TXP:CMS

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Textpattern is a great CMS, being so lean, simple and easy to use but it doesn’t suit everyone. Designers, especially those with development skills, can bend it anyway they they want and create some superb websites but if someone’s coding skills are limited, Textpattern is often perceived as too hard or limited by those who have never tried it. Compounding this perception is the lack of up-to-date themes. There’ve been some great ones over the years but they’ve not been updated and there’s now a dearth of mobile-friendly responsive themes. This is where TXP:CMS comes in.

TXP Themes

Bert Garcia created the TXP family of sites that incorporate the Bootstrap framework. It’s a fork and some people are not happy but I see TXP:CMS as being another doorway into Textpattern that will be used by an audience Textpattern does not really cater for at the moment. These are less-skilled people who want to get a website up fast and want something secure and reliable. There are also designers who need to make a living and want to provide a cheaper option for their customers. TXP:CMS themes will be just what many such people have been looking for.

In less than a month, Bert has learned Bootstrap, created a themes plugin and converted many sites into responsive mobile-friendly ones. He has now twelve themes complete with txp tags, pages, forms and style that are ready to go. The download links are at the bottom of each theme’s page. To get a site up and running, just follow these instructions.

We Love TXP

Alongside all the work above, Bert has found the time and energy to bring We Love TXP back to life. It was dormant for about 4 years but Bert’s taken it over, removing dead-ends, archiving former TXP sites and adding some new links to the 700+ Textpattern-driven websites.

TXP Planet

TXP Planet is a news link website that keeps anyone interested up to date with what’s happening around the TXP Planet. That means the Textpattern forum, Github activity, latest plugins added, the Textpattern blog, TXP Tips articles, TXP Magazine, We Love TXP additions and Bert’s blog as well as many useful links. It’s become my first port of call each day for TXP news.

TXP Tags

TXP Tags lists the Textpattern tags that make the CMS what it is. The tags can be viewed as a list or in grid view. There is a description, explanation and examples of usage with each tag and, of course, it is mobile-friendly. I’d hazard a guess that TXP tags are the most searched-for items amongst Textpattern documentation and to be able to quickly find their attributes and usage is very helpful for all Textpattern users. It’s not clear what will happen to the Textpattern wiki so this additional resource will come in very handy indeed.

Thank you

Thank you, Bert, for having the vision and energy to see something good and do something about it. All the above and more in less than a month!

The Future

I have no clue about the future but good things are happening around the TXP planet. If all goes well, Textpattern will have its own themes capability built-in pretty soon as well as unlimited custom fields and a better commenting system. TXP:CMS will no doubt continue to expand in its alternative universe and, as I see it at least, this will give Textpattern twice the visibility and at least twice the reach. Can’t be bad!