Drupal vs. WordPress: A comparison

“Demand and supply are just like two sides of a coin. To fulfil the demand of the user there must be enough resource so as to meet the expectations of the industry. If you are not able to meet the ever changing demands of the industry then you couldn’t sustain in the market. Similarly technology should be always up to date so as to provide optimum service to the developer and hence the end user. Every technology strives to remain in the industry with newer and advanced features and to serve the industry in a meaningful manner. Content management system is one such platform that provides enough scope for the developers in developing enterprise quality web applications. It definitely reduces the effort of the developer due to its in built systematic architecture and hence increases the productivity of the software developer. Drupal and WordPress are two magnificent CMS software available in the industry to serve in an efficient manner. But, nothing is perfect in this materialistic universe and so the case for these CMSs as well. Let us discuss their advantages and disadvantages and usefulness from the developer’s point of view”.

Ease of Use: For CMS software, user interface plays an important role as a deciding factor. User interface is something that makes sense when we think about ease of use and easy to learn character of the software. The popularity of WordPress is around ten times than that of Drupal considering the fact that the population of WordPress user is ten times more than that of Drupal. This is due to simple user interface and easy to learn approach of WordPress CMS. But the case is different with Drupal; though it is efficient enough to handle complicated web applications but it needs more effort and time from the Drupal developers to learn and integrate all the components of the CMS whereas WYSIWYG editor of WordPress is much more user friendly to provide better accesses for the WordPress developer. In fact WordPress releases upgrades every three four months without creating any annoying experience for the developer whereas Drupal upgrades need effort from the developer to handle the code changes of the newer version.

Scalability: Scalability is something that enables the web developer in crafting enhanced web applications from scratch with less effort and with more efficiency. There are many options available in a CMS platform that extends the features of a web application like integration of advanced themes, templates, plug-ins and components etc. Again the ease of integration of these features matters a lot from the developer’s point of view. WordPress provides sufficient room for the developer to integrate better themes, plug-ins and components etc from a repository of millions of contributions of the industry whereas Drupal developers may not find enough open source templates and plug-ins for their application. But if we consider about the quality of customisation then the clear winner will be Drupal because of its highly optimised Architecture that enables the Drupal developer in building high performance web applications; but at the cost of effort and expertise from the developer. In short we can say the customisation features of WordPress are better for moderate standard web applications whereas Drupal is consistent enough for big content web solutions.

Security features: Undoubtedly the security standards of Drupal are par ahead of WordPress due to its highly optimised design pattern. A Drupal application is extremely secure and hence can be used confidently for any big data application. On the contrary WordPress is little loose from its score and hence it can’t be a trusted one for data driven application. Again due to larger community of WordPress, hackers love to show their talent in the bigger canvas. Hence the security threat is more for a WordPress website than that of a Drupal.

Search Engine Optimization: Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important features of every CMS. There are many third party SEO tools or plug-ins available in the industry along with the inbuilt SEO tools. There are more number of advanced SEO tools and plug-ins available in WordPress platform than that of Drupal. On the contrary, Drupal platform has less number of SEO tools available in the industry but due to its default caching features, it forces Google to give priority for a faster Drupal website. Again Drupal can handle larger volume of content without any hassle and hence it makes a lot sense when we think about search engine optimisation. So it is like a tie between both the platforms from two different angles.

Performance: It is needless to say that the performance of an optimised platform is always better than that of a loosely coupled platform and hence Drupal performs outstanding in the industry. Drupal is having a tremendous popularity in the industry as a tough yet powerful CMS and it enables the developer in building enterprise quality high performance web applications.

