MrQwest

My CMS of Choice

8 January 10

This website is powered by a CMS called TextPattern. It’s a fine CMS and works really well for what it does. I’ve been using TextPattern for various sites over several years and I do enjoy using it. The syntax behind the system is easy to master as it’s very similar to XML which is ideal for web developers & designers alike.

No matter what CMS I try, I always end up going back to Textpattern. It’s simple, stable, reliable, and I love the syntax used to create your own templates. Being a front-end coder, the syntax (looking a lot like XHTML) is super-easy to learn. The Textpattern community is one of the most friendly and helpful I ever encountered.

— Tim Van Damme @ MadeByElephant.com /via textpattern.com

Recently however, whilst building a pet site project, I decided to give Wordpress a whirl. It was one of my goals for last year; something I had wanted to do for a while. I had attempted a wordpress install once before on a client site however, the client’s server specifications were very basic & wordpress couldn’t install. This ironically brought me to TextPattern.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

— via Wordpress.com

Again, WordPress is a mighty fine blogging engine. It can be used as a CMS, but it’s main feature (in my opinion) is the blogging side of things. It seemed ideal for what I wanted to do on my pet project (UKG*Mix), and would involve some basic tinkering but that’s all part of the challenge, right?

After using Wordpress for a couple of weeks, I was rather overwhelmed & over-joyed by the wealth of options, the huge plugin database and the sheer size of the community. I had thought I’d found a new favourite CMS, a system which had such a following that any problem or blip that I came across, someone, somewhere would have the answer.

It took a couple of weeks to get over the initial change in syntax, flow, & the way the systems worked but I eventually got my pet project up & running exactly how I’d wanted it to be run.

Since that one project, I have set up another 2 or 3 client sites using WordPress and they all seemed to go work nicely. I was slowly coming round to the WordPress fold.

And then, about a month ago, I logged back into the TextPattern install here @mrqwest.co.uk to run the update (to 4.2.0 if you’re interested) and was instantly reminded to why I loved TextPattern in the first place.

TextPattern is a system so powerful, yet so simple to operate. I feel like I am only scratching the surface with what can be achieved.

Do you run a blog? If so, what back end system do you run?