Textpattern Support Forum

I’m in, thanks for setting this up wet.

Added a couple of bits about SEO placement to try and at least put us on the radar. Help out if you can in the discussion on the right sort of search terms

zero wrote:

What do you mean by ‘Elevator pitch’?

The 30-seconds you have to grab-em-by-the-throat with your fab new idea before they step out at the 15th floor.

Elevator pitch

Added my name for visuals/wireframes.
On holiday for the next week, but will be contributing when I return.

@wet: why not use the txp wiki?

I would like to think aloud about the mechanics behind the next version of Textpattern.com.

First, a summary of ideas:

• because TxP powerfulness comes not only from TxP core functionality, but also because its great variety of plug-ins and its helpful community, and…
• because, as stated in the wet’s draft, one of the main groups of the audience are wesigners, web builders, agencies, “web people” at companies
• then, Textpattern.com would really benefit by using and promoting some powerful plug-ins which adds great (and often desired by the audience) capabilities to a TxP powered site.
• using some plug-ins on TxP.com won’t be just for the sake of using them
• they will bring benefits to
  • Textpattern.com content and maintenance
  • Textpattern promotion , because they will show what can be achieved with TxP (core + plugins), directly on TxP.com.

By now, you may be asking yourself which plug-ins could both make Textpattern.com a great site and at the same time, show off TxP powerfulness to the primary aimed audience.
The short list I propose isn’t a matter of personal taste, but a selection of the few plugins I think (trying to be objective) will make the difference for creating TxP.com and promoting it.

This plugins are:

• MLP: The Multilingual Publishing Pack
• Postmaster
• Zem contact reborn

MLP: The Multilingual Publishing Pack

Even if the first version of TxP.com relaunch is just in english, having the MLP pack running on the back will make it really easy to have a real multilanguage site for Txp.com. Then, all of us (developers, collaborators, community) can easily help with translating the content: static content (description, features, etc), FAQs, and even dev’s weblog posts.

I’ve worked with MLP and I can say its a gift.

Benefits:

• for TxP.com
  • being a multilingual site, then…
  • it can make a difference compared to direct TxP competitors (WP, Drupal, Expression Engine, MODX). Their sites aren’t multilingual, and I would bet anything that making their sites multilingual isn’t as easy as it is using TxP + MLP.
  • appeals users which speak different languages
  • improves exposure on search engines (SEO)
  • all the content can be really easily translated by collaborators (and here, people can collaborate even if they don’t have access to the admin side) (hey, if Facebook made people work for them on translating all the FB strings, we can make it too)
• for promoting Textpattern
  • multilingual sites is an often required feature for the audience niche TxP is aiming to:
    • small/medium business (the average type of business where a TxP-driven site easily/perfectly fits and makes the difference) are requiring multi-lingual sites more often than ever.
    • bloggers, particularly, high-quality-content bloggers whose primary language isn’t English and want to blog both in their native language and English too.
  • again, Designers, web builders, agencies, “web people” at companies will clearly know that a multilingual site is possible with TxP (other CMS/blog softwares doesn’t state that so clearly, maybe because those software can’t do multilingual sites, so, +1 for choosing TxP)

This is probably just a short list of benefits of having a m-lingual site for Textpattern.com, and really, I can’t think of too many disadvantages (if we commit ourself with this task).

BTW, I’ve done an approach to a TxP m-lingual site without using MLP. I’ve to write the tutorial yet. But I don’t suggest to use my approach for a site like Textpattern.com.
The Multilingual Publishing Pack is the right tool to do it.

Postmaster: a simple to use email-on-post / newsletter manager for Textpattern

A plug-in like Postmaster will also bring benefits for both TxP.com and for promoting Textpattern.
Again, I’ve used it: it’s a dream come true for those (particularly, our clients) who need/want a simple tool to manage newsletter and notifications.