Futuristic i.e. Responsiveness and mobile platform support: Industry has understood the importance of responsive web design in building a larger audience community for its business. It can be well achieved with the introduction of smart apps and web apps for different platforms like Android, IOS and windows operating system. Fortunately both Drupal and WordPress provides enough scope for the developer in designing responsive web applications through dedicated mobile theme for their application. WPTouch is one such WordPress mobile theme for responsive web design. It is already revealed that building a responsive web application with WordPress is much easier than that of Drupal platform. Again WordPress handles both the desktop web application as well as mobile web application in a better way so that your website can be well visible on the search engine. In fact WordPress provides real time content editing feature on mobile and it is extremely helpful for updating your blog in real time and it can be done from a native mobile app itself.

And the Winner is: Both the CMSs are having some advantages and disadvantages with respect to different prospective. WordPress is better for a medium volume content application where as Drupal is powerful enough to handle any complex application. WordPress doesn’t require much learning and expertise from a developer whereas Drupal needs it from the very beginning. Drupal is highly secure and stable platform but WordPress is extremely simple and flexible. So we can say Drupal is best platform for complex applications whereas WordPress is a simple platform for quick web building that doesn’t require much expertise from the developer.

We, at Mindfire Solutions, are equally competent in WordPress and Drupal. If you have any custom WordPress plugin development requirements, or need the help of our senior WordPress programmers: please feel free to give a shout to us any time and we will be replying back within one business day.

What does the future hold for WordPress Theme development?

For the last 10 years since the introduction of WordPress, this CMS platform has been gaining all the more popularity as well as importance. In fact, as per the experts who are regularly dealing with WordPress, its future looks extremely promising in spite of the challenges that lie ahead. When it comes to discussing the future development of WordPress, it is likely to mainly focus on the following two areas – Refatoring and Usability.

Refatoring

That WordPress comes up with a too many codes does not need to be mentioned. However, a considerable proportion of the codes are not optimal. This goes particularly true for the codes that are original. Hence, this needs to be improved and it is likely that the future generations of WordPress will come up with considerable improvement, and thus get rid of this limitation. Truly, the future generations of WP will come up with a lot of value added features – scope of rewriting admin interface in Jscript along with improved as well as enhanced legacy elements. Also, the backwards compatibility issue is going to enjoy a considerable extent of attention from the developers.

Usability

Developers have put more emphasis on usability than on features while developing the version 3.6 of WP. Traditionally, WordPress has got a lot of hidden power and surprisingly, much of that power was hitherto left unused. That has been somewhat rectified in the new version. Also, the fact that the next generation WPs are likely to come up with new features will make them more user-friendly from the end-users’ point of view. Also, while the language has already been simple, it is likely to get even simpler for the users with lesser technical prowess.

Let us look into the other aspects of the future of WP.

Blogging

Blogging is the core functionality of WordPress. This is mainly because WP is simple, fantastic and most importantly, extremely easy to use. Hence it allows everyone to share their thoughts as well as their view points, ideas and experiences with others. As the future generation WPs are likely to come up with more value added features and in a much simpler form, blogging will get easier and more acceptable to people, even those without any technical expertise whatsoever.

Mobile

It is going to get more mobile. Internet can be accessed now with virtually all types of mobile devices and this, undoubtedly, is going to change WordPress, by making it more mobile. It is likely to go on changing, and adapting to the way people will access and use it, especially through mobile devices and this is a significant change that WordPress is going to see in the future.

Identity

WordPress has always suffered from a kind of identity crisis ever since it was introduced some 10 years back. Though it gained a huge amount of popularity over these 10 years, and people accepted it as the best and the most user-friendly blogging tool, one very basic question that has plagued the end users as well as the developers is – what actually CMS is? While according to one school of thought, it is a blogging software platform, for others it is a comprehensive CMS or Content Management System. Again, another group of people calls it a framework that can be used for blogging. Thus, in future, WP is likely to get a profound identity that will only underline its existence and importance.

Since WP after all, is extremely powerful as well as extendable, its future prospects depend upon how it manages to retain its simplicity, stay as a beautiful software that helps people to share thoughts with others and socialize in a different way.

