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The complicated futility of WordPress

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Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#111

Post by o_m »

imilk wrote: post #50
seanwilson wrote: post #21

Are there any good options for an open source headless CMS that works with a static site generator that has a page builder that has quick and accurate live previews before you deploy? E.g. so you can build new landing pages from header, testimonial and contact form blocks. There's lots of options if you just want Markdown but this isn't enough for heavily branded business websites where you need to check how complex…

Directus is an amazing open source tool that you can self host as easy as deploying a Node app. You can setup content types with a nice UI, very configurable roles so a client can't break the site, a media library that can hook into S3/DO Spaces, a REST or Graphql API built in, webhooks, revisions, works with many different DBs, and a bit more I'm not thinking of. I'm not affiliated with them at all. Was just very pl…

A basic feature all headless CMS's don't have is nested pages/documents. It is how the web works, so why have they all agreed to not have the feature?

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#112

Post by pwdisswordfish9 »

schroeding wrote: post #101
TimTheTinker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third-party plugins are subject to WordPress's security model and implementation. Automattic could create a PluginV2 system with tightened security and new requirements for plugin developers, then put a plan in place to deprecate and remove support for v1.

Honest question, how would that work? PHP code is not sandboxable (ignoring the ability to disable functions), AFAIK. Is it? So plugins do have complete (read) access over the entire code, the secrets in the config files, the database etc.? Not allowing plugins to directly execute PHP code would either fundamentally break the wordpress plugin model or require an interpreter for a turing-complete "wordpress plugin pro…

Maybe run it on Peachpie (which should already give perf gains) and go with the new plugin model.

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#113

Post by skilled »

modernerd wrote: post #106
skilled wrote: post #92

My only wish is that someone with deep technical prowess could explain to me why the Gutenberg back-end Editor is so slow. And, enlighten me as to why the core WordPress team aren’t doing much about it.

Riad's writeup here may be interesting to you on the “why it's slow” part: https://riad.blog/2020/02/14/a-journey-towards-a-performant-... I don't think it's fair to say the core team isn't doing much to improve or prevent degrading performance — they performance-test every PR: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/contributors/co... There's also a performance team (for general WP performance, but also coverin…

As someone who tries to use Gutenberg to make "rich" pages, I disagree. A few weeks ago I was on the verge of emailing Mullenweg directly to ask if he himself uses the editor to write blog posts.

In 3 years they haven't fixed a simple issue like backspace jumping. For example, if you write a paragraph, then backspace to clear it - when the block is fully cleared you jump back to the top of the page rather than the block above it.

In other words, Gutenberg is not native to the editing experience. It's actually laughable how bad it is if you look at something like Ghost[0]. It's day and night difference in editing experience.

Another example is when you start adding "blocks" like CTA buttons and such. Why does the editor need to constantly render those elements in the editor itself? It completely bricks the writing experience. And I tried a lot of things, including switching browsers.

Some of my problems were resolved by removing plugins, but overall I have just decided to use Classic Editor[1]. I can, at the very least, write out the entire article and then switch to Gutenberg to style it the way I like.

It's stupid, but at least it works.

[0]: https://ghost.org/

[1]: https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#114

Post by camillomiller »

indymike wrote: post #7

It looks like the chief complaint is that full site editing will make it so you don't have to call in a developer - or a WordPress power user to change something in the footer. This has really been needed for a long time. At the same time, it's kind of amazing that WordPress is the best we can do for making publishing to the web easy for everyone. It's really good, but is sure seems like something better should be po…

I don't agree. I'm exactly in the position of the author with my clients. The real problem is with the Wordpress makes your client think it can outsmart you.

I don't care about billing random hours to fix a footer. If anything, I program all my sites so that global options like these are ALWAYS easily editable by the customer. That's not my business model.

It's just frustrating when the user wipes an entire section, because they decided that "oh, I can change that font here".

Despite recent changes, Wordpress remains the best choice for the type of websites OP and I are building, I believe. That said, I would absolutely pay for a Dev version of Wordpress mantained by Automattic that would get rid of all the "easy to use" fluff by default.

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#115

Post by camillomiller »

bdlowery wrote: post #107
ironmagma wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only for interesting definitions of "doesn't matter." The number of security exploits for WordPress websites seems to differ. https://www.cvedetails.com/product/4096/Wordpress-Wordpress....

