Hi Guys,

Friday afternoon... I'm setting up two sites this afternoon and I still love how easy it is to get the basic stuff banged out... Site structure, layout, etc. I love the reliability I get with TYPOLight. I love how cleanly it renders code, and most of all, I love developing with the framework.

Sure, TYPOlight has its limitations, but in terms of sheer simplicity and design, interface of the back end, etc. TYPOlight makes me quite happy.

The question I have is why do you think the user base isn't larger? I have spent a fair amount of time mentioning TYPOlight here and there, and I've found that those who take the time to check it out start using it to replace Drupal, Joomla, et al.

I think in terms of individual community member involvement - if you look at the average amount of posts per user on this forum, we'll have some of the highest numbers in that category. The community is by and large very dedicated to this. You can't buy that kind of loyalty.

As I understand it, Horst Eugen will address the enterprise-level needs that arise, and that will satisfy perhaps the most ambitious requirements anyone can throw at Leo, so I see nothing but promising news in the next 24 months for this.

So, what do you all think - if TYPOlight has so much going for it (and it does), why don't more people use it yet? Granted, Leo is not the type to draw attention to his work - he lets his users do that for the most part, and that has created our very unique community. Is it simply a matter of promotion of the tool? Or is it because something is grossly lacking? If it is, i haven't ever felt the pinch yet.

Discuss!

Fred

I have heard that in Europe, TL is gaining quite a bit of a user-base. That makes sense, since it's mastermind is from Germany. But I am not sure about this, since I am not in Europe; I have just heard it.

In the US, I think that many people have settled on the big three: Joomla!, Drupal, and Wordpress. I know there are others that are popular or gaining ground, like .NET Nuke, Expression Engine, and TYPO3, but most of the CMS talk I hear is about the big three I mentioned. A lot of times, once you have found a CMS that you think suits you, you stick with it and don't go looking. Since US seems to be so entrenched in these few CMS's, it's hard to gain ground as a "start up" CMS. Also, there is a market saturation of CMSs that makes looking for one a daunting task.

But I agree Fred, it seems like all people have to do is use TYPOlight and they immediately see that it has solved many problems of CMS's in simplicity and function. I too have wondered why it hasn't "exploded" as you say. It's hard to get exposure in the US CMS market, so that might be one reason why.

The real point "why" for me is (as was said before) the huge number of CMSs available atm (say since TYPOlight was born). I remember the time when I started with mambo, maybe half a year before the joomla fork was made - there were not many really usable open source cms to choose from, and that makes winning a market share relatively easy compared to the current situation. In europe, especially the german speaking countries, TYPOlight was lucky to get attention of several php and internet magazines.

True in other countries TYPOlight has not yet reached the publicity it should have. I'm not a marketing guy so I am not sure how we can change best given the limited resources we have, but I am sure that Fabian will bring up new ideas. At least it can't be wrong to constantly try making typolight itself plus everything around such as community support, docs, extensions etc. even better.

Another question of mine is however whether "use explosion" is desirable. Seeing what that did to joomla makes me somewhat reluctant, so I would rather prefer a slower but healthy growth.

All good points, Peter. I agree- I do prefer slow and steady almost to a fault (hence the 2.5 months I've spent perfecting a single module I'm working on!) and perhaps that is an advantage because it help Leo and everyone maintain a level of focus that can be quickly lost when something really takes off.

Fred, is that your Google Maps module?

I agree. A user explosion might hurt the development of TL right now. I used to try to answer every new post every day, but I have a new job which makes that more difficult. There are other highly involved people in the community, but I'm afraid that if TL exploded, the community could not support the massive influx. When a first (and second and third) post goes unanswered, I fear that user is probably just going to walk away.

Slow, steady, and healthy might ensure the right number of highly involved users comes in and will be able to support the "needy" ones. Though we're all needy sometimes.

I am glad you agree that we need a slow (I would call it manageable ) and steady growth in the desired target group.

As I am the TL marketing guy I can share some thoughts on the idea we are working on right now. We think that a main focus for TL as a target group are web professionals (agencies, freelancers, designers, programmers etc.) They act as multiplicators when "selling" TL to their clients. In my opinion TL is best for SMB-websites or things alike. We don't want to become a second Joomla because there is a Joomla out there that perfectly suits for its main target group. I see a lot of people coming to TL from Joomla when they are looking for something more flexible. I think this is great and this is something we should and will reflect on.

Most important for me is that before we start any PR or marketing campaigns we should have our basis ready to deal with the new users. First step towards this will be a redesign of typolight.org which is already work in process. This will not only be a reDESIGN but will also bring some new feature for better communication with new and existing users.
Another part of the mentioned basis is the documentation where Nina is currently working on. A very good documentation is essential in coping with the desired "slow explosion"

For Germany we started to distribute press reports on various topics. Latest was on the new Logo and it was published in a few magazine's news sites. The latest articels in the German PHP Journal (including an interview with Leo) was also part of the resut. We will continue that and when the basis is ready we will start to get in direct contact with leading journalists in that field in Germany. We can only do PR for Germany really because you have to have good knowledge on how the market works to make effective PR. So we will be looking for other professionals in other countries to take over the PR part in their countries.
There are many more ideas that we are discussing right now to help make TL more popular and I am sure there will happen a lot in the next months. We will share those things with you when the concepts are ready. Any ideas and thoughts on that are of course welcome and taken into consideration.

Regards, Fabian

I think another main reason is, that TL currently does not have so much extensions as for example Joomla or TYPO3 have. Sadly, most people don´t see, that they could do more things with the standard TL features than for example with a basic Joomla. I hear that nearly every time, I present TL to friends, clients and so on.

