[feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

Skubidu · 2006-02-24 20:09:21

The unedifying question is: who can guide TXP through the coming months?

Perhaps we should this question in different sections (as we did in our initial posting):

core devs (communication, roadmap)
feature request (collection, communication between devs an community)
forums (admin, moderator, manager)
website (updates, enhancements)

els · 2006-02-24 20:18:18

Why is this so necessary? I’ve been following this thread wondering what the reason for this concern of yours exactly is. And Alex, saying things like this:

The unedifying question is: who can guide TXP through the coming months?

really makes me wonder what it is that you seem to know and we (I?) don’t… What terrible disaster is heading for Textpattern?

alexandra · 2006-02-24 20:55:02

Els, there is nothing i know more than you. There are signs on the sky i noticed (f. e. forking) and all my concern is this to avoid.

@ramanan even an OS project can not afford avoiding progress and slippin into stagnation.

Last edited by alexandra (2006-02-24 21:02:58)

RussLipton · 2006-02-24 22:21:26

I appreciate, perhaps more than I did when the thread started, the need to ask the question, “is anything at all really broken?”

It’s akin to the question some have raised, “why should TxP try to mimic/compete/mirror what is going on with a bewildering range of other CMS products anyway?” and, even more precisely, “what do TxP users want that they aren’t getting?”

The tough aspect of this question is that most end users (like myself; I’m not a frequent poster) don’t say much. We use a product for a while and then …. simply …. vanish. If enough vanish, a certain something that makes an open source community vital tends to vanish too. At least that is my past experience.

In a real sense, one could argue that TxP need change barely a thing.

It is a well-designed, elegant, ‘simple CMS’ (high compliment) with still-committed developers who are doing stuff. Life could be worse, eh?

I have mentioned my own interests/use of EE and ModX. Okay, fine. I’m the first to admit that I might be wanting TxP to ‘be like Mike (Jordan)’ so I can have some personal cake and eat it too: zennish-elegance with swiss army knife CMS modularity/flexibility/power; instead of crockery, a franchise Pottery Barn.

Perhaps I should be wanting TxP to remain very different from them SO THAT I can have two different tools in my toolbench for disjoint use cases? That is a different kind of wanting, no?

If that makes sense, then I go back and ask myself who so wants a road map, do I still need that?

Well (thinking) ….

I would still wish for a road map solid enough that plug-in developers and doc enhancers et al felt connected enough to retain those intangible motivations to contribute stuff. Heck, so long as they-and-devs can communicate by email, I’m okay.

Other than that, TxP pretty-much-already-totally meets the ‘handle a single-or-few user CMS/Weblog’ to near perfection.

Are we missing that TxP is a fairly mature product that has largely met its design point – something to celebrate, not complain about – with years of refinement and polish ahead, but one that should not be thrust into a new design point?

(I can envision David/others saying they are sincerely not asking for that. Still, one must be careful that this isn’t subtly – again sincerely – about matching up to EE/ModX. Or, at least, if it is, let’s make the desirability of that a front-and-center matter.)

Last edited by RussLipton (2006-02-24 23:10:10)

davidm · 2006-02-24 23:30:17

I love the great input that always come from this community !

“is anything at all really broken?”

Yeah well you know Russ, that’s the most frustrating of all : it seems like nothing is, when you look at the software. It seems like nothing is when you look at the community. Then you look into yourself and you say : well something is broken. You talk to other old timers and you say : well, something is broken. And when you dig, you start analyzing this… that’s what we did with Nils and Alex.

I don’t know maybe I am just burned out…

But let’s make some things clear, because once again I failed to make myself clear when posting a little off topic about the competition. To be perfectly frank, I started this with a few lines about each solution that I felt could compare to txp. Me being me, it ended up with a comparative list of a few handpicked CMS (yes, I have tested many more than just those 3, some people know it…). Those who have read my thread know they can get pretty long… not that it’s good, but it’s just plain me.

As I said earlier, this thread is not about features requests or textpattern itself as an application. It’s a great app and I’ll still use it for every project where it fits the bill. Of course I’d love to have nested sections/categories, of course I am excited by Elements and the approach chosen for the future. And above all things, I never, never wanted textpattern to copy or get inspiration elsewhere…

When I talked about competition, I had something in mind : core contributors progressively leaving because they can find elsewhere another tool that does the job. Not because of the tool itself, no. But because of the community’s lack of guidance and let’s say it because contributors are left out doing whatever they can in a disorganized way, with scattered resources and no transversal communication whatsoever.

Of course, most end users won’t notice this, and even wonder what the f* I am talking about here : if I am not happy, I can go elsewhere and sh*t it (which I have done this past four month, and will in the future if things go on like they have…).

Russ is probably right that end users don’t feel the same way “core contributors” might feel, and most definitely they don’t expect much, because they don’t give as much of themselves in the process. It’s only natural, and maybe one thing that should have been made clear from the start is that my concern was primarily that this core (or whatever you want to call it) progressively gets disbanded and weakened.

