I'd like to pose a question to my readers that use Textpattern. Last week I noticed Jon Hicks switched over which sparked my interest. I've been meaning to switch over to a PHP based system for a while and from what I've seen Textpattern is very nice. One of my issues is how to structure my content using the Section, Category, Page, etc. method that Textpattern uses. Can anyone out there provide an example or input on how they achieved a solid architecture?

Comments

Adam Khan

ExpressionEngine is great. The source is open but it's not free as in beer. License costs between $100-$200.

Jonathan Hicks http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/

Nathan, Kjell has nailed it. Use a section for each section, and then categories for the subpages (contact, autobiography). Text on the subpages can either be an article, or you can hard-code it into the sections page template, and choose which one is shown by using the if_category plug in. Use txp's in-built system to add links, and then you can easily create RSS feeds for them, as well as categorise them.When you're used to MT, it can be a bit of a learning curve (it was for me anyway), but I think its worth it in the end. Its so fast! Let me know if you have any particular questions.

Kjell Olsen

A section in textpattern best resembles a separate weblog in MT, but they are more related. Textpattern wasn't made to have multiple blogs running off the same installation, instead you create sections.I imagine would would have a section for "Information," "Journal," "Library," and "Work," plus maybe a daily links section (there is also a facility built into textpattern to deal with links, but I decided to create my own section), and a section for your daily thoughts. All the sub parts to your "Information" section would by categories, and the data within that section would be entries with their own respective form, which controls the output of html and data.I would recommend just getting a copy of textpattern up and running, and trying to get things all set up for yourself, it's not hard at all to figure these things out with the help of the textpattern forum, everyone over there is real helpful.I would recommend the switch!

Nathan Borror http://www.playgroundblues.com/

Thanks guys. I installed it a couple days ago and I'm starting to finally figure the structure out. I've never used a "pre-built" CMS before. At first I couldn't understand what the hell Forms were but they make so much more sense now. Kjell: that link helped a ton.

Manlio Napoli

This article and this picture could help.

Chad

heres the demohttp://www.opensourcecms.com/phpwcms/phpwcms.php.interested in comparisons, pro's/con's. anyone?hey Nathan, arent you using Managerz? I'd love for you to comment with elaboration to your intrigue.

Chad

did you consider this one. It seems much more feature rich and intuitivehttp://www.phpwcms.de/index.php

Nathan Borror http://www.playgroundblues.com/

Managerz is a wonderful solution for a wide array of site content delivery. However, some CMS solutions cater more towards Blogs, i.e. Textpattern, Wordpress and Moveable Type. I'm also much more comfortable coding in php and mysql than I am asp and mssql. I can do both but I lean towards php and feel like the php community has a much broader palate to draw from. I have been meaning to finish up a mirrored copy of Ryan's Managerz built with php and mysql but just haven't had time.With that said, Managerz ROCKS and so does Textpattern :) This Phpwcms looks very interesting. Thanks for the link.

JHuynh

Has anyone ever tried ExpressionEngine? I'm considering it.

Nathan Borror http://www.playgroundblues.com/

JHuynh: I hadn't heard of it before. Looks kinda cool, but not open source.