[TYPO3-hci] BE vs FE

[Cate & Peter]

Hi Waldemar

> the backend is ridiculously complicated. 

It does seem that way to start with. Once you get used to it, it actually
starts to make sense. :)

>I hope that we can help
>with improving usability (and that you are interested in our
>suggestions).

I'm sure Kasper and the rest of the team will welcome suggestions - just as
long as it doesn't appear that you want to make us into another Plone :)

>Why is there a separation between frontend and backend users? ...Everyone
should >get access to the frontend. 

Yeah, that's not a bad point. I haven't come across anything so far that
would be affected by that.

My understanding of the current separation is mostly to do with being able
to group people in multiple ways, but like I said, I haven't come across a
reason why BE users shouldn't be able automatically to edit front ends.

>This is probably only for 5.0:
>I think that we should finally get rid of this "backend" concept 

Here, I think I disagree. A lot of the existing extensions allow quite a lot
of configurability that would only be possible with a back end.

Typo3 is, after all, designed to be a very high end, configurable CMS. I
have looked at many of the other CMS's around, including Plone and the
others, and it is the backend of Typo3 that makes it able to be configured
to a very sophisticated CMS without actually having to code a proprietary
system.

>Backends are more difficult to understand. 

Yes that's very true - it does take quite a long time to become an "expert"
Typo3 user - heaven's knows, I am not one.

>What
>speaks against only having a frontend and showing simple "Edit",
>"Items", and "Admin" buttons in a simple bar at the top of every web
>page?

Becs the back end allows the maximum amount of flexibility and
configurability to those who want to customise things for their own
purposes, without needing to become an expert coder.

> Instead of the current scheme where your page consists of
>individual "segments" everything could become WYSIWYG-based. 

WYSIWYG is nice, but unfortunately, the more WYSIWYG things become, the more
difficult it becomes to customise things.

> Pages should become the central concept.

Actually, I would say that pages are already a little bit too much the
"central concept" as it is ... I actually am finding the pages a bit of a
restriction to concepts I had developed before starting with Typo3, becs I
want to do things even more dynamically.

>I understand that a page tree is a nice abstraction, but manipulating
>your site in-place is even better because there is no need to abstract
>anything. 

I find it very nice, and easy to relate to, as I am so familiar with file
trees. Also, Im a fairly "list based"/"relationship based" person, so for me
it is much easier to picture how different parts of the site relate to each
other in this view.

I find manipulating pages "in-place" as you say (such as with Mambo) is
actually much more difficult for advanced configuration, becs I can't
picture the tree relationships.

It is probably helpful to not think of Typo3 as a CMS like other CMS's, but
more like the skeleton of a CMS, with many extensions available to flesh it
out as you desire. Like, your choice may be:

a) code my own proprietary CMS (completely out of my league)
b) use Typo3 (a very steep learning curve, but at least it is visual with a
bit of coded configurability, rather than having to go plain code)
c) use a CMS, that has the coding completely hidden, with checkboxes to
select from limited configurability.(well within my ability, but not
flexible enough without having to go and learn php again to be able to
customise ... so back to choice a)

Yes, that makes it more difficult to understand to start with, but so much
more configurable than other systems.

Everything you want to do, can be done ... if you want to go and code it :)
That's the beauty of Typo3.

Cate