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#1 03.03.2018 23:57:20

losttrip
Mitglied

Why should I switch to WBCE

I have many client website on WB classic.  They range from version 2.8.1 to 2.11.  I can not say that I am unsatisfied with WB itself, but I have grown tired of the atmosphere on the WB Forum, and specifically the negativity of certain key members.  I don't want to dwell on the negative, so I will not say more that this.

What I would like to know, from those who are enjoying WBCE and perhaps those who migrated from WB already... what are some reasons you feel WBCE is a better fit than WB classic.

I did perform multiple searches, but as the forum does not have a lot of English threads, I did not turn up any answers to the more specific questions I wanted to ask.  So, I have chosen this more broad question to start.

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#2 04.03.2018 07:15:53

florian
Administrator

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

Hello and welcome,

of course I'm biased and you did not address me, but nevertheless please allow me to list some advantages of WBCE CMS

for designers / agencies
- no strange, kind of ridiculous product name
- convincing landing page (english: https://wbce-cms.org/) which can be shown to customers to explain the product
- easy installation on most webspaces
- easy updating from older WB versions possible (direct update to WBCE even from WB 2.8.1)
- often needed modules are part of the installation package (Visitor Statistics, MiniForm, Topics)

for users
- seasonable, responsive backend themes
- complete and easy understandable english documentation (https://help.wbce-cms.org/)
- probably in the upcoming version a new media management

for developers
- public development process (all sources, branches and issues available on github)
- new hooks to modify generated code (see https://forum.wbce.org/viewtopic.php?id=1598, Google Translate: http://tinyurl.com/y7rs2qsy )


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#3 04.03.2018 15:57:39

losttrip
Mitglied

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I was addressing anyone who cares to give their personal insight.  So, of course your direct knowledge is greatly appreciated.

Since you brought up "probably in the upcoming version a new media management", one of the functions I use in WB is the Global Media image resize on upload.  Because of the nature of many of my client (self-managed) image-heavy sites, expecting them to manually set the image resize on a folder-by-folder basis (current WBCE media resize workflow) is not realistic.  Is a global resize setting a consideration for the new media management... or the current media management?

Looking forward to hearing more first-person user experience of the benefits of switching to WBCE.

I should say that one of the positives I have heard over the years from those I know who made the switch to WBCE from WB is the open and positive attitudes on this forum.  I have been keeping an eye on the forum for a couple years (with the help of auto-translate) and noticed this being a reality which has been pulling me in this direction.  But, now that I am seriously considering WBCE as my CMS of choice, I notice a limitation of being an English user.  Using auto-translate works fine for general reading of threads, but doing a search for English terms can sometimes prove to be quite frustrating.  I'm not complaining or suggesting any language change on the part of forum users... I'm simply pointing out a bit of a hurdle I have encountered.  I guess worst case scenario is I might ask questions which have already been answered in older German threads, and perhaps someone can direct me to related threads where I can use auto-translate to educate myself.

Thanks again for your efforts.

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#4 04.03.2018 18:33:40

florian
Administrator

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

An auto-resize feature is not available at the moment, but it is a good idea and we will take that in concideration.
Currently, we're working on the integration of elFinder into WBCE (and it looks already very promising, there are just some issues with the backend themes, but this will be hopefully be fixed soon). The elFinder has an integrated resize tool and also a very good uploader which can cope as far as I can see also with large files. So at least also users with not so much technichal experience will have a tool to resize and crop (!) uploaded images to their needs easily.
Another approch is the Global Upload module, see https://wbce.at/de/module/globalupload.php (german), which could be a starting point for further development.

Regarding the language - you're right. From the point of view of non-german speaking users, it is a huge disadvantage of WBCE compared with WB.  The thing is, currently most of the WBCE community users live in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and thus 99% of the posts are in german - which is, on the other hand, an advantage compared to other CMS forums which force users to wtite in english, so I will not change anything on this point...
I tried to found an international, english-only forum on wbce-cms.org last year, but after some months only a very few users (less than 10, I'm afraid) registered, so I decided to close it down again. I'm not happy with this, and I know that it is a vicious circle: no international users because of nearly german-only forum, and german-only forum because of the lack of international users... negative situation, really.

