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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
merz1 wrote:
Never ever expect the core dev team to be on marketing duty…Having the brand under control is one thing but reaching out to the public 24/7 is another.
I think we can agree about “having the brand under control”, but let’s not exaggerate about what that requires (giving credit where due), or who should or shouldn’t be doing it.
I, for one, don’t expect devs to do what they can’t for time alone. It already takes a lot of time… time out of their free time. You see the key word there?
That’s the only legitimate reason why a dev may or may not choose to help popularize the tool they apparently take to heart. Even marketing skills are irrelevant; presence alone makes a huge difference. The idea that a software developer—hobbyist or otherwise—would not have interest in making their software known is ludicrous. Again, we only have to look at every other competitor to see it in action. In fact, we don’t even have to look farther than Txp developers promoting their own plugins. So why should that be any different for Txp itself?
This actually makes a great loop back to one of the links Bert mentioned earlier (a history to which Michael took exception too). I think that “historical review” deserves some credit for the research that did go into it, even if incomplete as far as Textpattern goes. Why incomplete? Because the only Txp reference in the article’s otherwise impressive list of references was to this thread started by raveoli (Oliver Nielsen) in 2008. But Oliver makes a statement a few posts down that I think captures a real historical problem for Textpattern in terms of it’s popularity today. Here’s a recap for ease:
The sheer innovation TXP brought to the table could have been brought a lot further, had all the focus not always been on “developers, developer, developers” but more on the holistic process of developing a good eco-system further. – 2008/11/3
Let’s be clear, he wasn’t talking about devs today, but the root of his complaint is still valid point. “Team Textpattern” is still developer-driven; there’s nobody on the team officially handling content, strategy, brand, whatever. Never has been. This is a significant reason few people in the world today know about Textpattern, compared to any other project that’s been around as long.
No, devs don’t have to market, and especially if they don’t have time, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. And if they don’t want to, they should get somebody on board who does and not rely on the public, because we all know how well that’s been working.
I mentioned giving Stef an admin role in the Facebook group so that “Team Textpattern” had control of the account going forward, not because I expected him to play community manager around the world clock. But if he, or any of the other “core devs”, dropped a note in there on occasion to show the world somebody leading the project actually cared to show they were a core dev, so much the better.
Nobody is excluded from talking about Txp at whatever capacity they can, and especially project leaders.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
I heard from Amit earlier today. He’s happy to share admin status on the Txp FB account, though I’m still waiting.
On a different note…
“Textpattern is a CMS (content management system) and blogging tool. It is elegant, well designed, and no one uses it (well, very few people). – Blankbaby
More proof that not all WP users are against Txp. :)
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Destry wrote:
This actually makes a great loop back to one of the links Bert mentioned earlier (a history to which Michael took exception too). I think that “historical review” deserves some credit for the research that did go into it, even if incomplete as far as Textpattern goes. Why incomplete? Because the only Txp reference in the article’s otherwise impressive list of references was to this thread started by raveoli (Oliver Nielsen) in 2008.
I may have been a little hard on Douglas but I found it annoying. And if he asked me for a relevant thread, I would have picked this one. and with complete immodesty, perhaps that one. I just thought his premise was faulty – he was trying to make the point that Dean spent years working on Textpattern and left over the frustration for not getting paid for his work. I don’t get that sense at all.
Let’s be clear, he wasn’t talking about devs today, but the root of his complaint is still valid point. “Team Textpattern” is still developer-driven; there’s nobody on the team officially handling content, strategy, brand, whatever. Never has been. This is a significant reason few people in the world today know about Textpattern, compared to any other project that’s been around as long.
I had a thought you might have been wrong on that point, but after reviewing Reid’s duties, they weren’t really marketing as such. And I don’t know what really came out of that, if anything.
No, devs don’t have to market, and especially if they don’t have time, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. And if they don’t want to, they should get somebody on board who does and not rely on the public, because we all know how well that’s been working. I mentioned giving Stef an admin role in the Facebook group so that “Team Textpattern” had control of the account going forward, not because I expected him to play community manager around the world clock. But if he, or any of the other “core devs”, dropped a note in there on occasion to show the world somebody leading the project actually cared to show they were a core dev, so much the better.
