n+1 Magazine

floodfish · 2010-05-25 18:10:26

The new site for n+1 Magazine launched a few weeks back and we’ve since hammered down most of the loose ends. n+1 is a twice-yearly print journal of politics, literature, and culture. The website is updated with new, usually web-only content at least once weekly.

It was a big, big job (by far the most ambitious Textpattern site I’ve ever done). All involved are really happy with the site. It was a pleasure to work with a great design from Durable Goods and the amazing content from n+1, which goes back to 2004.

They’re loving Textpattern versus their old Drupal CMS.

Big thanks to everyone who helped me out here on the forum!

Here’s a screenshot of the article edit page (for this article ). Click to see it full size.

Plugins used:
aam_split_custom_field
aam_typogrify
adi_cat_menu
aks_cache
bot_admin_tooltips
bot_privs
bot_show_image
bot_write_tab_customize
glx_if
glz_custom_fields
hak_tinymce
hhh_textile_title
jnm_feed_custom_item
lam_image_uploader
rah_nocache
rah_replace
rah_sitemap
rah_status_dropdown
rah_trim
rss_admin_db_manager
rss_unlimited_categories
rvm_css
rvm_maintenance
rvm_privileged
smd_admin_themes
smd_if
smd_prefalizer
smd_query
smd_where_used
soo_if_frontpage
thg_trim
upm_image
upm_insert_tab
upm_textile
wet_babble
wet_if_status
wet_slimpattern

Last edited by floodfish (2010-05-26 04:06:38)

candyman · 2010-05-25 18:14:31

Impressive.
And useful for inspiration.

els · 2010-05-25 18:47:43

Now that is a perfect Write screen :) And the site is indeed impressive!

monkeyninja · 2010-05-25 19:34:48

Els wrote:

Now that is a perfect Write screen :) And the site is indeed impressive!

Agreed. The layout of the Write screen is so clean and usable; I’m not surprised that the client is loving it after working with a Drupal site!

liniocht · 2010-05-26 07:58:13

It’s inspiring to see such serious projects are done using textpattern. I like the site and like your edit page.
I always doubt if some txp plugins are ok for commercial usage. Your plugin list is huge, it makes me think txp is in a better state than I thought.
And n+1 editors surprised me a lot quoting leading Russian symbolist and futurist poets of Russian Revolution time.

Gocom · 2010-05-26 08:50:31

liniocht wrote:

I always doubt if some txp plugins are ok for ~~commercial~~ usage.

Why wouldn’t. Plugins are TXP’s Chuck Norris fist. I hope you mean some as if some plugins are secure or not, or if the break during upgrades. That’s true, some plugins might be insecure and may not work properly, but that up to the plugin. Not all fruits are bad if one is. Plugins are seperate open source projects.

liniocht · 2010-05-26 11:47:38

Gocom wrote:
Why wouldn’t. Plugins are TXP’s Chuck Norris fist. I hope you mean some .

Yea, saying some I mean some. I have some negative experience with WP and Joomla plugins which differ in quality from the core system, and thus far I haven’t used many txp plugins to form an opinion. I am just slightly suspicious.

Last edited by liniocht (2010-05-26 11:49:11)

Gocom · 2010-05-26 13:00:34

liniocht wrote:

I am just slightly suspicious.

You can’t say all fruits are bad if the one you used was. In terms of quality plugins could be no different from the core. They are seperated pieces, open source products on their own. It’s up to the developer what the quality is and how the plugin works. TXP’s strongest part are the plugins, ease and extensibility.

Most (or some atleast) of us plugin authors do sure that the plugins are quality and keep working from update to update, including me. Atleast as good as we (or I) can with our limited resources. Also the TXP’s devs do plugins. For example past developers zem, ruud, mary and current generation wet and bloke have multiple great current and past plugins.

floodfish wrote:

The new site for n+1 Magazine launched a few weeks back and we’ve since hammered down most of the loose ends. n+1 is a twice-yearly print journal of politics, literature, and culture. The website is updated with new, usually web-only content at least once weekly.

Oh, and Jason, n+1 totally looks totally good :-) Did you apply hard mods to the admin panel or is it all theme and plugins?

thg_trim

What’s thg_trim if I may ask? :-)

rah_trim

If you ever need more, you could use rah_function instead. Just saying. Rah_function can perform everything that those smaller rah-plugins do with as easy syntax. Just saying, I’m not going to stop supporting it or anything but I will probably eventually mark it as deprecated :-).