I have configured an international support category here in the forum:
Core
Modules
Templates
General
which is reserved for non-german questions (and where I will move this thread, I hope you don't mind), but there are only a few posts yet too. Nevertheless this is of course no solution for the search problem, but although I like this uncommon forum software FluxBB very much, one of the really disadvantages is the weak search engine (so it's not very much easier to find german posts anyway). I often use Google to find something I vaguely know it was posted here in the forum, which might work better than the built-in search. (Use: "[keyword] site:forum.wbce.org", without "", e.g. bakery site:forum.wbce.org

I certainly have no problem with questions beinig asked in english which might have been answered already in german, so do not hesitate to ask. I'd like to point out that another option is opening an issue on github, if general questions or problems with the WBCE core appear, there we are writing in english only (well, we *try* at least).


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#5 04.03.2018 22:09:12

mrbaseman
Developer

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

As someone who uses both, wb Classic and WBCE I would like to add a few experiences I have made.

"Upgrading" from wb 2.8.3 sp4 worked without any problems in my case. Of course it also depends on the modules you are using.

The atmosphere in the forum is often stated as a reason but this is strongly biased by personal experiences.

A couple of new features and a more modern backend theme could be a reason to migrate. However, in wb Classic there are some other new features available in the recent releases, you have already mentioned the scaling upon uploading.

Quick support is available in the forum, like there is in the wb Classic forum, too.

And finally, you can just give it a try - I have read recently that wb Classic 2.11 is also advertised to support migrating back from wb forks... Personally, I would always keep a full backup before going a big step (a migration between forks, or even a minor version upgrade of the core in the same wb flavor)

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#6 05.03.2018 03:51:35

losttrip
Mitglied

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

I should give a little more background.  I HAVE tried WBCE.  I have done some local testing of migrated sites.  And not to sound critical, after the migration, I kind of felt like not much had changed.  This could be looked at as a positive, and I do see that point of view... if your soul purpose is to change from WB to WBCE.  But what i am more interested in knowing is, WHY you made the decision to migrate in the first place?  And WHY you are happy you made the switch?  Are there certain work-flows or modules you find work better in WBCE or anything like that?

And like I said, I do feel like I am missing a couple things I use on WB, like the integrated Media image resize on upload, and a quick way to check error logs in the admin.  So far I have not found an error log check in the backend admin.  Maybe I am missing it.  I can check the var/logs folder in the file system, but this is more cumbersome after getting spoiled with the button link in the admin.

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#7 05.03.2018 07:36:56

florian
Administrator

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

WBCE has no error log like WB. For most users the information given there is not understandable at all, and administrators and power users can handle server sided logfiles or error messages. So I do not see a real need for this feature.

Regarding media resize: I forgot to point out that a bunch of commonly used modules DO a resize on upload: e.g. Topics, Itemz, OneForAll, Bakery, MiniGallery, FolderGallery. So actually the image problem appears only with the plain WYSIWYG (which is quite painful to build an ambitious page with floated, resizable images with anyway).

Personally for me three points were and are the most important ones: the seasonable backend theme (the WB backend is disgusting), the WBCE marketing (the name "WebsiteBaker" and their homepage in 1998 design is a shame and both points are good reasons for customers to stick to any other CMS) and the continous, transparent further development of WBCE.


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#8 05.03.2018 11:52:38

losttrip
Mitglied

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

florian schrieb:

WBCE has no error log like WB. For most users the information given there is not understandable at all, and administrators and power users can handle server sided logfiles or error messages. So I do not see a real need for this feature..