That makes perfect sense to me because…
Mary wrote:
Back when I joined the team it was told to me that we shouldn’t f*** around with the homepage because Dean could swoop in. But it never happened, and is unlikely to happen. (For one thing he doesn’t have access to anything, and hasn’t for some time, so if he did ever want back in, he would have to actually ask first.)
While we don’t want the developers to feel like they have to be the marketing team, we also don’t want them to feel like they don’t get a say in things, either.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
michaelkpate wrote:
While we don’t want the developers to feel like they have to be the marketing team, we also don’t want them to feel like they don’t get a say in things, either.
I take a week off and when I come back, Textpattern has a marketing team!
@Destry – Keep the faith.
@Gocom – WordPress is an excellent blogging platform and I’m seriously thinking of switching all my Textpattern sites over to it ;)
Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Only one, but the lightbulb must want to change.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
hcgtv wrote:
@Gocom – WordPress is an excellent blogging platform and I’m seriously thinking of switching all my Textpattern sites over to it ;)
This is a comment I left on one of the Facebook discussion threads the other day.
What I love about the whole “Textpattern is for blogs” discussion is that I have always thought it was not a particular good blogging tool. You can certainly do blogs with it, of course, but it is a bit of work to tweak things. If I just want a blog, my first thought is going to be to use WordPress. If I want to manage some content and it isn’t really going to be a blog, my first thought is going to be to use Textpattern.
Most, although not all, of my “pure” blogs are running WordPress right now. That is something I do intend to change in some cases but as I say above, it is a bit of work. The question is, have we/do we really want/desire/need to compete with WP at every level? Or should Textpattern be competing as a cms against WordPress, Drupal, Joomla et al? Personally I think that is the better route.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
After a few days of admin-ing in FB, there’s one thing so far that’s become apparent to me. Nobody realizes there’s a particular development “philosophy” (for lack of a better descriptor) that’s been guiding Txp development over the years; the philosophy that’s been admirably adhered to since Dean. You know what I mean, keeping the core light and using plugins for extensibility rather than integrating everything people scream out.
It’s not really their fault, though, those people just don’t know this philosophy exists, and so they make those arguments time and again about putting this in the core or that thing, whatever, and see it as a cold shoulder when Txp doesn’t respond—they don’t really understanding what’s behind it. Hearing it from some loudmouth like me just comes across like argumentation and opinion. It needs to be more officially expressed.
Something written and posted at .com (probably under About section somewhere)—a tight, articulate essay about this long-standing development tradition. Something that can be easily pointed to every time these arguments and/or gripes come up. When they understand that philosophy, it can be easier for them to come to terms with how things are. They can realize what the value proposition of that kind of development is. They’re used to communities where devs just build whatever gets the most votes. Txp has never been that way and it’s foreign to them. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t, though, if that aspect of Txp development was more openly expressed; the value made more clear.
It’s like a mission statement for development of sorts, but whatever you do, don’t call it a mission statement because those are no-no’s anymore. Call it a philosophy or value tradition or whatever, but I think this would be a very smart piece of content.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Destry wrote:
You know what I mean, keeping the core light and using plugins for extensibility rather than integrating everything people scream out.
I have been digging into stuff lately and finding some things a bit confusing because I had never explored them before. If everything were this simple:
everything is a page. You’d then apply rules to the relationships. For example, If page is two levels deep and the parent = (parent-title) then apply this template. – Subsections
Alas,
Basically, I think the problem is that we are unnecessarily associating a function (cross section aggregation), with a specific position in the layout of a website (front page), and then confusing everything even more by using the same term to describe a fall-back page layout. – Default section and Front page not the same anymore
TXP uses the front page by default for category lists, unless you tell it otherwise by using the section or this_section attribute in category_list. – No Article Tag on ‘Default’ page Causing No Category Listing
So, if your authors have contributed to more than one section, you must ensure that all those sections have show on front page selected in order to see them in the author list on the front page. It’s just the way TXP works. – Why txp:author links to frontpage
What always used to catch me out is that any call to
<txp:article>in your default page template whenq=is in the URL triggers search results via thesearch_formform. Since txp:article is clever and is automatically context sensitive, it doesn’t matter whether you use if_search or not — that’s just a convenience function – Disabling search_results?
