TxP.com home page

zero · 2008-09-12 13:36:23

I had to google for moleskine too but so what? You find out it is about quality and distinction – “MOLESKINE is the legendary notebook that has held the inspirations and ideas of everyone from Van Gogh, Picasso and Hemingway to famed author, Bruce Chatwin. Artists, authors, and geniuses of all variety have long appreciated the simplicity and superior functionality of these notebooks.” That’s why I think it is better than ‘pen and notebook’.

Michelangelo is known to everyone as a renowned artist or whatever. Even if you don’t know any details about him, just the name is enough to convey greatness, art, genius etc. Together with Moleskine the reader immediately knows this is about quality. The connection with the carver is only significant for the “in-crowd” and is otherwise insignicant.

But I agree to some extent about the web designer sentence, Neko. Web designers are the main audience which is why I tend to think it is fine. However, it might exclude so can you think of a good replacement? Anybody?

Thanks for comment about Reasons to try, Stef. I’ve now added some Reasons Not to Try too and doing it with your page refresh idea in mind. (In case anyone has never visited Stef’s site do so now and keep refreshing the page. It will brighten up your day :-)

I’ve also added some catch-phrases on the wiki too, with some explanation in the comments at the bottom. I don’t think we’re going in circles, Destry, and I don’t think anyone should be shy of coming forth with new content or ideas. In fact new content now will probably be better because of the hindsight of taking time to digest previous efforts. I don’t think it will hold Matthew back will it? I think he has a good idea of what is needed now. I think (tell me if I’m wrong anybody) it’s agreed that home page content should be concise and use about as much text as in the examples so far given, so last minute changes shouldn’t be too hard should they? Although, if michelangelo is rejected, reasons to try is made more prominent etc, I suppose it does affect the design….

reid · 2008-09-12 13:56:56

ruud wrote:

All those that had to Google for moleskine, raise your hands please

All who own at least one size of moleskin and use it regularly, raise your hand please.

[raises hand]

Now, let’s count the number of programmers with their hand down, and the number of designers with their hand up… :-)

Last edited by reid (2008-09-12 13:57:24)

Destry · 2008-09-12 15:32:27

Neko wrote:

That text is preposterous.

Even if it was (highly subjective), it’s very eye catching, and that was the point I was trying to make before. It certainly got your attention.

reid wrote:

All who own at least one size of moleskin and use it regularly, raise your hand please….Now, let’s count the number of programmers with their hand down, and the number of designers with their hand up… :-)

My hand would be up, and I guess that makes me a little biased as the author, which does make a fair point, substantiated by zero and demonstrated by Neko: maybe it’s a little too targeted.

In any case, I don’t mind my contributions going under fire, it’s all good, that’s the scientific way, but for all you scientists — P.U.O.S.U.

(Man that site’s funny, I just found that. Maybe that’s the site txp should copy. “Txp is like a blank canvas.” LOL!!!)

And your right, zero, tangible contributions are always welcome.

Last edited by Destry (2008-09-12 15:45:45)

Neko · 2008-09-12 16:42:55

zero wrote:

I had to google for moleskine too but so what? You find out it is about quality and distinction.

That’s hardly the point. A thing called “moleskin” was some kind of no brand notebook, which, allegedly, was made in a little shop in Paris. “Moleskine” is a registered trademark created by an Italian company which based part of their success saying that theirs it’s indeed the same notebook Hemingway (and Matisse and Van Gogh) used. But he didn’t. Or, at least, there is no evidence about that, also ‘cause the actual “Moleskine” debuted in 1996. Otherwise, show some proofs.

It’s like saying Hemingway used to breath air, so now I make a can full of air and I market is as “Air-e®” and the marketing spin is that Hemingway used to breath the same thing. Serious business.

Now, in this way we are only advertising a commercial product repeating a story that’s probably fake. If we have to advertise, at least we should make sure that the devs get some money in return, otherwise I’m against it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moleskine.

I hate being such a pain in the ass, so I’m leaving it up to you (and leaving the thread) to decide what to do with TXP copy.

However, I stand on my opinion: we should hire a copy. Jennie Robinson was damn good about it. I think she could write a paragraph or two for TXP, if we asked kindly. On a side note: why I still remember about her, even if she was here only on a very few occasions? Because I red her site (textmodern.com) 3 or 4 years ago and I thought her writing was astounding.

Michelangelo is known to everyone as a renowned artist or whatever. Even if you don’t know any details about him, just the name is enough to convey greatness, art, genius etc. Together with Moleskine the reader immediately knows this is about quality. The connection with the carver is only significant for the “in-crowd” and is otherwise insignicant.

