Textpattern would be more popular if??

tye · 2013-02-14 23:03:00

I still think ease of Templating would help make textpattern more popular.

Businesses have been built around the fact that template changing is easy in Wordpress and Joomla… the more exposure the better.

mrdale · 2013-02-17 20:38:50

Gocom wrote:

I’ve taken the practice of extending Hive and overridden the main txp-header borders and shadows to use rgba and black+alpha instead of explicit colors. After which changing background becomes very easy job;

must be doing something wrong…

installed the plugin and activated it
uploaded your files to rah_modernize in my web root
hacked your css into hive.

Don’t see any change at all.

Gocom · 2013-02-17 22:21:15

mrdale wrote:

installed the plugin and activated it

Those plugin package files are from somewhere last year, and probably do not work — I think you should be getting JavaScript errors at least, or nothing at all. You would have to compile the project using MassPlugCompiler or load it some other way, I suppose, if you wish to use its own loader.

hacked your css into hive.

There is no hacking involved if the plugin is installed. The plugin itself is ‘just’ a CSS/JavaScript loader that injects the included files to the admin-side pages. Outside of loading, it also injects some extra options to the head in from of an JavaScript object used by some of the scripts.

Basically the repository is just collection of CSS and JavaScript snippet experiment and the included plugin is a loader, providing nothing essential. Alternatively the client side code can be used as is in a theme or so, given that the configuration objects are populated some other ways if the snippet in particular requires any. Currently only profile.js needs configuration values (and the loader as such).

Don’t see any change at all.

The plugin itself doesn’t exactly manage the color variations and change the color, but contains that above CSS and other scripts.

One of the included scripts /js/header-variations.js looks for rah_modernize object. If it’s finds a ‘color’ key from it, it injects it to body element’s class attribute, enabling the color changing. The loader (plugin) populates that value with a Textpattern’s preference string named rah_modernize_color_variation, but doesn’t offer a way to set or change it.

All the header variation related CSS is in inherit-header.css, and header-variations.css contains some example colors. It’s the same code as above. The CSS doesn’t contain any vendor prefixes, so it may not override styles for every web browser.

Last edited by Gocom (2013-02-17 22:23:24)

mrdale · 2013-02-17 23:49:08

Thanks Jukka,

Much more involved than I really want to mess with just to change the Yellow part of the theme. I’ll wait till the process gets streamline or someone else finds yellow mildly irritating.

Hive is awesome BTW, I’ve hacked it quite a lot to work nicely with my plugins.

Last edited by mrdale (2013-02-17 23:50:29)

Destry · 2013-02-25 19:29:53

dla wrote:

Do you think that textpattern would be used by more people if it had better documentation?

The state of Txp docs is an issue often raised over the years—probably by no one more than me (though I’ve pretty much stopped spitting in the wind). Bloke gave the right and common response. Docs are public. If anybody finds them lacking—and they certainly are—start writing! Documentation doesn’t write itself, and nobody is getting paid to sit around and do it.

A couple of other notions made in this thread so far I’d like to respond to…

The forum has great help but it’s not in the docs…
Txp just needs a major magazine cover breakthrough…
Txp needs someone dedicated to the PR…

To the first comment… I’ve pointed this out countless numbers of times and tried to rally some process for curating the good stuff in the wiki, but bad (bulletin board) habits are sure hard to break, aren’t they?

To the second comment… Txp has had coverage. Many times! It just can’t seem to maintain the exposure. Smashing Magazine has given at least two big nods to this project to my memory; the last time being to our very own magazine, TXP! This project isn’t lacking exposure, or platforms, or mediums for content, it’s lacking writers to cover it, from docs to web content to marketing! Content producers! One or two people can’t do it all, especially for free. All this talk about books, whether print or ebook, is well and fine, but books don’t write themselves either, and frankly they are a lot harder to produce if you have to run through a publisher. Textpattern has it’s own magazine—its own marketing channel, for pete’s sake. You want to help give Txp exposure? Write for TXP and promote the articles you write!

