I received the nicest comment on an earlier post (the one about my goof and the ultimate switch to Textpattern). He asked how I like Textpattern compared to Wordpress. I’d like to take a minute or two to answer this. I’ve been using TXP for a couple of weeks now, so let me do this while WP is still fresh in my mind.
The Options
I’ve been designing blogs for Wordpress for a year now and have hailed it as the best blogging platform. For many I would still say that is true, but not for me. I think EVERY platform out there is suited better to some people.
For example, I personally can’t stand Typepad, for many reasons, including the expense and very little customization. You can only edit the CSS, even with the full plan. For a seasoned designer, sure that could work, but if I’m paying over a hundred dollars a year, I want full control.
However, I have a dear friend who is not so good with HTML and she loves Typepad because it’s familiar and she can somewhat drag and drop things into place.
I know folks who love blogger for the same reason. It’s painless and requires NO skills unless you need to put something in the sidebar, then you have to fish through the code to find where the sidebar is.
Wordpress
Then Wordpress comes in. I fell in love with Wordpress immediately, primarily because I could have complete control over my template that I didn’t get from Typepad, and it was free apart from my hosted account, which I had anyway. It could also separate my posts in categories, unlike blogger. And unlike either blogger or typepad, I could create pages apart from posts and fully customize which pages I linked to and how. Technically, I could created a full-fledged website beyond just a blog - and I did just that for a lot of my clients. It saved them hundreds on my creating each page by hand and even more on maintenance because they could handle all of that themselves.
Textpattern
Now, enter Textpattern. I looked at it a year ago, but was just getting to know Wordpress, so I didn’t want to tackle it then. I kept seeing the credit “TXP” at the bottom of my favorite blogs… tall people like Nathan, Rob, and Mark, all used Textpattern. But… they didn’t just use it, they proclaimed it’s superiority. I was magnetically drawn at that point, so I downloaded it and installed in a few minutes.
A second look at the software told me I could swing it, but it would take a little more time than I had, so I put it off for a “rainy day” of doing nothing when I’d have time to go at it. Little did I know I was in for a push and I’d have no choice.
The Incident that Led me to Textpattern
A couple of weeks ago I was working on a client’s live mock up and I was finished, so I decided to delete that installation of Wordpress and install the new 2.0. I went in to delete the database from my list of 25+ databases and mistakenly deleted the database for this very site! I know, I know. Anyway, I was completely down. I had a nice pretty template, but no posts, no pages, no links, categories, nothin’ - nada - zip.
After calming down from my “Oh please God, tell me I didn’t just do that” moment, I sucked it up and decided it was do or die with Textpattern. It was 9pm so I could be farely safe to say I’d have fewer visitors in the wee hours, so I set to work to have it done by morning: porting the template, digging up cached posts, all of it. Let me tell you, it was a rush! (By the way, I used Google Desktop to find my cached posts - life saver that is).
After I got everything up and running, I have now spent the last few weeks examining TXP and comparing to Wordpress. This is what I see. If you’re a serious blogger with a professional blog, or a company who wants a professional content management system, use Textpattern. If you’re a new to moderate blogger or you’re just the type that likes things easy and comfortable, stick with Wordpress. Here are a few comparisons for you…
| The main differences between TXP and WP | ||
|---|---|---|
| TXP | WP | |
| Image uploading | You can browse upload and place images in categories | Browse and upload WITHIN the post and images are filed by date |
| File uploading | Browse and upload the same way as images, categorize, link for download | no adequate file upload. You can use image upload to upload files, but it requires a hack |
| pages and posts | not just pages, but sections, then pages within sections, posts can also be put in sections, great for asides | pages and posts, all pages in one "section" all posts separate. You can separate how you display posts for asides, but again, requires a hack. |
| RSS | separate feed for links, otherwise they look the same, but you can show comment count in the feed and tell feed readers to update each time a comment is posted (if you have the need) | standard feeds for posts and by author |
| Import from another blog | Moveable Type (file or MySQL DB), Blogger, B2, Wordpress - with TXP you can specify WHERE you want the import to go to (which section, category, etc) | RSS, Blogger, Textpattern (blogger import has yet to work for me) |
| Code support | Template tags created for you based on your settings. You say you want a list of ten links from this category and it creates a template tag which you copy and paste into place | Must use WP website for documentation and template tags |
| Includes | Easy includes using "forms" - can be as small as one line of code or as large as a whole webpage, may use XHTML, textpattern code, |
Must create a new PHP file for each include (can be a nightmare if you want 4-5 includes and you end up with a long list of files in your template area) |
| Plugins | Plugins are about the same, depending on who’s creating them, since they’re created by volunteers, just the install is a little different. With textpattern you copy and paste the code and click install. | With WP you have to FTP the plugin to the plugins folder and then install - it’s fine if you can FTP, but TXP is better if you can’t or don’t want to. |
Another neat thing with TXP… I can exclude certain posts sections from the RSS feed if I want to, and if I decide I want to change a post into a page or a page into a post, I can do that. And when posting you have the option to change format from straight text to html, to textile right there. There’s no WYSIWYG editor, which is why I don’t recommend TXP for the moderate user, but if you can get to know textile, it’s just as easy.