Look, I remember why I ended up on these forums in early 2004. It was because I wanted to build a site and couldn’t find a damn good CMS for it. I tried a few the days before (including a seminal WP, which was even crappier than today, if you can imagine something like that) and they weren’t good enough for me.

MT has the rebuild thing which was horrible, for me. WP has a file called myhacks.php in which you had to write or paste… hacks! And php echoes instad of tags.

Then someone on a newsgroup mentioned TXP. I said “WTF? Never heard of it”, I came here, installed it, worked ever since and loved every minute of it.

If, again, I was a guy in need of a CMS to fit my needs and clicked on TXP.com for the first time, the first thing I’d like to know is that TXP is a kind of easy to use, powerful, fast, multi-purpose CMS that makes any kind of site: from little blogs to corporate stuff to on-line shops. Then I’d like to know that it’s available in 30+ languages and that it has hundreds of plug-ins.

To recap, let’s see what our competitors do:

MT: Your All-in-One Social Publishing Platform

WP.org: WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

WP.com: Express yourself. Start a blog.

EE: Say hello to the most flexible web publishing system you’ll ever meet.

I don’t see any cultural reference whatsoever. Maybe we’re better than them at writing. Who knows?

Last edited by Neko (2008-09-12 17:54:25)

squaredeye · 2008-09-12 16:49:47

Can we agree that it’s Georgia for headers and sans-serif (verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;) for paragraph text and move to the next dead horse to beat.

I’m all for it.

Moleskine : I wish I owned stock in Moleskine. [hand stays in pocket next to moleskine cahier notebook and stabilo pen] :)

zero · 2008-09-12 17:09:36

Neko, thanks for that link. Now I understand why you are so strongly against it. After reading that I have to agree with you. The only way I can think of changing it would be to use ‘Moleskin’ which would be a link to an internal page saying it is a high quality notebook reputed to be used by Hemingway, Van Gogh etc. That way there’s no endorsement of Moleskine and an opportunity to write something that describes textpattern as well as the moleskin notebook. Otherwise, it’s write something else, perhaps via Jennie (about whom I couldn’t find any reference on the link you supplied). IMHO.

Edit: regarding your additional comments about other CMS and what they do. Originally there was a version of this which I made to try and summarize what everyone wanted. (The link takes you to the version updated yesterday by Jonathan Stubbs, so perhaps he feels this is the version to be worked on but you’ll have to ask him that). I then made a comment that I was incapable of writing elevator pitch but felt it should be a bit different than the business or commercial style of language that you see so much of (as in your examples). I felt it should appeal to the artistic side of people because designers were the main audience. So someone using great metaphors might be able to paint a picture with a few words, so txp elevator pitch would stand out from the crowd and appeal to the artistic side which I think must be there in most txp users. When Destry picked up on this and wrote about Michelangelo, it sounded just the job to me.

So in principle I still stand by my idea for something not so business like or neutral but more colourful just for the elevator pitch. As I said earlier in the thread, I feel there should then be plenty of descriptions, facts and real features and no more blurb (but don’t start fighting please!)

Last edited by zero (2008-09-12 17:26:09)

maniqui · 2008-09-12 17:17:47

I really liked the Michelangelo metaphor, but I wasn’t sure about the Hemingway one (because he is not so worldwide known as Michelangelo, and because of using the “Moleskine” brand name). Now that I read Neko’s posts, I can see that it may be not too good just to use a metaphorical tagline/slogan/catch-phrase. At least, not as the main tagline/slogan/catch-phrase.

I think this kind of catch-phrases have their place and usefulness. Probably they could be a few of them, and can be put on inner pages, accompanying some related real facts about Textpattern.
For example, the “Michelangelo” could go on the Features inner page, as a quote somewhere or maybe on the footer (for that section), as an easter egg.

It’s similar to the nemoorange’s idea of using images related to a factory and airplanes, to accompany some text which talks about Textpattern features/plugins/etc.
They have it palce, but using actual screenshots of Textpattern admin side on the homepage could be better than using metaphorical images.

reid · 2008-09-12 17:28:55

Neko wrote:

Look, I remember why I ended up on these forums in early 2004.

Now there’s a potential hook for testimonials. “How did you end up using Textpattern?” You’ll get design related answers, and you’ll get code related answers.

