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1 Jun 08, 2007 05:54    

Used b2evolution and I've got to admit that it's the best (IMHO) alternative to Wordpress and the only good multi-blog system. Serendipity and TextPattern could've been but although they're multi-user, they're not multi-blog. Meanwhile, Wordpress-MU and Lyceum are more like hacks and patches rather than a treu multi-blog system from ground-up! Sadly, it isn't as famous and widely-used as Wordpress (I think).

I know it's a little bit childish but here are my inputs on how b2evolution could be made better... actually.. they're really obvious and redundant and should not be stated anymore but meh:

Skins
Skins, skins, skins! They say that beauty is only skin deep nevertheless, this seems to be the more important one. b2evolution skins pales in comparison compared to Wordpress ones. I'm not a sociologist or an economist so don't ask me how to actually fix it but I think we can start by porting wordpress skins to b2evolution?

File management
It's easy to upload but hard to attach files other than images in b2evoution (a download counter would be nice). This can be implemented as a plugin+hack.

Documentation
Probably the one that requires the most effort. As of now, the documentation is fine for users but a bit of a kludge for developers (and in addition, they also need to look at doc.b2evolution.net) especially with the mixing of the various versions around.

2 Jun 08, 2007 10:55

Personally I don't like WP, it might have loads of plugins and skins etc but it's fugly when you look under the hood.

Skins
There's a few members who are building new skins, but these usually require updating with every new release, this should become less of an obstacle when 2.0 comes out as it has a totally different way for coding skins which *should* make them more future proof.

File management
Whilst the file manager is a tad complicated, it's possible to attach pretty much any type of file you like and I'm pretty sure that PersonPerson will start nagging me to finish my download counter plugin if he reads this post ;)

Documentation
This is written by the developers and forum members in their spare time, if you feel you could contribute then just create yourself a wiki user and start writing, every little bit helps ;)

¥

3 Jun 08, 2007 16:39

¥åßßå wrote:

Personally I don't like WP, it might have loads of plugins and skins etc but it's fugly when you look under the hood.
¥

Agree, I looked at the source of wordpress and went: @_@ WTF? (and wondered how in the world it got really famous...).
Honestly, I really, really like the structure of b2evolution (save a couple of aspects like how plugin parameters are passed as a hashmap chunk instead of passing each unit as a separate parameter... but hey, it works)

Anyway, the rest of your comments are nice to hear (especially about the future plans). I think I will be able to make some contributions to the wiki if I have time (well... that's a given).

4 Jun 08, 2007 21:28

Yeah, you do need to finish that download counter. ;)

6 Jul 12, 2007 14:38

I believe the main reason of WordPress' success is the same as the one behind Windows: they're both widely open to third party developers.

WordPress and b2evolution are both simple to extend using themes and plugins. However, WordPress appears to offer more hooks to programmers than b2evolution where hacks appear to be easier to create whenever the plugin does more than a simple post filter.

Another point is WordPress has now a company working on it; that company, Automattic Inc., can spend more time working on the source code, on the support behind it and the services made using it, since all are paid services (there are also free ones, but then you can include them as marketing costs).

b2evolution has been, is and is going to be an excellent CMS. I'm still using it on my most popular web site (about 200-250 K unique visitors, 400-500 K page views a month). However, I'm also using WordPress on my other web sites and I'm very happy with it as well.


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