Umbraco, is it just me or is it really hard to use? [closed]

Answer 1

As a senior .NET programmer naturally I gravitate to .NET based solutions, and Umbraco seems to be a solid CMS. So I installed it and tried to gain some knowledge and getting it going and these are my findings:

• Videos are ridiculously thin on content. The first introductory video talks of a runway. What on earth is a runway??? No jargon please, I'm a first time user.
• You have to pay for the most advanced videos. No wonder it hasn't taken off as a mainstream .NET based CMS.
• Out of the box demos are non functional (I chose the business theme an the menus don't work)
• Admin area very non-intuative
• Installation forces Web-Matrix installatiuon.. I have IIS7 and so do our production systems... I DON"T WANT WebMatrix!!! Finding documentation on this is also not easy.

All in all EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING to use and put me off Umbraco totally.

So I've picked up on Wordpress in the mean time and find it extremely easy to extend the admin interface. Documetnation and community support is superb. Just a pity its PHP bases because that won't fly in my company that has invested heavily in .NET developers :-(

Answer 2

I've been building sites with Umbraco for something like 5 years now, and I don't recognize your description of Umbraco as a very difficult CMS, but I'll try to provide a few pointers here to help you if you're still considering Umbraco:

1. Go to http://our.umbraco.org, read the Wiki-pages, and post any questions in the forums there, it's a really friendly community.
2. Always use Microsofts Web Platform Installer when installing Umbraco, It'll help you create your site, and set up your database. Just be sure not to install Umbraco in a sub/virtual directory, since Umbraco can't handle a setup like that.
3. If possible, do your install on a development machine with IIS7 and SQL Server Express, it'll work for sure, and deployment of a finished site can be done with a xcopy transfer and a restore of a database backup.
4. Don't start a new Umbraco site, before you've coded the HTML you'll be using for the site, or at least have a really clear idea about the page types, and html content you'll need.

I hope I'll be seeing you on the Umbraco forums.

Regards Jesper Hauge

Answer 3

The problem with Umbraco is that the UI is awkward and it's not immediately apparent how to use it and where to find things. There are several section buttons at the bottom of the page and when you click on one, you're presented with a tree view where you drill down to what you want. This is bad UI 101: no mystery meat. All functions should be organized and visible to the user. Dropdowns with submenus would have been a better approach.

The UI element names are ambiguous. For instance, there's a Members and a Users section, a Developer and a Settings section, a Content and a Media section. Isn't Media supposed to be Content? Aren't Members also Users? Aren't Settings something a Developer would do? You get my drift.

With the release of version 5, none of these issues have been addressed. The best thing they did was to kill XSLT/Classic ASP.NET and replace it with MVC and Razor. This makes getting your head around the product much easier from a developer's standpoint, despite a lack of adequate documentation for version 5. From a content creation standpoint, it's still lacking, however.

If you want to see a great UI, look no further than SiteFinity. Even though the new design isn't as good as SiteFinity 3 versions, it's content editing is the best I've seen on the market. It's too bad it doesn't support MVC and it's controls are cumbersome to modify and style.

Answer 4

Umbraco is a bit different than other CMSs like Sitefinity, DNN, or Drupal. It does compare well to Sitecore.

Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve. I think the XSLT can cause that, but more likely its just the fact that you have to understand how Umbraco is structured. There are very few "modules" out of the box that you have to arrange and style. Rather, it allows you to easily create your own structure and markup that doesn't force you into a box that is hard to get out of.

I've used Drupal, Sitefinity, WordPress, Sitecore, and some others and frankly Umbraco is my favorite. If you know how to develop great web sites and you don't want limits on your design, markup, or client experience then Umbraco is a great choice. If you aren't really building a site but just want to put pieces together and get "something" working, then it may not be worth your time. If you build lots of sites or want your end users to edit content easily (not just a big rich text editor), then it may be worth overcoming the learning curve.

The videos are totally worth the $20 to watch BTW. They are far better than any documentation you can find and after maybe 5-6 videos you should be "getting it". Just buy one month and cancel after that.

The community is awesome too. If you're struggling, head over to the http://our.umbraco.org forums and get some help. There's lots of it over there.

Also, try installing the Creative Web Starter Kit package or the Blog 4 Umbraco package to get a head start. Those will be more familiar to those coming from a Sitefinity or Drupal background and may help the learning curve flatten out.

Good luck!

Answer 5

what i wish i would have known!

Umbraco - Before you start