As for me, I was moving to a new web host in 2004, and, for the second time during my history with Moveable Type, it proved unable to import my large database into a new installation without corrupting it. I had over three years of content in two databases, and no way to display it. But Dean had just released a new gamma of Txp (1.18?), and it imported both databases with no problems.

Textpattern allowed me to put all my content under one roof. Currently 4013 articles with 7763 comments, and still counting…

zero · 2008-09-12 17:29:23

Julián, I just edited my previous comment. Please read so you know my reason for metaphor. Is my reasoning wrong about that do you think?

reid wrote:

Currently 4013 articles with 7763 comments, and still counting…

Reid, you must know about copy then. Please suggest…

Last edited by zero (2008-09-12 17:31:53)

renobird · 2008-09-12 17:36:59

Just as you can make the case for using a professional designer for the site design (in this case Matthew) – The same should hold true for the copy writing. I vote the task be given to a person with professional copy writing credentials. If there’s a “professional” copy writer among us – great! Otherwise, I vote we commission a reputable one.

I would contribute if it would end these dizzying discussions.

Last edited by renobird (2008-09-12 17:39:05)

maniqui · 2008-09-12 18:37:44

zero wrote:

Julián, I just edited my previous comment. Please read so you know my reason for metaphor. Is my reasoning wrong about that do you think?

I get your point too, zero. The metaphor itself makes a good picture of what Textpattern could be. Maybe, for this artist/tool metaphor, it’s about choosing the right characters. Michelangelo is well known, Hemingway maybe not that much (and the fact of using the word “moleskin” can have some negative connotations, I think).
I said before that Michelangelo matchs the designer (as graphic designers), Hemingway matches the blogger, but then, what about code (php/html/css/js) developers?

Designers are just a part of the main audience.
In fact, I think the main audience is that kind of web-developer that has a great skill on a particular field (being one of these: great graphic design skills, or great abilities on converting a design to HTML/CSS/JS, or great skills on coding PHP to improve/extend a CMS functionality) and have some average skills on the other areas mentioned.

Yes, Textpattern may be the CMS for the jacks of all trades and master of one (not none), and I don’t think that’s a negative thing to say about Textpattern.

In other words:

if you are the HTML/CSS guy, you can offer Textpattern to those who need a CMS solution that can be adapted to their yet-to-be-coverted-(or-not)-to-HTML/CSS design.
if you are the programmer guy, Textpattern is the solid base where you can do some custom development (as plugins, usually) that fit what your client (being the end-user, or the HTML/CSS guy above —who knows TxP but can’t add new functionality to it and hire you—)
if you are the graphic designer guy and you don’t know too much about coding, Textpattern is what you want others (the HTML/CSS guy, the programmer guy) to implement for you (and for your clients).

Then, most of us (and most of Textpattern audience) are a mix of two of the above kind of characters. Or even, all of them on one body (a truly genius, but they are the minority).

That’s, imho, the audience we have to aim to. Not just the designer (in the sense of someone who knows the web as a medium and creates mockups using graphical tools).

Reid wrote:

Now there’s a potential hook for testimonials. “How did you end up using Textpattern?” You’ll get design related answers, and you’ll get code related answers.

In 2004 I was still switching my mind from tables to table-less designs, and creating some static sites (using notepad+ftp) and learning about web topics (usability, accessibility) in general.

Then, I started to look for something (not sure what) which let me manage the content for a site easily.
But I was trying to avoid two things: to make it from scratch (I still lack the skills) and to use something that won’t let me output the HTML/CSS I wanted.
While still looking, I read Making a better open source CMS, an article by Jeffrey Veen.
It didn’t mention Textpattern, but in the comment number 4, Justin French (veteran-retired TxP user) mentioned Textpattern and so I looked for it and here I am yet. :D

Again… what I was looking for then? The empty canvas that doesn’t get (too much) in the middle of your code/design.

Last edited by maniqui (2008-09-12 18:38:12)

reid · 2008-09-12 18:44:22

zero wrote:

Reid, you must know about copy then. Please suggest…

I did radio copywriting over two decades ago, which seems fairly irrelevant to what’s going on here (1,000’s of snarky blog articles, even more so). I tend to agree with the idea that we should engage a professional, even on a consultant basis, if that’s possible.

Like the design aspect, there’s been a lot of good copy ideas tossed about in this thread. But also like the design aspect, I think we need a single ramrod, a pro we trust, to do the right thing with the various offerings here.

Not sure who that entity would be, but we need one.

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#169 2008-09-12 13:36:23

Re: TxP.com home page

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Re: TxP.com home page

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Re: TxP.com home page

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Re: TxP.com home page

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