.x-2.0-alpha4|Administrative UI for Feeds module.
Feeds News|7.x-2.0-alpha4|A news aggregator built with feeds, creates nodes from imported feed items. With OPML import.
Field|7.9|Field API to add fields to entities like nodes and users.
Field SQL storage|7.9|Stores field data in an SQL database.
Field UI|7.9|User interface for the Field API.
File|7.9|Defines a file field type.
File entity|7.x-1.0-rc2|Extends Drupal file entities to be fieldable and viewable.
Filter|7.9|Filters content in preparation for display.
Fivestar|7.x-2.0-alpha1|Enables fivestar ratings on content, users, etc.
Front Page|7.x-2.1|Allows site admins setup custom front pages for the site.
Gallery Formatter|7.x-1.0|Provides a jquery gallery CCK formatter for imagefield.
Global Redirect|7.x-1.3|Searches for an alias of the current URL and 301 redirects if found. Stops duplicate content arising when path module is enabled.
Google Analytics|7.x-1.2|Allows your site to be tracked by Google Analytics by adding a Javascript tracking code to every page.
Gravatar|7.x-1.1| Integrate Gravatar pictures registered at Gravatar.com in Drupal sites.
GTranslate|7.x-1.7|Uses Google power to translate your web site.
Help|7.9|Manages the display of online help.
HTML Mail|7.x-2.62|Enables HTML in system emails.
Image|7.9|Provides image manipulation tools.
Insert|7.x-1.1|Assists in inserting files, images, or other media into the body field or other text areas.
Janrain Engage Core|7.x-2.1|Core sign-in functionality for Janrain Engage.
Janrain Engage Rules integration|7.x-2.1|Provides integration of Janrain Engage with rules
Janrain Engage UI|7.x-2.1|User interface for Janrain Engage.
Janrain Engage Widgets|7.x-2.1|Engage sign-in and social widgets integration.
Job Scheduler|7.x-2.0-alpha2|Scheduler API
Legal|7.x-1.2|Display Terms and Conditions statement on the registration page.
Libraries|7.x-1.0|Allows version dependent and shared usage of external libraries.
Lightbox2|7.x-1.0-beta1|Enables Lightbox2 for Drupal
List|7.9|Defines list field types. Use with Options to create selection lists.
Locale|7.9|Adds language handling functionality and enables the translation of the user interface to languages other than English.
LoginToboggan|7.x-1.3|Improves Drupal's login system.
LoginToboggan Content Access Integration|7.x-1.3|Integrates LoginToboggan with Content Access module, so that Non-validated users are handled correctly
Mail System|7.x-2.30|Provides a user interface for per-module and site-wide mail_system selection.
Managed ads|7.x-1.x-dev|Ad unit generator module using the new managed ads feature available in the Google AdSense site.
Media|7.x-1.0-rc2|Provides the core Media API
Media Browser Plus|7.x-1.0-beta3|Provides better UX for the media browser
Media Internet Sources|7.x-1.0-rc2|Provides an API for accessing media on various internet services
MediaFront|7.x-1.4|A front end media solution for Drupal.
Menu|7.9|Allows administrators to customize the site navigation menu.
Module filter|7.x-1.6|Filter the modules list.
Nice Menus|7.x-2.0|CSS/jQuery drop-down, drop-right and drop-left menus to be placed in blocks
Node|7.9|Allows content to be submitted to the site and displayed on pages.
Number|7.9 |Defines numeric field types.
On The Web|7.x-1.2|A block that provides linked icons to your other presences on the web.
Open Standards Media Player|7.x-1.4|The Open Standards Media player plugin for the MediaFront module.
Options|7.9 |Defines selection, check box and radio button widgets for text and numeric fields.
Path|7.9|Allows users to rename URLs.
Phonegap|7.x-1.0|Allow mobile user posts
PHP filter|7.9|Allows embedded PHP code/snippets to be evaluated.
Poll|7.9|Allows your site to capture votes on different topics in the form of multiple choice questions.