Security

This is another aspect that is going to determine the future prospect of WordPress application development. Each and every software platform has to encounter various types of attacks as well as challenges from various quarters and WP is no exception. Thus, the security aspects need to be strengthened by a considerable extent if it is to prosper as a reliable CMS platform in the future. Considering the amount of work that is going on for enhancing the security aspect, the future of WordPress looks considerably promising.

If you would like to hire expert WordPress developers from wordpress development India companies who can help you build wordpress cms within allocated budgets and time schedules, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Offshore Web Development – Benefits and Challenges

The practice of outsourcing development or maintenance of various projects has become quite a common trend nowadays. This is mainly done so as to cut the cost of development as well as maintenance, as it is seen that offshore technicians or developers charge much lesser than their local counterparts in web development. However, when we speak of offshore development, the practice has its own advantages as well as disadvantages that need to be addressed at length.

 

Let us at first deal with the advantages of offshore web development.

 

Fast development backed by expertise

In majority of occasions, web development is outsourced to those vendors who are specialized in this field. These vendors are not only pretty experienced, but are properly equipped with specific equipment and are rich with high level technical expertise that at times surpass the one that is available to the outsourcing business. This results in faster as well as hassle free development with a much better output.

 

This helps to concentrate on the core processes instead of the supporting and ancillary processes

Once the supporting or ancillary processes are outsourced, there is no need to deal with them anymore. Thus, it becomes possible to deal with the core processes and strengthen the process to a considerable extent.

 

Sharing of Risk

One of the most vital factors that determine the outcome or the end result of a particular campaign is analysis of risk. Outsourcing certain ancillary components of a projects helps businesses to transfer some of the responsibilities to the offshore vendor(s). As these vendors are generally specialized and have a lot of experience under their belt, they are in a better position so far as risk management is concerned.

 

Reduced Operational as well as Recruitment Cost

Once businesses start outsourcing projects, they are in no need to hire professionals for in-house operations. Naturally, this drastically reduces the operational as well as recruitment cost to a large extent. This is in fact one of the most important advantages of offshore outsourcing.

 

Let us now discuss with some of the challenges or shortcomings that are associated with outsourcing.

 

Lack of appropriate skills

Offshore centers of development are generally mass production centers, which take up projects from various sources from all over the world simultaneously. Thus, the presence of too many projects results in mass production and this may at times turn the production sloppy and lackluster. Also, on certain occasions the developers lack the appropriate skills to develop projects with the required finesse, thus hampering the quality of the end products to a considerable extent.

 

Details of the projects

At times it may so happen that the offshore development companies look forward to just complete the projects by hook or by crook without even looking into the details of the technicalities properly. Thus, they often have the tendency of underestimating the time that is needed to complete the projects, which in the long run not only increases the cost of production by overshooting deadlines, but also hampers the quality to a great extent.

 

Lack of legal power

As on most of the occasions the offshore vendors are located in different countries, the outsourcing companies do not have any control on what is being sold, against what were purposed or proposed. Besides, if there is any instance of breach of contract or if the vendor companies fiddle with sensitive and confidential information, there is hardly anything that the outsourcing companies can do from the legal point of view. Also, due to distance and other issues, it does not make any sense of carrying any legal battle with the vendors.

 

Cultural and language issues

This is one of the most significant challenges in outsourcing web development projects. The vendor companies to which the projects are outsourced are generally located in non English speaking countries. As such, the projects are often plagued by misinterpretation of briefing due to language problem resulting in altered results along with not-up-to-the-mark quality. Moreover, the cultural differences at times lead to misinterpretation of certain terms and terminology that affects the end product to a considerable extent. You can hire web developers from custom software development India companies, who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

 

We provide web development services. If you would like to hire offshore developers from web application development India service provider, please contact Mindfire Soltutions.

