TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

Mary · 2005-06-20 18:11:00

Its also not efficient.

Maybe its just me, but I see this differently. I just want to preceed this with saying I’m not pointing a finger or directing this at anyone.

The purpose of this is not to show off, but offer tangible, useful content. What good is a template that depends upon plugins and advanced knowledge? Seriously, think about what that conveys. Newbs will be using them, not anyone else. Its like saying, “Oh yes, I love Textpattern, but without plugins its pretty useless.”

It makes a lot more sense to use your imagination with a pure plugin-free template. Then newbs can learn Textpattern, rather than plugins. And then we have a follow-up possiblity: how to take a basic template and extend it to your situation. Once you can see “regular” tags in use, the whole tag plugin thing makes a lot more sense to the uninitiated.

Obviously, if I’m alone in this there’s nothing I can do about it, and I won’t bitch and moan. Just wanted to make sure both sides of this are voiced. :)

davidm · 2005-06-20 18:27:36

Mary, as I said I wondered what path to take. I am open to debate, and glad to have your input on this :)

You make valid points there, a follow up possibility could take the form of a tutorial that we could bundle with the template. A showcase contest would rather be a design contest, which is not the same as a template contest, now it’s clearer for me. Some templates use plugins and are not necessarily so hard to set up. But agreed that for starters and as a complement to 1.0 release and a probable widening user base, it would be the way to go.

I’ll contradict the slight preference I displayed earlier, and agree that’s the way to go !
Any other input can add to the rule writing process that I’ll have to go through if this contest reaches 25 :-)

bizartist · 2005-06-20 22:01:24

I’ll put my vote in for no plugins. But then again, I’m a sucker for a challenge! I’d like to see how far people can push the envelope on a base install…

(going to miss glx_if tho…)

Last edited by bizartist (2005-06-20 22:03:30)

marios · 2005-06-20 23:04:09

I’d vote once again far one or two basic plugins that’ll generate the basic navigation element.It would be silly unnecessary work to harcode these.

regards, marios

kennethlove666 · 2005-06-21 00:15:11

i signed up over the weekend.
my votes go to one default markup and no plugins. it needs to be the basic markup, too, the default. that way it’s “out of the box”

bizartist · 2005-06-21 01:13:48

Kenneth, I assume you are suggesting a simple CSS showcase, ala CSS Zen Garden ?. That suits me fine (TextZen, perhaps?), but that means everyone will have all the stuff from a default install on their blogs when they use our templates (remember we are aiming at very non-technical users/writers here, the sorts of people unlikely to want to tinker with page templates right at first).

I suppose we could settle on 2 or 3 page templates as part of the deal, giving users the choice of default, or maybe 2 other page setups (which would be standardized and determined before we start our template work).

Would forms be fair game? If we’re going to do the “out of the box” thing, then we should truly do a plain vanilla install and say all we give the user is a new stylesheet to install and a couple settings to change, which would be fairly straightforward for any user to do…

What about images, should they go into TXP or stay external?

Last edited by bizartist (2005-06-21 01:29:05)

JeffClark · 2005-06-21 03:09:36

I’m in.

I also entirely agree with Kenneth. I’m wondering if we should make it strictly a CSS change though, minus the “couple of settings to change” idea. The less variables, the less chance someone could screw it up…

oduignan · 2005-06-21 04:05:36

Ive signed up :), hopefully you’ll get the 25 you want. I will also follow the trend and offer my assistance for anything that needs assisting.

mourner · 2005-06-21 07:55:25

I vote for creativesplash’ idea to create a couple of standards-compliant templates that are highly customizable through CSS. Just like CSS Zen Garden, but with more than a one page – it should draw a great attention of the CSS community. The default template is just not flexible enough.

Oh, and TextZen is a great name for the contest indeed. :-)

PS: David’s post should be crossposted in the Announcements subforum, IMHO.

davidm · 2005-06-21 10:24:08

mourner : very good idea, done

to all : thanks for signing up ! and also for your ideas on how to go about this.

The showcase approach with nice plugins, elaborate forms and per section CSS is probably too specific to serve users needs, now that’s clear to me. My idea was to show off what txp can do, but there’s Let’s see yours then and txpmagazine’s listing for that. The only drawback of the CSS-only approach is that we can’t offer non-blog website’s template such as corporate or webzines… but I guess we can write tutos for textpattern.org to give a few hints on how to build those templates.

The idea of CSS-only templates is not what I had in mind at first, but in a way it could be more beneficial to a wide user’s base, and attract new users to txp. And who knows, make it possible to have a txp distro with a few alternate css to start from, if Dean so wishes :~~p The thing is, we’d still need at least a plugin for for TextZen (nice find BTW :~~) , the fla_style_switcher…

Let’s try to set some things. We seem to reach a consensus about leaving out plugins. The thing is, do we limit ourselves and let out forms entirely as well ?

@marios : I somewhat agree that some features offered by plugins are fairly key to navigation and “basic” features. I know it’s not the approach, but sometimes I wonder why some plugins are not bundled with txp’s distro… Each time I set up a txp install, I always start by installing the same group of plugins even before I start building a website : ob1_title, glx_hl_current, hak_textile_tags, rei_comments_invite, rss_admin_resize or dru_recent_articles…

Jaro · 2005-06-21 10:32:33

I’m in too. I would be for plugins (although I have never used any, I guess) but I can see how it can allow some designers to be more creative. If there are the content wise restrictions this will be more like a CSS contest. On the other hand you can create a great template without plugins too.

Last edited by Jaro (2005-06-21 11:10:23)

marios · 2005-06-21 10:58:56

XHTML STRICT ?

regards, marios

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#37 2005-06-20 18:11:00

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#38 2005-06-20 18:27:36

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#39 2005-06-20 22:01:24

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#40 2005-06-20 23:04:09

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#41 2005-06-21 00:15:11

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#42 2005-06-21 01:13:48

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#43 2005-06-21 03:09:36

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#44 2005-06-21 04:05:36

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#45 2005-06-21 07:55:25

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#46 2005-06-21 10:24:08

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#47 2005-06-21 10:32:33

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#48 2005-06-21 10:58:56

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

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