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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
Hi Dave, had no idea you were working on this. Alicson didn’t mention it as far as I recall when we set up the project group to move txp.org forward. While I welcome the direction and the decluttering, I’d echo the sentiments of Gocom, jakob and Destry above. Particularly:
- the usability of list pages (love the ‘by this author’ sidebar, btw: that was something we had planned. But I would welcome the ‘related’ or ‘plugins like this’ list, especially when a plugin is orphaned or outdated and you want a similar plugin that works) and using comments for author use only, perhaps to indicate updates or something… not sure, might get confusing, and needs more thought. See later in this post…
- the links to other sites in the family in the masthead so that someone who finds themself on .org can easily jump between textbook, txptips, textgarden, txp.com, etc.
- trying to keep to the new ‘brand’ (loose terminology here, as Destry mentioned!). A unified header might have been nice across the board of sites, but as that’s not going to happen a hint of the flavour of the new one (look at textgarden.org) would probably be enough, as Destry intends for the wiki
From my own personal standpoint, a few things aren’t addressed by the design:
- non-plugin content — tips, mods, themes, tutorials — should not be on the site at all. I’m waiting for a phpMyAdmin login from (a very busy) Alicson so I can begin the process of migrating all non-plugin content off the site. Tips -> TXPTips; Themes -> Textarden ; Tutorials -> Textbook ; and Mods -> erm, ummm, anyone? (I’d hope that the mods are not really that necessary any more and with 4.2.0 out of the stable that a lot of them can just be ditched. Though some might still have value, if they work). The focus of the site is therefore solely plugins and that affects the headings and the main navigation
- stuff slated for v3.2 should really be a stock part of the 3.0 redesign, imo. As jakob says, plugin version compatibility and (perhaps) automatic update notifications impact the search and display features of the site — and they both definitely impact the custom fields in use on the site. So at minimum I’d like to spec out how this is going to work to avoid having to re-engineer everything at a later date. I’m all for saving hassle down the line :-)
- visitors should be able to specify a version of TXP and have search results only return plugins that are a) designed for that platform, or b) designed for a previous version but proven to work on the chosen version. Whether that is tracked via a cookie or integrated into the search system which should, as jakob mentioned, be pretty core to the site’s functionality is open to debate. I’ve been bouncing ideas around with jakob and a few others on the team about this over the last couple of months while we were waiting for Alicson to have some free time. One thing that might be beneficial — although the implementation needs work — is a way of linking the plugin version with the TXP version. If dds_mega_widget v0.4 was written for TXP 4.0.8, that should be recorded somehow. If you left the plugin at 0.4 (because you’re a busy guy!) and TXP 4.2.0 came out, people might try your plugin on 4.2.0 and find it still works. Some simple way of saying “yup, v0.4 of dds_mega_widget works under 4.2.0 as well” would be incredibly useful info when searching for plugins. This would also be of benefit if someone is thinking of upgrading to the next version of TXP. If they spot that three of their most used plugins are not going to work, they might hold off the upgrade, or contact the author(s) for clarification — or even sponsorship — of an update (that’s where that ‘Donate’ button comes in :-). They could also learn that their chosen must-have plugin has been adopted by someone else or rewritten, or has become part of the core and is no longer required
Regarding #3, our initial — perhaps flawed — thought was to use a rating system to ‘rate’ whether plugin vN.M works with TXP vX.Y.Z. Sure, some people would say “doesn’t work” but others might say “it so totally does” and over time the number of Yes votes would outweigh the No votes. If there was a commenting system alongside the voting, that would actually add benefit because someone might say “well, it doesn’t work but if you change line 305 to this… then it will work”. That sort of info gets lost in the forum threads.
I guess what I’m inferring is also using txp.org as a confidence indicator that a plugin will be fine. A definite Yes if an author writes it for a specific version or a ‘more likely than not’ under future versions based on community feedback. As it stands, you install and hope. I’d like to txp.org v3 to significantly reduce the ‘hope’ bit :-D
Though I’m not directly involved in the redesign effort (because I suck at the front end of web sites) I will be relocating the old content to new homes and perhaps jumping in every now and again for coding work. Gocom and variaas were primarily going to be looking at that side of things, while jstubbs, jakob and maniqui were going to be doing the actual design / implementation stuff under Alicson’s gaze — when she had a chance to grant them access to the site. With you now in the mix, especially with your busy workload, you might wanna get in touch with the others directly and pool resources on this one so the site can be remodelled at a faster pace. We have a project space set up for discussions (Jonathan’s the admin).
I’ve been out of the loop the last few weeks but should be back on track now if you want to kick things around a bit on the project site, with periodic drops on this thread for wider discussion.
Last edited by Bloke (2009-11-23 11:29:28)
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
Hi Stef. Alicson did mention that a group was trying to form. Alas I wasn’t aware that group actually did form. I didn’t mean to step on any toes here. I’ll get in touch with Johnathan to see where I can fit in with the group.
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
nemoorange wrote:
I didn’t mean to step on any toes here.
No toes stepped on, Sir! Love your work, and it’s great that Alicson got a login to you to play in. We’ve all been a bit busy this last month so stuff was slow anyway. Your design genius has arrived at exactly the right moment because some of the things you’ve done we hadn’t considered… and they’re grrrrr-eeaaat :-)
Last I heard, Alicson was in the process of setting up a TXP 4.2.0 space where we could begin to play with stuff for real — somewhere away from the Live site. So please climb aboard the txp.org v3 train, as it’s leaving the station. Toot toot :-)
Last edited by Bloke (2009-11-23 12:16:42)
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
Destry wrote: I’m pretty sure you were already on record with that point elsewhere in the forum, Dale. :) But I’m curious, what inspired that affirmation here?
LOL quite right. Oh, chalk it up to a misunderstanding of your post regarding logos, a way over budget logo design project I worked on all day yesterday, and, last but not least, the fact that it’s winter again. Sorry to go rogue, there.
:)
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
I love the carver. It should remain a part of the textpattern logo. I can see mrdale’s point and i think one way of addressing this is to “update” the logo so that it reflects the span from the Olmec tablet to the Pixel world of Textpattern. A good logo designer could do wonders.
I really like the new design for Textpattern.org i find it much cleaner looking and more logical than the present site .I esp like the bigger wider layout and the use of great typography “Textpattern”.
Keep up the great work Dave!
…. texted postive
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
What are the elves tinkering on lately in this department?
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
Destry wrote:
What are the elves tinkering on lately in this department?
Got an account to a fresh 4.2.0 space the other day as it happens (thanks Alicson). Team will have accounts later and we’ll begin taking nemoorange’s mockup to the max.
Sorry for the radio silence. Was waiting for account info and a bit of free time before we started the ball rolling officially. Will post updates and thoughts as we go.
Keep this frequency clear.
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
I just noticed this thread. Really looking forward to this becoming a reality!
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
i don’t like… its design not for cms site.
squalid fonts…
Last edited by Katalonian (2010-07-12 09:11:09)
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
The site is being updated currently, so it won’t be like that for too much longer.
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
i hope…
<txp:txp_me />
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Re: Textpattern.org v3.0 project
I hope this project will be reality soon…
textpattern.org really need a graphic restyling and this project is a valid solution!
Good work!
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