So today is the first time I've actually used my own project, uShowcase, to make a photo gallery. I have a few photo gallery websites to make in the coming months, and it gave me a great excuse to dive into Umbraco more. I learnt some things, chief among them: always use your own projects.
Back when I was making this website, I needed an easy to use authentication system as Microsoft's sucks and is bulky. I came up with EasyAuth, a simple and easy to use ASP.NET/MVC authentication library. When I designed it, it looked great, the idea was good, all the tests passed. But when I came to use it, I spotted features it lacked, things I wished it could do, stuff it needed to have. You don't see these until you use your product, oft times it's too late then.
Using uShowcase -- my first Umbraco project, a simple photo gallery starter pack -- I learned first and foremost that the default template sucks. It's not really a photography style website. It requires you to modify it and make it into a photography looking website, which isn't really fair when it's supposed to be a starter pack.
I also learnt that Umbraco rocks. I've used more content management systems than I can even recall. I've made more websites than I can even list. But using Umbraco has to be one of the best experiences I've had. While I do love the control you get from making a website from scratch using PHP/LAMP or C#/ASP.NET, that all just takes so long compared to using Umbraco. I don't think I'll ever have to write a backend management portal ever again! (Yeah, right...)
So thanks Umbraco, you make me happy and less rushed. And thank you past-me, for saving me time by creating uShowcase. I'll be sure to update it over the next few weeks a push a better version to the Umbraco package system.
(I do wish you could capture your cursor with print screen, it's over the wildlife thumbnail by the way!)
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