Anyway, after all, I have not contributed a single patch and I have no php skills (the only thing I remember doing is making some modification to the search form to make it WAI/508 compliant, but that was it). Translation certainly could have been done by whoever had the skills, so does the forum’s moderation. All in all, I had very little overall influence on the project itself, other than being oil in the mechanism. The only thing I would take credit for is the amount of energy I have put in on various forums to promote txp ever since I discovered it (this is particularly true of the french side of things). And I think I am pretty good at that. But anyway, the product sure does sells itself because as Zem said, it’s good (and I add : damn good). I have done all this because I believe textpattern is a different tool (I like the Think Different zen – minimalist philosophy), and because it has been fun connecting with this bunch of dedicated, motivated, funny and talented people.

Yeah well, here is the thing : I am in it for the fun and excitement !

I don’t know what to add, and I’ll leave it at that for today… I hope this makes sense, since I have slept very few hours in the last 48hours, not sure I make sense there…

Last edited by davidm (2006-02-24 23:37:43)

Maleika E.A. · 2006-02-24 23:54:29

Awesome analysis David! Thank you for that. :)

> davidm wrote:

> Thanks Jeremie, my head is safe for now :P

<em>Following up on skubidu’s post…

Might seem off topic but I think it helps clarifying were txp stands against what I deem to be its competition (tada : not WordPress I am talking about ! You’ll see why…). Of course this is my take on things, nothing more : as such, it’s highly subjective…</em>

Skubidu wrote : I think it’s important, because Textpattern has to keep up to date and because other comparable systems have made big improvements in this area.

That’s something I had meant to emphasize and it’s nicely said… we don’t exist in a vacuum. I think some systems are catching up (EE, CMSMS and MODx are the 3 systems I would set in the same flexible/modular category, though each has weak and strong points, and to me CMSMS is still pretty young…).

How I see comparative advantage :

CMS Made Simple

BETTER THAN TXP

illimited hierachical levels (though can be achieved with txp, so I hear, and will be feature of txp 4.1)
permission and user management

AS GOOD AS TXP

blobs akin to forms
templating and tag system akin to textpattern’s, though much less tags available (for now)
user tags are in fact plugins called via tags : e.g can be placed in template and you can pass parameters in a way very similar to txp

NOT AS GOOD AS TXP

missing Textile ;p (as far as I know…) or Markdown
no concept of section : templates are assigned to pages individually, conditionnal testing is more limited
admin is clear but not as elegant as txp, and most certainly dull
less features overall (not necessarily bad, but certainly more limited than txp)
fewer – less stable plugins (but growing fast)
younger than txp (wouldn’t use it in production yet)

EE

BETTER THAN TXP

multiple weblogs is very easy to set up (as good if not better than b2evolution or WordPress Mu in this respect)
conditionnal global variables (detail here)
custom variables is more powerful than txp (can choose type, and associate custom field group individually to weblogs)
integrated gallery is nice (but only available in paid version)
revisionning (utility of this might be discussed though)
rights management and user management (both backend and frontend, pretty granular control over permissions)
Built-in Private Messenging (can be useful for collaborative writing, as Jeremie often pointed out => Jeremie correct me if I am wrong) and mailing list

AS GOOD AS TXP

template groups are akin to sections (but same “problem”, categories cannot be hierachically placed under template groups)
sub-templates akin to forms
tags are easy and readable, templating is as good as textpattern, so is standard compliance.
plugins are called via tags : e.g can be placed in template and you can pass parameters in a very similar way

NOT AS GOOD AS TXP

not opensource (but now, free core)
urls are not as flexible and search engine friendly as txp (based on path info. To EE users : yeah I know, can be tweaked with rewrite rules, but more complicated)
admin is ugly and way too heavy (though better laid out than before)
fewer plugins (under 90, most of them adding limited features…)
modules are very late and scarce (forum and galery were long overdue… and feeling lonely !)

MODx

BETTER THAN TXP

custom fields (aka Template Variables) : you can choose any type and any number of custom fields, which are linked to templates
frontend editing : QuickEdit module is way more advanced than anything I have seen so far
illimited hierarchical levels (tree based structure, documents can be made into “folders” => some are against this, but useful)
permission and user management (backend and frontend access, though a bit complicated system => will change soon)
content-type for web documents can be of any mime-type
CSS are parsed by MODx : kind of “native” server side CSS => you can have global variables and snippets (=plugins in txp) usable in CSS
chunks usable in CSS (very useful to have re-usable bits of CSS code => just like for HTML pages)
dbAPI and API for developpers, helps building custom solutions fast

AS GOOD AS TXP

chunks are akin to forms (re-usable bits of content)
tags can be used the same way txp does (though less intuitive syntax ugly & and `)
snippets are called through tags, but with an additionnal built-in capability to call it cached/uncached
can use Textile or Markdown

NOT AS GOOD AS TXP

Admin is bloated and ugly (inherited of Etomite => will change soon), with javacript
if you don’t disable it, script.aculo.us library is bulking page weight (and it’s necessary to use QuickEdit. This said, AJAX library is not freezed : moofx is a candidate for example)
Fewer plugins/modules/snippets (though growing fast and high quality stuff => not buggy and great features added)
still young, less mature than txp though more potential (but it’s a framework… )

hcgtv · 2006-02-25 00:13:57

David,

We have participated in the Open Source arena under similar circumstances, at the mercy of the coders.

