WordPress Failing as Real CMS?
Until wordpress can sort out the way they deal with categories they will never be able to handle the sort of sites people really need. The way categories are handled is fine if you only have a few. But if you have a need for multiple and several depths of categories, for example Countries > Counties > Towns without the system dying in the process they just don’t cut it!
There are two main problems, the first is the front end. When, as I did the other week write a little script to import UK counties and towns (about 2700 nested in various numbers) it nearly croaked my dev box, as it tries to display all of the categories. Now before you jump in my face saying write a “show only child plugin”, I started that, but then came the second round of pain.
That pain came in the form the way the categories and posts are handled in the admin. That’s right, when editing a post or getting someone to add articles for you based on your hierarchy the system tries to nest them all, in those little tick boxes, see below.
Now this system, unlike the front end didn’t nearly croak my system, it gave it the biggest hiding of it’s poor life (apart from other dodgy scripts of mine :-)). The problem with stuff in the admin, is it can’t really be frigged with as it is the sort of thing that will get overwritten during an update.
So come on WordPress, allow us to have 1000’s of categories and make the world a better place?
Im not surprised WordPress is failing as a real CMS. It was designed to be a blogging platform. Granted the community may have hacked it to be a worthy contender as a low budget CMS solution, but complaining about something that “doesn’t work” when you are bending the rules is a little silly. Why not doctor the system yourself to solve the “little tick boxes” problem, and work from there?
Hello Paul
First things first, i freakin’ love WordPress! I persuade clients and mates to use it and I usaully have to advise them on how to get what they need, and most of the time they do.
That said, yes you do have a point :-). WP is not a CMS and was not really designed as one.
Hovever I am not the only one who wants to use this software as a CMS:
http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Lastnode/Wordpress_CMS
As to doctoring the system, yes, would love to be able to do that, but the stuff in the admin is difficult to control. I feel this would be better inserted from the core as to messed with after in what would be a code bodge.
Lots of people would use it more if it could handle what I am “moaning” about and I feel sure that the people making wordpress could add this in quite easily.
So for me this is a polite request. Can we have the ability to add multiple and may categories (i am not the only one) please.
cheers
Rich
PS Paul are you coming to the SEORoadshow in Limmerick?
Rich,
I wasn’t aware about this event, but it looks extremely interesting. Might try and round up a few people and head down. Thanks for the heads up.
hey Richard,
technically speaking WordPress IS a Content Management System. but only technically. it’s not designed to cope with complex category structures as well with other difficult tasks, thus creating a niche for various plugins, which are usually not perfect aswell.
WP is ok for blogging or simple company websites. but if you need to import UK towns – come on, create a dedicated system for that, it’s not that difficult to do it for an advanced programmer 😉
regards,
Martin