Smart ways to customize WordPress themes

Those who are new to WordPress think that code tinkering in this platform is a tough as well as daunting task. However, the reality is that the feel and look of the site along with themes in WordPress may be customized by incorporating some truly simple changes. But these changes should not be introduced in the themes directly. First of all, child themes should be created, and this should be followed by dealing with the offline files so that the changes can be seamlessly introduced. When working in this way, it can ensured that while tweaking the code, if any issue crops up inadvertently, the original files can always be accessed. They can then be re-uploaded quickly so that the changes can be overwritten.

Creating child theme- Themes inheriting another theme’s functionality as well as style are known as child themes while the themes they inherit are called parent themes. You do not need to alter the parent theme files when you add new style changes and functionality through child themes. While parent themes are being updated, child themes should never be touched. Child theme creation is quite simple- just create one file along with one folder on the local computer. Name the folder with the child theme’s name. A unique identifier can also be added to the name. Now create another file within that folder, adding .css suffix to it. Specific information should be inserted as well through a code. Mostly generic information is contained by the code; the child theme should also have styling information. After incorporating all the changes as well as saving them, the child theme should be added to the WordPress installation by connecting the web host with FTP program. Browse to the required folder to upload the child theme folder that contains the new file. Activate the theme to edit it. This is the most commonly accepted method.

Theme customization API- The admin screen of WordPress Theme Customization can be customized by developers by allowing the site admins to change settings of the themes to see preview of the changes in real time. The theme can have more interactive as well as powerful options for customization through this. Your very own options can be added with the use of two hooks – wp_head which allows your output of custom-generated CSS and customize_register which allows defining new customizer controls, sections as well as settings.

Using custom code instead of plugins- The wonderful aspect of plugin allows the transformation of websites, enabling you to do almost anything that you want. Plugins often need a lot of code; they are also accompanied by management issues since they have to be updated and potential security issues handled. Adding too many plugins can make a website bloated and slow the loading time. So custom codes are the best option. You will just have to add some code lines to the proper file. Taht will reduce the load on the website and keep everything tidy.

Addition of new functions to theme with PHP codes- Another good way of adding changes is using PHP codes. If you want to improve functions of a theme, the location of the function can easily be found through the use of custom-functions.php. Through this you can easily change layouts, add new functions, integrate with plugins, etc. Just find out the correct file and the section or part that has to be remove, replaced, changed or duplicated so that the customizing can be done. The codes have to be checked carefully so that those available in the template can be used to change the layout.

Although using child theme code is the commonly accepted method, there are other methods which may be used as well for this end. In fact, if your requirements are small and include some minor coding, then you can use custom CSS by adding CSS editor to the backend. Just install custom CSS editor to edit it and you will be done with your job. You can get in touch with a WordPress website development company who can help you customize WordPress themes and build websites within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide WordPress development services. If you would like to hire expert WordPress developers for your web development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Why More People Select WordPress than Drupal to Build Websites

Despite being two distinct content management systems, WordPress and Drupal are similar in a number of ways. Along with being open source and free-to-download, each content management system is also being used to build a variety of websites. But there is a huge difference in the popularity and market share of these two CMS. According to a number of recent reports, WordPress dominates is the number one CMS with a market share of 42%. The themes, plug-ins and widgets provided by the CMS further enable users to build robust websites without possessing in technical experience. At the same time, Drupal offers several powerful and user-friendly tools to build complex websites at a rapid pace. However, there are several factors that make more people choose WordPress over Drupal to build websites.

5 Reasons Why People Prefer WordPress to Drupal for Building Websites

1) User-Friendly

In comparison to Drupal, WordPress is considered to be more user-friendly. The CMS further offers many plug-ins, themes and widgets to make it easier for developers to build websites. These tools can even be used by users who do not have any prior experience in web development. As WordPress was originally designed as an easy-to-use blogging platform, the users have option to combine blogs and websites to add posts, pages, images and other content without putting any extra effort. Further, a user can easily learn WordPress to build his first website or blog within a short span of time.