Progress|7.x-1.3|Progress status framework
Publish Content|7.x-1.0|Adds a 'Publish' or 'Unpublish' link on the node.
Rate|7.x-1.2|Flexible voting options for nodes and comments
RDF|7.9|Enriches your content with metadata to let other applications (e.g. search engines, aggregators) better understand its relationships and attributes.
Readability|7.x-1.0-beta1|Provides several readability tests for content.
reCAPTCHA|7.x-1.7|Uses the reCAPTCHA web service to improve the CAPTCHA system.
reCAPTCHA Mailhide|7.x-1.7|Uses the reCAPTCHA web service to protect email addresses.
Revisioning|7.x-1.2|Allows the creation and modification of content while the current revision remains unchanged and publicly visible until the changes have been reviewed by a moderator.
Revisioning Scheduler|7.x-1.2|Allows revisions to be published at specified times.
Rules|7.x-2.0|React on events and conditionally evaluate actions.
Search|7.9|Enables site-wide keyword searching.
Search 404|7.x-1.1|Automatically search for the keywords in URLs that result in 404 errors and show results instead of Page-Not-Found.
Security Review|7.x-1.0|Site security and configuration review module.
ShareThis|7.x-2.2|This module adds the ShareThis widget to a node on your site.
ShareThis Block|7.x-2.2|This module creates a custom block for the ShareThis widget.
Shortcut|7.9|Allows users to manage customizable lists of shortcut links.
Site Verification|7.x-1.0|Verifies ownership of a site for use with search engines.
Skin|7.x-1.3|Turns your theme into a flexible, offsite skin.
Statistics|7.9|Logs access statistics for your site.
System|7.9|Handles general site configuration for administrators.
System Information|7.x-3.0-beta1|Displays information about the current state of the Drupal installation and system environment.
Tagadelic|7.x-1.x-dev|Tagadelic makes weighted tag clouds from your taxonomy terms.
Taxonomy|7.9|Enables the categorization of content.
Taxonomy Manager|7.x-1.0-beta2|Tool for administrating taxonomy terms.
Text|7.9|Defines simple text field types.
Toolbar|7.9|Provides a toolbar that shows the top-level administration menu items and links from other modules.
Tracker|7.9|Enables tracking of recent content for users.
Translation overview|7.x-2.0-beta1|Provides an overview of the translation status of the site's content.
Trigger|7.9|Enables actions to be fired on certain system events, such as when new content is created.
Twitter|7.x-3.0-beta4|Adds integration with the Twitter microblogging service.
Ultimate Cron|7.x-1.6|Cron
Update manager|7.9|Checks for available updates, and can securely install or update modules and themes via a web interface.
User|7.9|Manages the user registration and login system.
Video|7.x-2.4|Upload and manage video content with Drupal
Video UI|7.x-2.4|Administrative interface to Video. Without this module you cannot configure the video module.
Views|7.x-3.0-rc3|Create customized lists and queries from your database.
Views UI|7.x-3.0-rc3|Administrative interface to views. Without this module, you cannot create or edit your views.
Voting API|7.x-2.4|Provides a shared voting API for other modules.
Workbench|7.x-1.1|Workbench editorial suite.
XML sitemap|7.x-2.0-beta3|Creates an XML sitemap conforming to the sitemaps.org protocol.
XML sitemap custom|7.x-2.0-beta3|Adds user configurable links to the sitemap.
XML sitemap domain|7.x-1.0-beta2|Provides domain contexts for XML sitemaps.
XML sitemap engines|7.x-2.0-beta3|Submit the sitemap to search engines.
XML sitemap menu|7.x-2.0-beta3|Adds menu item links to the sitemap.
XML sitemap node|7.x-2.0-beta3|Adds content links to the sitemap.
XML sitemap taxonomy|7.x-2.0-beta3|Add taxonomy term links to the sitemap.
XML sitemap user|7.x-2.0-beta3|Adds user profile links to the sitemap.
Zemanta|7.x-1.0|Zemanta module[/table]