Last edited by Gocom (2010-05-26 13:05:07)

floodfish · 2010-05-26 17:12:07

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

And n+1 editors surprised me a lot quoting leading Russian symbolist and futurist poets of Russian Revolution time.

They’ve got some serious Russian interests, for sure!

Did you apply hard mods to the admin panel or is it all theme and plugins?

I did a few small hard mods, but just to add hooks—broke up some elements that were sharing containers, and added some IDs. The real work is all done via bot_write_tab_customize and my admin theme (a modified version of Remora).

What’s thg_trim if I may ask? :-)

Ah right, that came up (and is available) here . It “strips whitespace and HTML comments” … I’m not using it for exactly what I’d originally intended (and I do still wish Textpattern had efficient commenting syntax!), but it does exactly what I want for whitespace.

As to rah_function and future support of rah_ plugins, etc.—good to know! Your plugins are wonderful, Jukka.

This site was in development for quite a while, certainly before rah_function was out. And the desired functionality changed throughout development, so not everything is built quite as streamlined as it would have been if we’d started with a complete and accurate spec. It’s quite probable that a few of these plugins are doing a small, specialized job which could be handled by one of the other plugins. But that’s only knowable in hindsight.

bici · 2010-05-27 17:13:44

I am in total awe! I would love to be able to have my site updated with all the whiz bang stuff that i see on the N+1 site. Well done lad and kudos to all!

PS would you consider developing a tutorial or book based on what you have accomplished? Possible title “Build a Commercial Publishing Website with Textpattern”

PPS i am a big fan of Expression Engine because of it’s total flexibility. I have also been and am a big fan of TxP. This N=! mAgzine site has opened my eyes to the possibility the TxP can be as flexible as EE. Again a Big Kudos to the designers/coders of the new N+1 site and to the core TXP software developers a big thank-you and keep extending TxP to bigger capabilities!

Last edited by bici (2010-05-27 17:24:30)

floodfish · 2010-05-27 18:06:17

Thanks, Giovanni!

What exactly would that tutorial include? Not every commercial¹ site will have the same needs. A big part of my job was working with the client to determine exactly what they needed from a CMS². Once that was established, I had to figure out what could be done with Textpattern’s default package and what required which plugins. And then of course³ dealing with their needs changing several times in the middle of development.

But an equally large site for a different publication might well have different needs. So I wonder what could be distilled into a useful tutorial?

I will say that the biggest departure from Textpattern’s default scheme is the sense that a login ≠ the author of an article, and that an article can often have multiple authors or no authors.

Getting the related material in the article page sidebars working was a real beast: showing an arbitrary number of articles from an arbitrary number of categories or author(s) which are assigned to the current article, and being sure the the current article isn’t among them.

As to a book, well … feel free to put any publishers in touch!

¹ Or in this case, non-commercial, as n+1 is a nonprofit foundation.

² Like most clients, they didn’t really know this outright. It took a lot of questioning and back-and-forth. They think like editors, not like programmers or database administrators.

³ Again, like most clients!

candyman · 2010-05-27 22:32:58

I agree with Giovanni: the image of your customized write area is a great spot fot Textpattern!
The tutorial would be great: I’d like to know how you managed to add new text boxes, for example, or the sidebar with nested tags category…

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#1 2010-05-25 18:10:26

n+1 Magazine

#2 2010-05-25 18:14:31

Re: n+1 Magazine

#3 2010-05-25 18:47:43

Re: n+1 Magazine

#4 2010-05-25 19:34:48

Re: n+1 Magazine

#5 2010-05-26 07:58:13

Re: n+1 Magazine

#6 2010-05-26 08:50:31

Re: n+1 Magazine

#7 2010-05-26 11:47:38

Re: n+1 Magazine

#8 2010-05-26 13:00:34

Re: n+1 Magazine

#9 2010-05-26 17:12:07

Re: n+1 Magazine

#10 2010-05-27 17:13:44

Re: n+1 Magazine

#11 2010-05-27 18:06:17

Re: n+1 Magazine

#12 2010-05-27 22:32:58

Re: n+1 Magazine

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