Keep in mind, I’ve only been working with Textpattern for a couple of weeks, and I’m not an expert on Wordpress. If I’ve left something out or I’m wrong about something, I welcome your feedback!
Tim left a comment on January 17, 2006 at 7:30 pm | #
Alright :-)I can begin to see your point.(thanks for the quick response to my questions!)Here are a few thoughts more and a few specs from WordPress (2.0):Import from:Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type,RSS feed, Textpattern, Dotclear(My successful experience is with LiveJournal and RSS)File Uploads: through the uploader without any hack required.
So, all that to say you have me thinking that I had better go check out TextPattern hmmm :-)
Thanks for the detailed review, keep us posted on any other reasons you find to pick TextPattern over WordPress for professional blogging and CMS.
Tim
Natalie left a comment on January 17, 2006 at 7:41 pm | #
In older versions of WP, there is no auto install from the admin. Most basic users wouldn’t know where to find the import.php files or what to do with them. TXP has all the options right there in the admin panel. In 2.0, there’s an option in the admin area, but only the three options mentioned in the table above. Below is a screenshot from the TXP admin.
When I said “hack” it was just an easy way to say it takes some extra settings or other files/code to make it work. I was able to get files to upload, but had to go in and tell WP to allow specific file types beside images. A lot CAN be done with Wordpress, but it’s not so easy for someone who’s coming from a blogger or Typepad environment.
It’s kind of like buying a car you have to tweak to get it to go over 50MPH. TXP works out of the box for most everything. Then if you really want a spoiler or something you can find that fairly easily. The only problem I’ve had with TXP so far is just finding plugins to match what I was using with WP.
If you’re thinking about it, go ahead and install it in another directory and see what you think. It takes some getting used to, especially the sections vs pages vs forms… that was tough, but once you get it down, it’s much better.
Rob left a comment on January 17, 2006 at 10:49 pm | #
heck yes… TXP rocks the casbah! :) Thanks for the link.
Horst Gutmann left a comment on January 20, 2006 at 1:42 pm | #
Thanks for this very nice comparision :D I’m using WP for all of my weblogs but posts such as yours always make me consider TXP again ;) I just have a few problems with it: The database structure when it comes to post meta-fields/custom-fields is very limited in TXP. And since I’m using these meta-fields (or at least used to use them) very often, this held me back. Another problem for me is Textile. I simply prefer markdown but replacing Textile with Markdown in TXP is definitely more complicated than it is in WP. The 3rd and I think the last issue is the way TXP stores its layout. Being used to do everything on the commandline on the server, changing a template this way is not really practical in TXP.
But thanks to your post I will definitely give it a try once again ;)
Natalie Jost left a comment on January 20, 2006 at 1:48 pm | #
You have some very valid points and like I said, it really depends on the user and that user’s needs. Being a little more designer than techie, I still like TXP better, but there are a few things about Wordpress that I miss. Thanks for your comment. I can see how WP works for you. I wasn’t fond of Textile either, but found other sites I visited using it (backpack and basecamp I use a lot) so I got used to it after awhile. I’m the opposite now I guess. I couldn’t get Markdown down. Textile was easier for me. You know though you can turn off textile and go HTML with/without linebreaks. I use that sometimes like on this post when I wanted to have the table in there.
Mark left a comment on January 21, 2006 at 10:06 pm | #
Thanks for including me in your post Natalie. Unfortunately I don’t have my site converted over quite yet, but it’s almost there.
Great article with some wonderful points. I personally prefer Textpattern primarily because it just makes sense. It has the ability to be more of a lightweight CMS than just a blogging tool like Wordpress. I’m currently putting a 30+ site into it and it hasn’t hiccuped once. The conditional tags make life so much easier. Overall I would take TXP over Wordpress anyday. Now if I can just finish converting my site over.