I should also add that eventually I plan on adding a plugin to that list that will handle (sudo)phpBB forum integration. However I will not use phpBB....

 

[Oulse]

Keep in mind that the more plugins you add, the higher your risk for an SQL injection or cross-site scripting attack.

 

[turbohans]

Very true! That is a scary reality that is faced with every website platform I can think of.
Cross site scripting (XSS) is not quite as much of a problem as SQL injection, IF a web admin is very careful in selecting what a user can post. This is the reason for PHP filtering. But there can also be inherant problems with the platform you may be using for a website also that could allow for nasty problems... Just ask Mark Zuckerberg...

SQL injections though, those are a little harder to keep track of lose ends on. Because somthing as small as an open piece of code that does not track session data can allow a bot to inject code into a database in one way or another. From what I have learned it does not even need to be a input box or anything like that that could allow vulnerabilities . SQL injections and XSS attacks can happen even with URL strings I guess!?

EDIT: Also just so the list above does not seem so overwhelming I should let you all know that a lot of those are actually core features of Drupal that I have enabled. The list just includes everything that I have enabled on my website as of right now.
I am not really to worried about security with this website, the database and front-end are on separate virtual machines that get backed up 20 times a day... ((database VM is only accessible via LAN also hehehehe))

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

to work with multiple domains you should be using the multi-site wordpress i would assume.

 

[turbohans]

Yea I thought that I would need a difrent distribution of WordPress for multi-site support also at first, and that was true up until recently.

ATTENTION! WordPress MU is no longer under active development as a separate product. Its features were rolled into core and released with WordPress 3.0. You can simply proceed by Installing WordPress and Create A Network instead. It functions generally the same.

So now they have bundled(/partially abandon) development of the "MU" WordPress version. I actually attempted to activate the functions of such with no luck on a few occasions, and already contemplated some of the limitation of such an environment.

I should add that a lot of major plugins you see listed above are also available for WordPress. Most of those plugins though are a lot harder to find and configure for a WordPress installation though.

 

[mbentley]

I personally use Wordpress for my blog which I haven't really updated in a while but I have to say that is has been quite straightforward considering how little I have messed with Wordpress & php.

And btw, great use of the table tags turbohans

 

[turbohans]

Yea I personally don't have any problem with WordPress, it acutally functions extremely well. I just ran into a lot of problems trying to get it to do things it was not intended to do.

One of the first problems I had with it was with menu's and pages, as those are a little strange to work with on WordPress compared to most other CMS platforms. Secondly most of the plugins for WordPress that allow for things like mail-hide captcha, comment captcha, and registration agreements are very rudimentary and not user friendly. Third problem was with authoring, if another user has the ability to post an article there is no easy way to restrict them from publishing the article before it is reviewed. Or tracking changes to articles that were edited by other users. I could go on an on about small things like that though!

As far as administrator usability Drupal is just-as if not more user friendly than WordPress IMO. Even with the amount of plugins installed as I do I still find it very simple to work with in an administrator standpoint. For users though it is actually even more simple as they might only be alowed to veiw the authoring "workbench" as I will have pictured below.

This is what the authoring workbench looks like on my installation of Drupal.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

If you dont want to play with the code, wordpress is fine, if you want to customize it beyond just downloading someone else's templates, wordpress is a nightmare.

 

[turbohans]

No joke! More like having a nightmare in a coma! Because what happens when an update rolls out or you want to add somthing else and don't know about compatibility...

There is still a few things I am trying to smooth out with Drupal though, but I have only had it set up for about a week now. haha
The cool thing though is that it does not require separate directories for different domains, just a server that supports the directives needed to do what it does. The one huge downside I have noticed so far though is database usage and raw code volume. The installation is somewhere around 100mb of just code. ..and so far my database is around 70mb.
Everything is cached though for visitors, so it is extremely fast even though I host it on a 3mb/s upload. :b

I tinkered with Joomla and Drupal in the past and always ended up going back to good old WP + phpBB for the sites I ran back then. WP, out of the gate, can be somewhat limited, but add a couple of plugins, set up a portal and you can have a fully functioning site without much investment of time or knowledge. And then there are the themes; there are literally thousands of themes. You can get some very decent free to use themes, you can find some extremely professional looking paid themes and you can have fully custom themes made for you by "theme pros".
Back when I used to run my sites; the need for a custom theme was my excuse to learn php and how the theme engine worked on WP; it didn't take me more than a couple of months to be able to put a fully functioning custom made theme with everything; and the best part is that even though I moved on to other hobbies and sold my sites/domains, I walked away with knowledge that proved valuable time and time again long after the sites were gone.

Hehe I should add that I found something a lot better than phpBB that can be integrated with WP (not that you would really need to :b ) in the future possibly. The forum I have up allows users to select their own theme for the whole website. if you want to check that out just go here and look for this in the menu on the side.

Right now I have 4 themes you can switch to.