Why sure I can roll up my sleeves and code, but instead I’ve focused my efforts on helping projects along. Whether it was writing docs, helping out with support or in one of the more important roles, furthering the cause.

I’ve also experienced frustration at times with projects but I’ve learned to step away and pursue other interests. At this point, I have a very relaxed attitude towards Open Source projects. I’ll help and further them along but I realize that it’s not my project, no matter how much I get involved.

And yes, I’ve read your reviews on this forum and always thought that you’d be a natural to contribute to a comparison/review site. Care to pursue other interests ;)

alexandra · 2006-02-25 00:24:40

> hcgtv wrote:

> David, Care to pursue other interests ;)

(@hcgtv, cute post :) i like it.)

If it is not our project, whose is it then?

hcgtv · 2006-02-25 00:30:36

> alexandra wrote:

> If it is not our project, whose is it then?

neutrino · 2006-02-25 02:10:22

> doggiez wrote:

Why is this so necessary? I’ve been following this thread wondering what the reason for this concern of yours exactly is.

All I have is a vague sense, an intuition, maybe. To me software is software and I’ve seen, used, abandoned and adopted (for a time) hundreds of apps. I also have numerous tools in my little red RL toolbox (hammer, saws, screwdrivers, etc.). Do I care if one is Ryiobi and another Sears Craftsman? Only in context to who else is using them and why. Other than that the tools just need to work and work in context to the job environment they are assigned to. In TXP’s case that’s the web and that is too large a scope. I bought into two things: elegance and CMS. What makes those things true? I can’t answer but I would think the devs could and should.

Software without users is a bunch of binary bits on a hard drive with holes drilled through it. Dean’s original vision, Is it still the vision or has it been replaced by another, whose and why and to what end? Does the community have a say in this and if not why are the developers here? Sorry to be harsh devs but I’ve said it a bunch of times—this forum is the heart and soul of the community and the strongest members are a more valuable asset than the software, IMO. I did not like never knowing what happened to all Mary’s hard work (in my opinion Mary should be one of the devs).

PS: Who else uses the software and why is a big, big part of this, to me. It’s all part of the branding, the mystique, the cool factor, the marketability factor of your services as a webdev and/ a writer (think of the days of Chevy or Ford, foreign or domestic, DOS or Mac. God, MS doesn’t dominate because it’s good. Its because when people think computer or technology they think Microsoft.

One more thing, without this forum (the people, those needy users and plugin devs) I sure as heck would not have been able to do much more than a basic install (I knew that before I got here) and use TXP as a BLOG. The community taught me about TXP, not the software.

Hans · 2006-02-25 04:32:45

While I do understand that development of TXP needs some guidance, I don’t really understand what y’all hope to gain from this guidance… A theme engine? New features? Adding little bits and pieces, as has been done for months, just at a faster pace? Or what?

As Ramanan said earlier, the features/changes to come wouldn’t affect a rather large portion of TXP’s users… And that poses a question. What kind of target user group is TXP going to move towards, if at all? Is there ever going to be a TextBox-ish place to setup your own TXP site (ala Blogger)? Or are we trying to head towards a “full-fledged” CMS?

Personally, the only thing I think TXP lacks is proper documentation… though Jeremie and others are doing an excellent job with TextBook etc, it all seems so spread out, incomplete, and “unofficial.” We don’t really have one dependable, central, and “official” place for TXP resources (or do we?).

If there’s something big I’m not getting here, I apologize, since I haven’t been too active here in many months (I’ve been rockin’ out at TxD).

Alex McKee · 2006-02-25 05:29:40

Hans I think you answered your own question there. It’s not about the development per se, it’s about where Textpattern as an app is headed.

(incidentally, I don’t want to comment on this thread otherwise because I wish to wait until we have some ideas popping up. I don’t want to be so presumptuous as to think my ideas are in tune with the community until I have read more)

Alex

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#109 2006-02-24 20:09:21

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#110 2006-02-24 20:18:18

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#111 2006-02-24 20:55:02

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#112 2006-02-24 22:21:26

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#113 2006-02-24 23:30:17

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#114 2006-02-24 23:54:29

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#115 2006-02-25 00:13:57

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#116 2006-02-25 00:24:40

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#117 2006-02-25 00:30:36

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#118 2006-02-25 02:10:22

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#119 2006-02-25 04:32:45

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

#120 2006-02-25 05:29:40

Re: [feedback] How to bring txp back on track ? Let's debate !

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