Joss Sanglier

Despite my many jokes, I am not sure it is always wise to make a direct comparison between ProcessWire and WordPress.

However, there is an issue here that is not about the WP platform itself – there are many people out there who refer to themselves as developers who are using WP to try and put together business communication websites for clients.

I believe this is not the best use of WordPress and not the best way to serve business clients. But it would be the perfect use for ProcessWire.

I am, rather infamously, not a developer. My PHP knowledge is very basic as is my knowledge of JQuery. My HTML and CSS are fine.

Despite that, I have been able to learn to use ProcessWire and create sites quickly and efficiently – it was a lot more fun than working with WordPress. Why? Because unlike WordPress, I am not trapped in the theme laden, plugin world that typifies both WP and Joomla.

ProcessWire allows me to create a website in the same way I would with, for instance, Dreamweaver. I can be as free and adventurous as I like without worrying how it will shoehorn into the system. I can use any JQuery or Javascript fun, bouncy, spinning thing I want without having to have a “PW Version” created – they work out of the box. I have happily added Adobe Edge Animations without having to customise anything.

ProcessWire then allows me to customise every page or sets of pages so that they are EXACTLY what the client needs; not almost. Pages in ProcessWire are just containers that hold data from fields – they can be used as Pages as you know them, or they can be used for all kinds of data sets. Maybe the term Pages is a little misleading, but they had to be called something!

The point is that ProcessWire gives the developer and the designer a blank slate from which to create something bespoke and very, very specific – which is what every business website should be. And because of that, the designer, developer and copywriter can respect the client brief, the company’s brand values and the brand itself without compromise, while the engine that runs it all, ProcessWire, is transparent and rock solid.

There is nothing wrong with WordPress – but it does get used in the wrong way frequently.

Jeff, since you are not a developer, and maybe have no interest in learning how to develop or design, you are probably much better off staying with Drumlapress, and that is absolutely fine. But if you ever find that you want to do and learn more, find out what you can do from scratch without having to rely on plugin publishers and theme developers, then you will not find a better starting point that ProcessWire – even with almost no knowledge at all.

In fact, we are starting to produce tutorials with people like yourself in mind – very detailed, step by step guides that do not just show you how to use ProcessWire but also teach you the very basic PHP that will help bring it all together.

http://processwire.com/docs/tutorials/ (the community have only just started putting these together, but more will be along shortly)

And so you know they are very simple and very accessible, I am writing them – me, a non-developer.

If you get time to put more than thirty minutes aside at any point, play with ProcessWire properly. The community is very active and many of the users are not developers – and those that are, give their time freely and happily to help.

Joss

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