On the other side, I prefer a slow ("qualitative") growth too. I know a few Joomla forums very well and that´s why I like the TL forum and the professionalism of its users.

The "extensions problem" will solve itsself - it´s only a matter of time. And I can say for myself, that I will contribute my part to increase the available extensions in the near future.

Hi, i am italian user.

I like TL, it is very simple.

I work to create a web site for italian user.

bye bye
Paolo

Hi all,

Here are some of my thoughts. By the way I am not a professional web person, just an enthusiastic amateur who occasionally gets paid

1. How is this growth being measured? TL's growth doesn't seem that slow to me.

2. One area that I suspect reduces early uptake is the lack of a theme-ing system of some kind. I know that in my early days of playing with cms's this was a factor for me, in fact I probably judged the system by the quality of the themes and the actual sites being produced. On this note, should we have a more obvious gallery of sites on the frontpage of the website? Now I have studied css in some depth I look for adaptability, flexibility and simplicity.

3. Another area might be related to the lack of a true blogging aspect (including system wide taxonomy)

4. Fabian, I think your target market is the correct one given TL's strengths.

5. Finally, a major draw for me would be a comprehensive end-user documentation system. Perhaps even one that consisted of different sections that could be specifically selected and combined into a custom guide for end-users depending on their level of understanding and indeed access.

Oh, and finally again, this forum is a major plus. I haven't come across such an active and helpful bunch of posters on any other forum. The energy of the forum seems to parallel the energy of Leo in providing us with fresh versions on a regular basis, again a rare occurrence.

Oh, and yet another final thought... It is possible that non-Germans get put off when they reach the forum, sometimes it appears to be all in German. I do wonder if we should have 2 separate forums.

By the way currently we have 35284 Posts in 5659 Topics by 1991 members

Silverstripe (another relatively new cms) has 9353 Posts in 2370 Topics by 1101 members

all the best

Mark

Hi at all,

here are may thaughts: the biggest drawback of TL is concurrently an absolute advantage: Settle down betweeen Typo3 and Joomla. Not being tricky like TYPO3 and at the same time cursorily like Joomla. It takes a while to apprehend what wonderful cms-tool TL is. But when people make an effort to get to TL and not to regard it as an One-Click-Solution it is perfect.

The growth is accurate and i think TL grows slowly but enormous.

Regards
Stefan

Mark,

This Silverstripe thing looks good. Going to check it out for sure. I like the fact that it was released the first time jsut so recently, but got so far already. They speak of techniques they follow or implement I like and it is not done by one person alone, or so it seems.

I'll try to set up a website, which I'm doing with typolight, with silverstripe as well simultaniously. And see which *seems* better. Or at least make a comparison.

Would be really weird if I'd concluded Silverstripe is better for me and start using that from this thread, right

But I need some serious convincing before I'd switch; tl is just that good...

Hi Ruud

I tried silverstripe, it is nice (and made in my home town in New Zealand). Development is slow though and the limited extensions never seem to move past the early beta stage.

cheers

Mark

Hi all

Just came across this, has some thoughts on what makes a good cms...

http://adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000365.php

Mark

Typolight does some of that. He says somewhere to "Separate CMS administration from the editing and management of content.". But I'm not sure what he wants... Does he actually mean you get a CMS that does nothing more then content management, and you get somthing with the acronym SMS (system management system)... I've never seen that anywhere. Not saying that this means it is just wrong. But it seems so awkward to have it this way. The way I see it you set up your website and if you want other people to edit it you can setup the system to give them whatever they need, but nothing more then that. This is exactly what typolight can do.

back on topic:
I think that if more people find typolight a higher number of new people will discover it. So The "explosion" might still happen. But perhaps it is a good idea to ship a few (say 5) themes with typolight that are all different (not just other colors). Because when trying out a system I myself like a visual result. Granted: typolight didn't do that for me (there is that music academy, but that site is ugly). I gave it a better look because I use typo3 as well. I didn't know if they where related, but they certainly seemed to have a lot in common. (Which I still think they do. Perhaps some of the interface was inspired on typo3?). But I stopped evaluating typolight the first time I saw it. A few months later I had a bit more time/patience with the system. Glad I found it eventualy.

@mark: your remark on themeing is right when you come from a certain perspective. We have discussed this issue several times here in the forums. I still think that themeing in Tl could be improved a bit but I really don't want it to be one-click be happy because this wouldn't reflect the biggest advantage (in my opinion) that TL has compared to Joomla & Co: flexibility!

What could be done is to produce more demo-sites like the music academy which could be installed through the install.php. Demo-sites that reflect several scenarios people have when using a cms (company website, personal website, portal etc.). This would probably help people in starting with TL and in taking their own design from there. I am sure this will come

Other than that (considering the target group) TL's themeing is good as it is. For a web professional it should not at all be too hard to set up a site and implement the desired design.

I am very ahppy with the way things are going with TL but there is still a lot of work to do get it where we want it. To be named by people when enumerating the best cms (Okay, let's see we have Joomla, TYPO3, drupal and TYPOlight... ) Like Stefan said, TL has found its place in the market between Joomla (one-click-be-happy-cms-for-everyone) TYPO3 (big and complex company sites) drupal (community/portal-sites) and Wordpress (blogging) - TYPolight (smb-websites, personal (portfolio-) websites, projects where a granular acl is needed).

What we have to and will accentuate is the fact that the core system of TL with the on-board modules brings much more options that most of the other cms. For certain projects (mentioned above) you most likely do not need to install any other module. Try that with systems like Joomla and it is sometimes becoming a pain and also a grown security risk....