That’s awesome, now can you find one that points to all the plugins that cause these security exploits? Because none of those are from the default WordPress install with the Standard plugins (ACF Pro, CPT UI, etc).

THIS. Impressive how experienced developers and professionals fall for this fallacy all the time because, wait, they don't actually KNOW A THING about wordpress.

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#116

Post by camillomiller »

akerr wrote: post #74

WordPress keeps getting better and 5.9 was a big leap forward. The OP should try using a vanilla WP install, use or build a (child) theme that supports blocks, add WP Super Cache to get static site level performance and stop worrying about complex layers of third-party cruft. If you're worried about 'marketing interns' messing with the site, don't give them 'Administrator' roles!

This is a well know issue though. For client work there's just no way that clients don't want to have an Admin user for themselves, in case you part ways etc... Which is absolutely fair. The problem is when the intern forgets its password and instead of resetting it, they get the admin credentials from their boss (been there, done that!).

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#117

Post by dgb23 »

taubek wrote: post #77
amanzi wrote: post #9

I've been working with WordPress for a long time and have run a blogging network built on Wordpress since 2005-ish. Over the last few years, it's felt like I've been swimming upstream fighting against WordPress as they have tried to morph into a general website publishing tool (in order to compete with Wix, SquareSpace, etc) rather than their initial blogging roots. Security has never been a WordPress strong point an…

I love WordPress. It is kind of a universal tool: you can make simple web sites, you can use it to build complex systems. It is always better if you have developers that know what they are doing. WP development is not installing dozens od plugins to achieve some effect on your web. I guess that WP wants to become "one to rule them all". This means that they strive for even bigger adoption rate among users. FSE is the…

The issue is that if you’re developing like this on WP you don’t gain much from it except the ability to use a select few plugins and an admin UI. At this point why not use a solid PHP framework like Laravel?

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#118

Post by dgellow »

seanwilson wrote: post #21

Are there any good options for an open source headless CMS that works with a static site generator that has a page builder that has quick and accurate live previews before you deploy? E.g. so you can build new landing pages from header, testimonial and contact form blocks. There's lots of options if you just want Markdown but this isn't enough for heavily branded business websites where you need to check how complex…

Not sure if that’s what you describe but I used Grav: https://getgrav.org/.

It’s written in modern PHP and provide a simple UI to edit an manage your site. No database is needed.

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#119

Post by jephson »

modernerd wrote: post #106
skilled wrote: post #92

My only wish is that someone with deep technical prowess could explain to me why the Gutenberg back-end Editor is so slow. And, enlighten me as to why the core WordPress team aren’t doing much about it.

Riad's writeup here may be interesting to you on the “why it's slow” part: https://riad.blog/2020/02/14/a-journey-towards-a-performant-... I don't think it's fair to say the core team isn't doing much to improve or prevent degrading performance — they performance-test every PR: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/contributors/co... There's also a performance team (for general WP performance, but also coverin…

> Page performance from sites made with WP's block editor is pretty good compared to other editor plugins

Perhaps, but it's never been a great idea to use editor plugins at all.

> There's also a performance team (for general WP performance, but also covering the editor/JS) that meets regularly and posts minutes.

Gutenberg is about to enter its 6th year of development while the performance team has only just formed and is yet to contribute anything meaningful in this capacity.

Re: The complicated futility of WordPress

#120

Post by taubek »

dgb23 wrote: post #117
taubek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love WordPress. It is kind of a universal tool: you can make simple web sites, you can use it to build complex systems. It is always better if you have developers that know what they are doing. WP development is not installing dozens od plugins to achieve some effect on your web. I guess that WP wants to become "one to rule them all". This means that they strive for even bigger adoption rate among users. FSE is the…

The issue is that if you’re developing like this on WP you don’t gain much from it except the ability to use a select few plugins and an admin UI. At this point why not use a solid PHP framework like Laravel?

I was on the other side of the table, I was working for a company that was developing WP plugins bunt I'm not a developer. During my years there I've meet a lot of developers. I've seen different approaches. The most surprising thing to me was headless WP. I didn't get why do they even want WP.

Take a look at WooCommerce. I guess that it is much easier to do some of the custom code than to reinvent a wheel. Not to mention learning users on how to do something in a totally different environment.

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