Symphony. I remember riding the wave of hype before it’s first launch, back when Movable Type was still the daddy and WordPress didn’t kill your server every time you got a link from digg. But then the bombshell struck and I found out that it would be $60 for a blog engine, I price I couldn’t and wouldn’t pay. So I left symphony and focused on making my own blog engine, which admittedly turned out alright-ish, if a bit lacking in the features department.
Well a few months on and Symphony has been released again, this time for free. And like all good web geeks I descended on it the instant I heard the news. And this is really where my review of Symphony begins. The installation process is one of the best I have ever used. A single little php file is uploaded and two minutes later you have a working site, albeit with a slightly rubbish default template. It is an amazingly simple task, unbelievably so in fact, I was left going “Is that it?”. But then I delved into making my own blog and that’s where I hit a wall.
Symphony is different. I have never used a blog or CMS engine like it. And like most things that deviate from the norm it has a slightly steeper learning curve; by slightly steeper I mean “WTF do I do now?”. WordPress’s templating language I picked up in an hour, MovableType maybe half a day. Symphony? I still don’t know what I’m doing half the time.
To continue this review I first of all have to explain a bit about what Symphony is and isn’t. I went into it thinking this was just another blog engine albeit with a snazzy admin side to it and a greater reliance on XML. What I found out was Symphony is more like a data storage system than a blog or CMS. Everything runs off of XML, from basic blog posts and category lists to search results and error messages.
To learn Symphony you don’t just have to learn a basic templating language like WordPress you have to learn XSL along with XPath and even then things don’t work the way they should or, more accurately, the way you think they should. Ultimately I ended up deleting all existing template files, components, controllers, sections, everything basically and starting again from a blank state. It’s much easier to find your way around when you lay the road, rather than trying to hunt down where every single request goes in the myriad of different files already present in the default installation.
In the two days (about 8 hours) I’ve been working with Symphony I’ve managed to create my own, very basic, blog. It’s still very rough and missing a lot of things (page titles anyone?) but I’m proud of it because in that short time I’ve taught myself not only a new system but also a new language, XSL, which I will be able to use in hundreds of other products outside of Symphony. And that is one of its greatest selling points, the skills you pick up here can be used anywhere unlike other blog systems where they’re only ever supported by that blog.
Symphony is unlike anything else, by now you should understand that. When you create a new Section (think list of items such as blog posts, photos, links etc) the only fields you are given by default are title, date and time. Everything else you have to add manually which might sound laborious and time consuming but ultimately ends up being incredibly useful. I know for a fact that the last time I used movable type to hold all of my links I used the title field for a general title, short entry for the actual link and long entry for the description. With Symphony I just make three custom fields called title, link and description and I’m away. My XML is created for me with three elements called title, link and description automatically. Then I just use a quick bit of XSL formatting and I’ve got my Finger Clickin’ Good list for my blog!
Sometimes I get lost, unsure of how to do something or where a certain value is coming from but after a bit of playing about I ultimately find it. The support site, Overture21 is pretty useless as of right now. The wiki is none existent save a few screencasts and the articles tend to miss out key points that I stumble down on. The forum does have a few helpful users, but so far the community is nothing compared to WordPress; which is understandable when you think that only recently have people begun to truly experiment with this new system.
The potential for Symphony is infinite, the only limits are what you can think of to store within the system. As of right now, I’m merely testing the waters, trying different things and seeing just how far I can push it.
The only downside? It’s difference to anything else like it. Heck, it would be better to describe Symphony as a framework with a nice GUI than a blog. What this means though is that currently there is very little support, very few templates and as of yet the Campfire API documentation has not been released halting any third party development.
What this does mean though is that things can only get better. The basis of the system is down; no errors, no bugs, and no discernable faults so far. About the only thing the 21degrees studio really need to put some serious effort into is the documentation side of things. The alien nature of Symphony will definitely scare of the vast majority of first time users, but if 21degrees can keep hold of the remaining users then I am positive they will become converts.
As it stands, I am seriously considering porting my site over to Symphony. If not now, then probably for the CSS Reboot come November. Yes, after spending a good few months making my own CMS which I am perfectly happy with (read: wouldn’t have considered changing for anything) I am now willing to give Symphony a shot. It’s that good!
Overall Symphony is currently only for the hardcore beta eaters who want a challenge, but as the community and support grow I’m sure it’ll find its place alongside WordPress and its ilk.
