Discussions

Hey everyone,

I have been lurking around this community for a while now, picking up tips on Liquid templates and wrestling with the occasional Wagon deployment glitch. I figured it was finally time to share a bit of a "success story" (with some lessons learned) regarding a project I recently wrapped up.

For the last few years, my go-to for client work was almost always WordPress or maybe Grav if they wanted something flat-file. But I recently took on a project for a client building a pretty specialized educational resource hub. They needed something that wasn't just a blog, but a structured repository of services, guides, and student resources. After doing some soul-searching (and a lot of research into Ruby-based systems), I decided to pull the trigger on LocomotiveCMS.

Why I Made the Jump

The main reason I chose Locomotive over the "big players" was the Content Types system. In WordPress, you're constantly fighting against the "post" and "page" architecture, even with Custom Post Types. In Locomotive, starting with a clean slate felt incredibly liberating.

I was building this site for a group that provides highly specialized academic support. They have dozens of different service categories everything from general study tips to very specific, high-level academic consulting. Being able to define a Service content type with custom fields for things like "Difficulty Level," "Prerequisites," and "Assigned Expert" without touching a single line of SQL was a breath of fresh air.

The "Aha!" Moment with Liquid

There’s a bit of a learning curve if you’re coming from PHP-based templating, but once Liquid clicks, it really clicks. I remember sitting in a coffee shop late on a Tuesday, trying to figure out how to conditionally display sidebar resources based on the specific service a user was viewing.

For instance, one of the more complex sections of the site focused on medical and health science resources. The client had a specific requirement for a landing page dedicated to Nursing Admission Essay Writers support. Using Liquid’s with_scope tag, I was able to dynamically pull in related journal templates and citation guides specifically for that category without making the page feel cluttered or heavy. It’s that kind of granular control that makes Locomotive feel like a developer’s tool rather than just a "user's" tool.

A Few "Gotchas" to Watch For

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. If you’re used to the "plug-and-play" nature of other CMS platforms, you have to shift your mindset.

Wagon vs. Engine: Understanding the relationship between your local development environment (Wagon) and the production server (Engine) is crucial. I definitely had a "heart in my mouth" moment early on when I pushed a content type change that I thought would overwrite some live entries. (Pro tip: Always double-check your wagon push flags!).

Asset Management: Locomotive’s way of handling assets is great once you get the hang of it, but coming from a system where you just drag and drop into a "Media Library," the asset pipeline felt a bit rigid at first.

My Personal Take

If you are building a simple brochure site, Locomotive might be overkill. But if you’re working on something where data structure matters like a portfolio, a directory, or an educational portal it’s a game changer. The back-office UI is so clean that my clients (who are definitely not tech-savvy) actually enjoy using it. They don't feel overwhelmed by a million buttons and notifications.

I am curious to know has anyone else used Locomotive for academic or niche resource sites? I’m currently looking into better ways to implement a site-wide search that filters through multiple content types effectively. If you've got a favorite gem or a Liquid trick for that, I’m all ears!

Would you like me to share the Liquid snippet I used for the dynamic sidebar filtering? I'm happy to post it if anyone's interested.