Wow, so I’ve always been a spokesperson for how great WordPress is and how well it does as a content management system. I even wrote a blog about using it as a CMS and I’ve installed it and used it on client websites.

Over the last week, I set up an install of TextPattern thanks to the guys at Rissington Podcast (who never seem to stop mentioning it) and figured I would give it a shot.

I had to kick the tires on it as I always do with new software and TextPattern blew me away in about 20 minutes. After my initial impression of the admin interface (which looks pretty outdated), I could tell that a lot of effort was put into how the system actually worked and not the look. In fact the interface is really easy to use.

Why? I’m a WordPress Advocate!

So why did I fall in love with it so quickly? One thing that always bugged me about WordPress was how difficult it was to set up different archive templates with different layouts. Without ever looking at an instruction manual I had this up and running within the hour. So I decided it had potential and would move my old blog over and with a two minute import of the sql database, I had an exact copy of my old site and had it customized in it’s design more so than I had with my WordPress setup.

TextPattern Features

But the coolest feature of the platform is how easy it is to cut down on my hand coding. Even though I enjoy it, when I’m trying to blog – I’d really just like my post to get out there and not have to worry about tweaking the code. It uses a feature called Textile and is amazingly simple. If I want to do a header in my writing, I don’t have to wrap it in an H2 tag. I can simply put an h2 with a dot and no need for closing tags. It’s a lot of fun.

So now that I have a fell for the system, I’ll take a glance at their documentation and see what real potential it can have. Some may think that it couldn’t compare to the amount of work that’s been put into WordPress, but after using it for 3 years, I have to say that it really does. The developer community is huge and they have as many plugins as you could possibly get your hands on.

Wordpress No More

Even though I think WordPress is great, seeing how Textpattern worked so well out of the box and the ability it gave me to customize it so quickly and cut down on the time it takes me to write posts – I am officially becoming their new spokesperson and am going to recommend it to clients over WordPress any day!