The first CMS system I ever used was called REDAXO and at first, I felt very comfortable with it. Like Typo3, it also has what I call a block-based approach for the structure of your content, rather than a a single textfield, like WordPress. But you have the write the PHP code for every block by hand and you have to enter it into textareas. That sucks!
Then came WordPress and Advanced Custom Fields, which also works very good. But it seems, that a lot of people in this forum also went the way to use WordPress and then discovered kirby for a faster and option that ā like @bastianallgeier said ā does not lock you in on a specific database structure. I think there are still a some features, where kirby needs to evolve. The most crucial part for me is the lack of documentation for the current version. But we know, this is just a matter of time ā¦
Two days ago, I introduced kirby to the first of my clients and he also used to manage his content with WordPress before. I was afraid, that he maybe would dislike the Markdown syntax, but instead, he was very delighted by the simple structure of the panel and the speed of working with kirby. So now, that the first obstacle towards my clients is passed, I will try to move away from WordPress for most of my projects in the near future. Not that I think that WordPress is a bad system, but there are currently lot of things, that I like more about kirby, than about WordPress.
Especially the last panel update has been a huge step in the right direction and I am very excited to develop my first plugins, once the documentation for the new panel is finally there.
Thereās now a new Panel Developer Guide section in the docs, which will be filled with content step by step. It starts today with a new section about how to create dashboard widgets: http://getkirby.com/docs/panel/developers/widgets
Even though itās tough to hear the terms āold fashionedā in connection with my ideas around Kirby and the Panel, I think that thereās a quality
in not following any trend. So far the general feedback for the design,
the usability of the interface and the features of Kirby has always
been very positive. But of course Iām listening very closely whenever
there are any negative thoughts. Please donāt hesitate to keep them
coming.
Iām biting my fingers for saying this.
Better stop, Iāll make it worse. Kirby is great and I love using it, end of the story.
I would like to share another interesting related topic. Itās about thoughts from Drupal, another famous CMS.
Drupal Community Considering a Decoupled Architecture
Sounds alot like when comparing Kirby with WordPress
It feels like this post is at least in part a reaction to WordPressās announcement of Calypso. Hopefully we can focus on making the decisions that are right for Drupalās future rather than reacting hastily to what another CMS is doing, particularly when you have talked over and over how WordPress is not Drupalās true competition.
New javascript framework, every nine month
Despite the potential benefits, there are also good reasons not to embrace a single client-side framework. New front-end frameworks are being created at what feels like an unsustainable pace; every nine months there is a new kid on the block. Itās hard for a project as large as Drupal to embrace a single technology when there is no guarantee of its longevity.
About consequences of picking the right / wrong framework
There are already a lot of enterprise projects using a decoupled Drupal approach and naturally they use a lot of different frameworks, but the one I see used the most is React. In fact on the project Iām working on right now, the organization is going all in with React. If Drupal settled on Angular, for example, how would it affect the organizations that are making big investments in other frameworks? Maybe I donāt understand completely how it might work, but the choice of a single framework seems like it could be divisive and disruptive ā disruptive in a bad way, not the SV way. I think making decoupled architectures easier is great and should be something Drupal does, but it should do so in a way that is agnostic about the FE framework used.
My thougts
It seems like a big risk to move to javascript, especially if depending on a javascript framework. What are the gains of using js?
Easy to send data with json because itās supported by both javascript and php.
Speed, or at least the feeling of speed because the page might never need to refresh.
Just for the record, I still think Kirby made the right choice.
@bastianallgeier i respectu you man. You understand the internet. Internet nowdays is filled with the american way of thinking, liquifing comodifiing everything and nobody seems to care. Nobody execpt few german, swiss and nordic europeans seems to get it.
All the mediums and facebooks just want the close internet. Its funny when they talk about new open revolutionary ways how to share information. The stuff was there since 95, but they donāt want to use it because they cant control it.
We just buy in this story, that the systems are better when they are closed. Facebook famously ditched the html5 and claimed how native is the only way to go, everybody started to make native apps. Then they made this supercool framework which is partly battle for engineersā¦ blabla bla.
The phones nowdays are getting so fucking fast, you can totaly make fast mobile āappā. Everybody thinks its not true, when it has been proven countless times. If the corporations focused instead on making web faster and better we wouldnāt need all this bullshit. But then everybody would be able to create apps so they would have competitions.
I also learned this the hard way, when i realized that pure JS with help of small modular libraries not only work great but you also learn the JS and you learn how the stuff work.
The good stuff on the web is simple. Modular. Does one focused thing.
One of the reasons we use Kirby most of the time (instead of differend cmses) is that there is someone who cares about it and has this open attitude.
I think it will pay off one day. Because people will be able to understand the panel and extend it. And by the way i am graphic designer and i care about the interactivity and speed greatly. Its much better for me to have a chance to extend panel than to have fancy animations.
Donald Knuth said that he is always staying away from the trendy ideas. That he is interested in the untrendy ones and explores those, because they are usualy the better boring solution.