2) Cost Efficient

Some recent reports have highlighted how Drupal developers earn much more than WordPress developer. However, the earnings of Drupal developers are no way related to the market share of the content management system. The high cost is purely due to the extra time and efforts required to build a website using Drupal. Also, the websites can be developed only by experienced and skilled developers. Therefore, most enterprises opt for WordPress to save money. As no experience or technical skills are required to build a WordPress application, the small and local businesses can build websites without investing a lot of money.

3) Easy to Update the Website

Unlike Drupal, WordPress is developed as a browser-based program. So the CMS allows authorized users to manage their websites by logging in from any computer. These features further enable professionals to manage and update their websites on the go. Further, the website can be updated without writing any additional HTML code or using FTP. The customized tools provided by WordPress can be used to update or manage the website anytime and anywhere.

4) Availability of Developers

The scarcity of developers also affects the popularity of a website development platform. Many reports have highlighted that Drupal developers are scarce and hard to found. The additional time required to build a website using the CMS also affects the projects that must be completed within a stipulated timeframe. On the other hand, a business has option to choose from several WordPress development options according to its budget. Also, the user can simply integrate in inbuilt blog into the website to add new content without incurring any additional expenses.

5) Popular and Familiar

At preset some of the most popular websites and web applications are using WordPress. Also, the clean and easy-to-navigate features of WordPress sites enhance their ranking on the search engine results pages of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Its popularity as a blogging platform also encourages many companies to opt for WordPress to manage content efficiently. The familiarity of the CMS makes it popular among many people. On the other hand, Drupal is not familiar with the enterprises and individual users. As the marketing department of most enterprises mange their website, the decision makers prefer WordPress over Drupal.

Both WordPress and Drupal are written in PHP. The users also have option to enhance the basic functionality of each CMS through loads of add-ons. However, it is always important for the users to pick the right content management system by keeping in mind the size, usage and nature of the website. WordPress CMS customization teams can help you customize web app within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide CMS development services. If you would like hire good wordpress developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

The Future of WordPress Theme Development

WordPress can be defined as an open source blogging tool as well as a PHP and MySQL based CMS that operates on web hosting service. The tool comes up with a plug-in architecture along with an archetypical template system. As per a survey that was conducted in the month of August 2013, currently the tool is being used by over 18.9% of around10 million top class websites all over the world. In fact, it is regarded as the most adorable as well as acceptable blogging system.

Experts are of the opinion that WordPress is not only going to stay but it is going to be the future of web designing and development. Let us discuss some of the reasons.

Frankly speaking, WordPress at present is regarded as the best and the most user friendly software when it comes to maintaining, designing or developing a web site. Though it was originally designed and developed for the use of bloggers for creating personal blogs, at present it has become the most popular platform in the world of blogging. Moreover, of late the platform has undergone further facelift as well as development and this has made it undoubtedly the best system for designing or developing websites irrespective of the type or niche. The most fascinating feature of the tool is that it comes free of cost making it all the more popular. This popularity is likely to rise further in days to come.

WordPress started its endeavour with version 3.7. However, with time it got equipped with features like a new process of distributed development along with a smoother as well as nimbler release schedule. Thus it has changed itself with time to make sure that it does not lose its pertinence.

Let us see what the future has in store for WordPress or in other words, what is the future of WordPress.

Improvements in Wiring Options : The writing screen sans any distraction was for the first time introduced in version 3.2. Since then, they have always been improving their distraction-free screen in order to compete with other applications with similar features. With constant R&D under way, more improved versions of screens are to be introduced. That is likely to create a lot of difference to the end users.

Customized Menus : There has been requests to the developers of WordPress themes to design customized menus. Thus, WordPress is likely to come up with customized menu interface very soon. Experts believe that this will really be something that will improve the usability of the tool to a large extent, thus further enhancing its popularity amongst users. The R&D is already under way and very soon they will come up with seamless customized menus that users will really adore.