Regarding media resize: I forgot to point out that a bunch of commonly used modules DO a resize on upload: e.g. Topics, Itemz, OneForAll, Bakery, MiniGallery, FolderGallery. So actually the image problem appears only with the plain WYSIWYG (which is quite painful to build an ambitious page with floated, resizable images with anyway).

You make strong points on both these counts.  On the error log issue, I am going to have to concede that although I have enjoyed the convenience of that new little Admin button link while troubleshooting, that is the extent of it's benefits.  Thanks for bringing me some clarity on this, that I hadn't considered.

The media resize of the modules I have used (some you listed) has to be manually entered on each upload.  Although this is better than no option at all, still the average user who has no concept of the down-side of excessively large image file sizes will be unlikely to concern themselves with entering this max width / max height data each time they upload an image.  But now that I think more about it, this is more of a user education issue than a missing feature from the CMS.  I do appreciate the inclusion of these options in modules.

florian schrieb:

Personally for me three points were and are the most important ones: the seasonable backend theme (the WB backend is disgusting), the WBCE marketing (the name "WebsiteBaker" and their homepage in 1998 design is a shame and both points are good reasons for customers to stick to any other CMS) and the continous, transparent further development of WBCE.

Your points are well made, thank you again.  Can you explain what you mean by "seasonable" when used in "seasonable backend theme"?

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#9 05.03.2018 12:11:46

florian
Administrator

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

The media resize of the modules I have used (some you listed) has to be manually entered on each upload.

Hm, I disagree there. In the listed modules, you set the target size once and this value will be applied to all Topics / Itemz etc. on that page. When creating a new page or section with the named modules, you're basically right, there are the size values not given, but can be easily adapted by choosing "Get from" (I just notice that there are missing translations in Itemz, I will fix that asap) in Topics / Itemz or the config.php in the OneForAll module directory.

Can you explain what you mean by "seasonable" when used in "seasonable backend theme"?

Translation mistake probably. I wanted to say that the default backend theme of WBCE looks fresh and modern, and with the Fraggy Backend Theme there's even a bootstrap-based, responsive high end backend theme available.


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#10 05.03.2018 15:32:38

losttrip
Mitglied

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

Of the modules in your list, Topics and Itemz are the two I have no experience with.  Anyway, I will begin my WBCE journey and find my way.  I truly appreciate you taking the time to entertain my attempt to dig a little deeper.  I do wish that more forum users might have shared some of their experience... but maybe they feel you have made their case for them.

Thank you for the clarification.  I couldn't agree more about the improvement to the backend themes.  Great work!

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#11 05.03.2018 18:48:22

cwsoft
Mitglied

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

@losttrip: For me the new fresh backend and frontend themes and the transparent development at Github are the main decession makers. There are others as well like the „retirement“ of the WB core developer (DarkViper) etc.

In general. You should test both systems and create a list of pros and cons on each, rate the most important points from your point of view and your customers view and choose the system which fits best. Depending on the project you work on, you may end up with WB, WBCE or another CMS.

Cheers

Beitrag geändert von cwsoft (05.03.2018 18:50:18)


Account inactive since 2018/11/17.

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florian

#12 05.03.2018 22:40:15

mrbaseman
Developer

Re: Why should I switch to WBCE

In my opinion the PR is much more professional for WBCE than for WB Classic, and I don't mind if the project Website look like designed a couple of years ago. My main point are the facts published about releases, especially about security fixes. At least in the past few years WBCE has provided details about who is affected (e.g. only if frontend registration is enabled or so), whereas for WB Classic most updates were advertised to contain some important security fix. Often it took some time until more details about the nature of the security fix was reveiled in some discussion in the forum. If no such discussion appears in the forum it is up to the user to compare two releases and find out what might be a fix for a security issue. This way of dealing with information may change with a  different core team at WB Classic in the future, but at least for WB 2.11 it took weeks  until there was a statement that the important security fix does not allow the super admin and only the super admin anymore to remove files one level above the media directory.

PS sorry for not providing links, but I'm currently writing from my mobile with a tiny display

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