Benefits

• for TxP.com
  • interested people (newcomers, old users) can subscribe/unsubscribe to get notifications of TxP updates, new articles on dev’s weblog, upcoming things, TxP mentions, a monthly digest, whatever
  • and all those tasks can be easily done from the TxP admin side.
• promoting Textpattern
  • people may visit the time once, and subscribe, and then forget about Textpattern existence. Weeks later, when they receive a notification about TxP (a new article, a newsletter, etc), they will remember TxP exists. This is branding and white-hat marketing. They will get noticed about TxP news, come back to the site, and hopefully, become a TxP users. If not, they can easily unsubscribe.
  • a newsletter manager is also another tool often required by the niche of users (and user’s clients) TxP is aiming to.
  • so, somewhere on TxP.com we can talk about Postmaster, or even in a footnote below the signature of an e-mail sent by Postmaster, it can be stated: “This e-mail was sent using Postmaster, the superb and simple newsletter manager for Textpattern”.

Zem contact reborn: a contact form

Every website needs a contact form and TxP.com isn’t an exception. Probably, messages sent using this contact form should go to dev’s e-mails accounts.
No need to say that our sites (and our client’s site) always need one of this.

Benefits

• for TxP.com
  • provide a way to contact the people responsible of Textpattern.com (“Convey trust like an A-grade newspaper”, wrote wet) to:
    • give feedback (over site’s content, or just to thanks people behind TxP.com, report something broken on the site)
• for promoting Textpattern
  • show that a Textpattern site has a contact form. Below the contact form we can state: “This form was created using Zem Contact Reborn plug-in, etc”.
  • set copysender=1, so the visitor receives a copy of the e-mail (this is something helpful, and aids marketing an promoting the brand)
  • use txp:zem_contact secret="" to add useful information (link to FAQs, Textboook) on the copysender’s e-mail.

Of course, taking care of replying the e-mail sent by this contact form could (or not) be something that is beyond what our devs can manage on their time. If one or more devs are willing to care about those e-mails, great. If not, someone (or many, or the community) can take care of those e-mails.
Even better, the e-mail could be sent to a mailing list (friends@textpattern.com), and then everyone who wants to reply (just to the author or to the whole list), can do it easily.

The contact form is something that needs a little more of thinking.
But I have no doubt that a contact form on TxP.com has some advantages related to successfully get it touch with those newcomers that are interested on Textpattern…

Other plugins

Of course, we can take advantage of the power provided by many other plugins, particularly plugins which help on the admin side and on site maintenance.
Please, suggest other plug-ins that could bring benefits to both TxP.com (content and maintenance) and promoting Textpattern.

Concluding

Textpattern.com is the ground base to have a great site (that reflects what TxP core + plug-ins + community effort can do) and to start promoting this beautiful piece of code pottery.

TxP.com will be probably a pretty simple site (no need for real complex content organization nor too many “cool” functionalities)
TxP.com shouldn’t be nor look as a fancy web application (as wet stated on Design principles). (it shouldn’t look as a site or something you couldn’t do with TxP).

It should be a classic but modern website, thought as an HTML document, styled with CSS, enhanced with some JS, and powered by Textpattern ;).

The benefits of this community effort will probably be for us, our clients and our/their visitors.

The End

PD: It would be great to develop TxP.com using WP, and have to do a security update once a week and convince the world TxP is an active project. Just kidding.

Last edited by maniqui (2008-05-24 19:55:58)

Ok. All this pain on my fingers… for nothing… ;)

But I’m happy about writing ideas which then being discarded. Someone has to do it. Then, the good ideas, the clever ones, finally come to light.

MLP is not a hack, it’s an add-on (some files have to be added, but is that a hack?) . The only modified file (txp_db.php, or something like that) isn’t even needed now for MLP to work. Then, I agree it’s not a pure TxP plug-in.
Correct me if I’m wrong.

ZCR: sorry, didn’t check it was already installed.

About Postmaster: ok, Mailman is probably superior on many features, but Postmaster is superior on the integration with Textpattern :P

Also, I agree about having a list of websites that showcase TXP capabilities, but that shouldn’t exclude the possibility of having a multilingual (even if “MLP is a hack”) website for TXP.com

OK. Ideas discarded. Let’s go on.
An idea that doesn’t become a word is a bad idea. A word that doesn’t become an action, is a bad word.