I recently received this email from a reader, and wanted to address it here for everyone.

Hi Kevin,

Great site, portfolio, and articles.

I had a quick question if you can spare some time…

I’ve worked with Wordpress for about a year now, and have lately wondered if something like Modx is more appropriate for larger sites.  I love working with WP, but the approach with Modx is nice.  The only reason why I have wavered is that WP doesn’t seem as well geared to facilitate a 200 page site.  Unless there is a hidden plug-in that I don’t know about that allows for each page management that you know about?

I’d like to continue to work with WP because if a client wants to sell online, easy implement.  Easy managing of a lot of basic things like forms, media, etc.

But other things like multiple fields, where Modx excels at out of the box, is always done with a plugin etc.  Or even the page management that I’m talking about, again, that modx does great out of the box.  It just seems like more of a real CMS to me, but Wordpress seems to have so many plugin solutions that make things very easy.

Any insight to this would be much appreciated.  I hate thinking that I’m not using the best system and sometimes its hard to find good comparisons online.  I was thinking since you’re such an avid WP user, that you could sway me back toward WP. ;)

Thanks for your time Kevin,

Best Chris

I would like to start by saying that I have little hands on experience with MODx, but have used similar options such as SilverStripe, and believe that both are very powerful and well built tools in their own right. By no means do I advocate that they could not handle this job well, I am simply stressing that WordPress is capable of handling many common CMS scenarios as well. It doesn’t deserve the bad rep it get’s.

I constantly see criticism of WordPress being strictly for blog use, and it really has great potential as a CMS. With the most robust plugin library around, you can quickly bolt on functionality as needed.

WordPress plugins are not “hacks”

I constantly see arguments against using WordPress as a CMS because you need to “hack” it in order to make it work. I think this is a misunderstanding best explained by the bad taste left in your mouth after troubleshooting issues that result from a faulty plug-in. The real trick is knowing how to choose the right plugins for the job, along with gaining a thorough understanding of the WordPress functions available for use in your themes.

Choosing the right plug-in for the job

A few rules I live by when choosing a plug-in for a specific CMS setup:

1. Be sure that it has a decent sized amount of supporters & users. This will tell you that most of the frequently encountered issues you may face have likely been solved already. You can usually gauge this by the number of downloads that plug-in has.
2. Be weary of using plug-ins with lower than a 3 1/2 star rating. Take this with a grain of salt, as you never really know why those ratings were given. This is just a general rule of thumb I tend to follow.
3. Be sure that the plug-in is compatible with the latest build of WordPress. This tell’s you that the plug-in is still being supported and developed. It probably has a decent sized community of users behind it contributing to it’s code too.

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If you’ve ever modified a WordPress plugin to suite your needs you know how frustrating the auto update feature can be. I work with a team of WordPress developers and we’re constantly dealing with lost source code caused by clients upgrading there plugins with the one click updates feature that is now built into WordPress. This is no fault of the client, as they should be able to upgrade plugins as necessary.  The ideal solution would be to remove the auto update/upgrade feature on a case by case basis as needed.

Until now I have struggled with creating a solutions for this, but thanks to Mark Jaquith’s blog post, Excluding your plugin or theme from update checks, you can now do this with ease.

Visit Mark’s site to get the code

WordPress has robust login system built in that is often under used because of it’s design restraints. Anyone that create’s an account and edit’s their profile info may be confused when they see the WordPress backend. It would be ideal to have your login, create account, and edit profile screens look like the rest of your site. This is easier to do than you think.

Recently I worked with a client that requested a similar feature. Because of their less than tech savvy audience, they wanted to have a local avatar system that was dead simple. Here’s a video explanation of the system I setup to handle the situation. Even though I am addressing the client directly, this provides a great introduction to how everything works.

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When you start to use WordPress as a CMS you begin to realize that one WYSIWYG area isn’t going to cut it. At that point you may start to explore the option of custom fields. They’re great, and they work well for handling small changes. But what happens when you need to have multiple WYSIWYG areas, or upload files, or manage content using other form fields like checkboxes, radio toggle’s or text inputs. To do this you’ll need the power of custom write panels. There are many ways to create them; some involve the use of plugins and some don’t. I’m going to discuss a few of the way’s I’ve created custom write panels, and explain the ups and downs of each approach. If anyone has any suggestions please leave your thoughts as comments; they may be added to the post in the future.

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WordPress is well known for it’s blogging capabilities, and it’s not too uncommon to here of it being used as a CMS. In order to create a truly powerful CMS you need certain features that the standard WordPress install just doesn’t have. Queue WordPress plugins. Plugins allow for capabilities beyond your wildest dreams to be setup in a heartbeat. Well, maybe it’s not quite that easy… but it is easy.

I’ve been recommending WordPress as a CMS for 2 years now, and truly feel that it can handle any situation well if used right. Here are some of the plugins I frequently find looming about in my plugins directories, and a few words about why they’ve landed themselves a spot on the list.

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WordPress Broken Link Checker Plugin

Broken links aren’t fun. They can destroy a user experience, especially if they link to an important download or file. Luckily, there’s an easy way for you to keep track of your dead links in WordPress. It’s a plugin called the Broken Link Checker.

Broken Link Checker keeps a running list of all the broken links found in your posts, pages, blogroll, comments, and custom fields. It also allows you to easily manage those links from one screen within the WordPress admin (Tools > Broken Links).

The plugin has many more features:

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Justin Tadlock has just released Query Posts Widget for WordPress 2.8+. This widget allows you to add a list of filtered posts to the sidebar (or any widgetized area) of your blog.

You can filter these posts by:

• Tag
• Category
• Author
• Date, Week, Month or Year
• Custom Field Value

This may seem simple, but the ability to combine 30+ filters together provides you with unlimited possibilities.

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