Natalie Jost left a comment on January 22, 2006 at 12:08 am | #
You know, now that I’m thinking of it I remember you were on WP. I guess your site just looked so good I subconciously assumed it was Textpattern. :) Glad to see you’re moving over. I’m sure your site will be even better!
Arif Widianto left a comment on January 26, 2006 at 6:31 am | #
There’s no WYSIWYG editor, which is why I don’t recommend TXP for the moderate user,
Yes, there is not. But there is already a TXP plugins name hak_tinymce which I think is a great WYSIWIG editor replacement.
About Markdown replacement, I thought there are also a simple mod/integration to using Markdown with TXP.
Natalie Jost left a comment on January 26, 2006 at 9:13 am | #
I was thinking first about the “out of the box” features when comparing since almost anything could be done with plugins. TXP has ALMOST as much community support as Wordpress does, so users should find a good setup for either.
I have to inject a personal note here though. I find it best to adapt to new technology rather than make that technology adapt to you. It’s better to get to know the system and learn its existing features before tweaking it too much with all kinds of plugins.
But for the moderate blogger who really just wants textpattern to work like their good old friendly wordpress, the options are there to make life a little more comfortable for them. Thanks for sharing those links!
Scott Kennedy left a comment on January 30, 2006 at 4:36 pm | #
Thanks for putting together this comparison. I was using Blogger a couple years ago and wanted more functionality, so I installed TXP when it was still in the development phase. Unfortunately, I got a little frustrated at the delays and jumped to WordPress. I’m now maintaining four blogs using WP.
At the time of the switch it seemed like WP was more stable, better established and had more plugins to choose from. However, in retrospect I feel like the people in the TXP forum were more helpful than what I currently get on the WP forum. My threads over there often fall into a black hole (though maybe it’s just a matter of size of the community). If only I’d been able to get the sections working right I may have stayed with TXP?
I’m about to design a website for our church. Until I read your article I was going to do it in WP, but now I’m having second thoughts. Do you think that the added functionality of Sections in TXP is worth giving up the WYSIWYG editor and user interface of WP? I’ll be doing most of the site updates, but there will be other contributors for various pieces of content.
Natalie Jost left a comment on January 30, 2006 at 4:50 pm | #
Hey Scott. I can’t tell you what’s best in your situation, but I am switching a lot of my sites to TXP and new clients are getting it too. In my experience (I’m still new to TXP), people aren’t too happy with the new WP2.0. Things aren’t quite as simple, even with the “WYSIWYG” which I don’t think fits the acronym as much anymore. Sometimes what you see is NOT what you get when you insert an image and it gives you the thumbnail without asking. :)
For me, I prefer to keep things clean and simple. Wordpress is “easier” for a beginner, but I would recommend taking the time to get comfortable with Textpattern and Textile.
I’m in the process of setting up a website for a writer for her series of books. She knows very little about any of this, but I have all kinds of confidence that she’ll be able to handle TXP.
Scott Kennedy left a comment on January 30, 2006 at 10:26 pm | #
It is funny that you say that about WP 2.0. I actually turned off the WYSIWYG editor because I was encountering that very problem when making edits to posts. WP would show a double break return, but the actual post would only have a single
<br />.Thanks for the added feedback. I think I’m going to make a go at it with TXP.
Matias Seibert left a comment on April 24, 2006 at 9:01 pm | #
Sure TXP is alot more powerful and scaleable than Wordpress. And I definately see your point in that the new WYSIWYG editor in WP 2.0 sucks. Seeing you as a seasoned designer though, I’m surprised that you missed the fact that you have to use Textpattern’s inbuilt style edittor. If TXP had a directory of themes, then you could easily modify the file in an editor such as Dreamweaver (which I use for it’s excellent coding environment) and then upload. Instead you have to go back and forth copying and pasting, instead of just saving and having it upload for you.
-Betta (That’s really the only downside to TXP for me, so WP it is)
Natalie Jost left a comment on April 24, 2006 at 9:29 pm | #
I don’t have to use textpattern’s built in style editor, I choose to because I prefer to hand code right there. I don’t use Dreamweaver or any other wizzy wig because they get in my way. BTW, I wrote this after only using TXP for a few weeks.
Josh Beam left a comment on April 30, 2006 at 9:59 pm | #
A man :( I’ve been loving Wordpress. You’re making me start to think that I should switch to TXP ;)