To the third… Yes! It definitely does. Because as years of history have shown, relying on the good merits of the community simply does not get the PR job done. Hell, it’s been a struggle to get veterans to wake up to social media and make a tweet once in a while, let alone do real content marketing as a brand.

What does this all come down to, really? Money! And I’m not talking about x-mas donations (nice as they are), but a real revenue model—year round. Look at every other CMS project out there that has any reasonable amount of success and what does it have that Txp doesn’t? A revenue model! People are getting paid. And when people get paid, shit gets done on a regular and timely basis.

So, answering the question this thread started with: “Textpattern would be more popular if??” It had money to pay people to make it more popular.

The real question, then, is how does Txp make money? Crowds always go where the money is.

philwareham · 2013-02-25 20:32:25

True words Destry. I’d love nothing better than to sideline client work and build Textpattern full time, kind of like the Acquia (Drupal) and Automattic (WordPress) model. We could build an awesome CMS between us.

In reality, Textpattern is a hobby project, although one I enjoy contributing to immensely (sometimes when I really should be doing paid work instead, but I have a good boss). Probably always will be a hobby unless any of you has a lump of cash hanging around they don’t want!

bici · 2013-02-25 22:34:24

philwareham wrote:

True words Destry. I’d love nothing better than to sideline client work and build Textpattern full time, kind of like the Acquia (Drupal) and Automattic (WordPress) model. We could build an awesome CMS between us.

In reality, Textpattern is a hobby project, although one I enjoy contributing to immensely (sometimes when I really should be doing paid work instead, but I have a good boss). Probably always will be a hobby unless any of you has a lump of cash hanging around they don’t want!

there may be a case to be made for business model approach …. a TextDesign (Textpattern) model, a la Acquia Automatic model.

philwareham · 2013-02-25 23:12:13

They make most of their revenue through hosted services and data though (I have an Acquia server for a Drupal site we run). Not something I’m interested in doing really.

bici · 2013-02-25 23:28:38

philwareham wrote:

They make most of their revenue through hosted services and data though (I have an Acquia server for a Drupal site we run). Not something I’m interested in doing really.

Right. I know we have Textdrive for hosting solutions. but it’s a separate entity. (Although Dean Allen has indicated that he was going to feature Textpattern amoung the other CMes currently being mentioned). The notion raised is for a business model to help fund development of Textpattern. just throwing ideas around.

While i appreciate the open access … free beer… approach, I myself would have no qualms in a subscription service of some kind. i.e. a 100$ fee for every site developed using Textpattern.

I have said it a thousand times… but I would pay 60-70$ for a good up-to-date book on Textpattern.

I would also happily pay for ebooks that cover specialized tutorials.
I know a sample of one doesn’t guarantee a profit for writers of these books/manuals but it’s a start.

PS dean now mentions textpattern

Last edited by bici (2013-02-26 00:16:00)

Gocom · 2013-02-25 23:39:57

It indeed would be awesome to be able to build Textpattern full time. I’ve nothing against the idea.

colak · 2013-02-26 06:14:40

bici wrote:

PS dean now mentions textpattern

It was about time:)

philwareham · 2013-03-02 20:46:41

r5375 changes the public-side theme to a neutral greyscale, which is a better starting point for your own building work.

See it running here

It’s on GitHub here

The yellow in the Hive admin theme is not going away, but I’ve made a start on modularising the colourways so that hackers can change the theme’s colours relatively easily. More work on that soon.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#25 2013-02-14 23:03:00

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#26 2013-02-17 20:38:50

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#27 2013-02-17 22:21:15

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#28 2013-02-17 23:49:08

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#29 2013-02-25 19:29:53

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#30 2013-02-25 20:32:25

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#31 2013-02-25 22:34:24

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#32 2013-02-25 23:12:13

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#33 2013-02-25 23:28:38

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#34 2013-02-25 23:39:57

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#35 2013-02-26 06:14:40

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

#36 2013-03-02 20:46:41

Re: Textpattern would be more popular if??

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