Revisions: WordPress is very shortly implementing a feature that will facilitate better management of content revision. At present the interface is pretty technical, making it fine for those who are used to using it for long. However, they are coming up with features that will make the code comparison tools better as well as more user-friendly, making them fine for even those who are not that tech savy or are using it for the first time.

Autosave, Post Locking: WordPress is also looking forward to improve its Autosave option. This will minimize the frustrating issue of losing net connection or browser crash every now and then.

Post Format Features of UI : It is likely to incorporate post format User Interfacer features that cut down the take up time of themes to a large extent.

With so many developments in the offing and a constant R&D mechanism under way, WordPress is on the verge of making more amends and thus ready to be smarter enough to suit the changing time for meeting the newer demands of its users.You can hire wordpress developers from top web development companies who can help you customize web app within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide wordpress CMS development services. If you would like to speak to one of our expert wordpress developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

The Future of WordPress Plugin Development

WordPress has now become the perfect trend of the current times and it is for us to see where the most popular CMS of the world is heading. After extensive researches, feverish digging and going through a fair amount of trends related to the plugin and theme development, you can identify the key innovations in the factors shaping up for WordPress in the future. WordPress is a major CMS platform in web development. It is one of the most popular and best CMS as it is extremely customizable in terms of providing wide support in the development platform. You can also improve the performance of WordPress site by adding different WordPress plugins having amazing features. These make websites SEO friendly through improved database along with faster loading to provide security.

There are particulars regarding how WordPress needs to adapt to the changing environment. The web platform including both mobile and social is now having a much greater influence on people’s internet browsing as well as content creation behavior than ever before.

How Plugins define the future trends of WordPress

Plugins are another solution like Visual Composer, that replace the Word Press post or page editor. The Visual Composer interface allows you to drag, drop or re-size various modules onto your page, each having contrasting functionality. Some of the modules are highly powerful as they help you create a completely novel page design with tweets, columns, sliders, tabs, even all of your post excerpts or everything within any theme. It is hence much more flexible than a dedicated approach of the theme.

It replaces the post as well as page editor, and it is for this reason if you make any changes, only the primary content part of your theme will be affected. The sidebar, header and footer remain entirely untouched unless you choose a blank page template. For the customization of an existing theme, Visual Composer is ideal as the theme look and feel is retained, while you change the content any way you like.

Essential Features of WordPress Plugin Development

WordPress is extensively used by bloggers as well as web designers. The current version is newly released WordPress 3.8 that helps the webmaster to go for faster and better management. Many advanced plugin versions are used to save your time by detecting track-back spam as well as comments automatically.

Many WordPress plugins for SEO optimization are easy to use as well as understand. Some of the features include:

• Meta and link elements

• Page Analysis

• Creation of XML site maps

• RSS optimization

• Breadcrumps

• Editing of .htaccess and robots.txt file

• Scanning comments for spam with quick configuration

• Highlighted links in the comment body

• Spam and Unspam reports with information of the spammers

• Free API key for personal websites

A revolutionary experience for WordPress on Mobile

Though it is difficult to develop blog posts on tablets or smartphones, yet the smartphone is identified as an essentially easier way for blogging out your life. The smartphone can simply take photos as well as video much easier than your laptop ever could. The only trouble with creating posts on a cellphone is with writing the text. However, voice dictation can easily solve such problem, with applications like Siri becoming far better at transcribing or recognizing voice. Once that happens, most of the content including text, photos, videos will then be created on a tablet or smartphone.

New integration with different services includes large amount of content sharing besides tweeting, liking, pinning etc. Today’s web users engage in these service platforms for WordPress to offer new tools improving the chances to share posts with other services. WordPress CMS customization teams can help you customize web app within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide WordPress customization services. If you would like to speak to one of our expert WordPress developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.