Telling people to inhale the Semantic Model definitely helps them in the long run, but to repeat this bit of advice from someone much wiser than I:
If people come to planet Textpattern and are immediately forced to start asking questions in the forum, we’ve failed them. – User docs are one thing, but what about Txp content in general?
I think there is a better balance yet to be achieved.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
I know I’ve said it a number of times, but I still think one of the main problems when evangelising to potential new users is that the default core themes are so bloomin’ ugly and uninviting. Something I’m trying to counter here and here.
I Like This. Have you identified the decision maker for getting this stuff included as default? I mean, if all we have to do is harass Wet or something, I’ll be all over it. :-)
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Gentlemen, start harassing.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Gentlemen, start harassing.
lol. Well, one point for the Hive theme being default, IMO: This recent tweet
That’s in addition to all the other points. It’s a really excellent theme and matches a certain front-end theme on offer from the same designer.
Wet, what sort of issues stand in the way of such a transition to new defaults? Waiting for TXP 5?
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Licensing has to be cleared. I’m talking to Phil. And I want the menu select dropdown on the admin side.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
wet wrote:
Licensing has to be cleared. I’m talking to Phil. And I want the menu select dropdown on the admin side.
If this happens, a new default theme for the front end, are forms going to be cleaned up? By cleaning up I mean remove forms that are not used (lofi), using links (lowercase) as the default as opposed to plainlinks, and protecting what needs protecting, etc.
Aside from a nicer default front end theme, having the backend forms cleaned up and logical would go a long way to helping new users understand Textpattern way faster. I know when I began using Textpattern, I scratched my head for a while wondering what all the forms were for. I had patience and persevered but we can’t expect everyone to take the time to figure things out before they get frustrated and moving on.
Robert, when you’re creating the txpsql.php file, is it just copy/paste from a MySQL dump via a text editor or do you have another way to create it for releases?
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
hcgtv wrote:
I know when I began using Textpattern, I scratched my head for a while wondering what all the forms were for. I had patience and persevered but we can’t expect everyone to take the time to figure things out before they get frustrated and moving on.
See Also. I absolute think that we need to get rid of the sample forms that have been hanging around forever. If they aren’t called somewhere by something, they shouldn’t be there.
One thing I really like about Phil’s design is the fact that no images are required so we can get ride of the two pre-loaded images as well. That way, when users begin adding their own images, they can start with 1 instead of 3.
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Re: I had never heard of it (Textpattern) before
Hi again people, thanks for the props.
The mobile responsive amendments to the Hive admin theme are coming along pretty well so far, I’ve got it working on my test iPhone 3GS to a certain degree but still needs plenty of work. It already works well on an iPad so has not been a massive task to shrink it down. Had to be a bit creative with the CSS in places with this whole theme to design round some limitations inherent in the HTML structure of the admin code so it’s not the prettiest CSS I’ve ever written.
I’d be quite happy to provide some front-end design to future incarnations of TXP – whether that is the Hive theme itself or something that evolves from that initial work. Don’t know what the licensing implications are but would be willing to discuss with Wet, Bloke, Sam and Jeff at some point – naturally I’d just hand over any IP rights onto the Textpattern project itself.
Maybe I should upload this admin theme to Github at some point, as I have already done for for the front-side theme project. Then others could get involved in shaping it, or at the very least stop me going off down the wrong road.
I don’t know anything about your plans for TXP5 but I’d imagine you’ll probably be looking at changing at least some of the admin structure and front-side templates for it, anyway I’m hopefully meeting up with Bloke in early September so I was going to hopefully get some info from him as to future plans.
There would also probably be great benefits to designing a whole UI style bible as part of that new version, with set rules on how plugin authors should layout their own HTML, as I’ve found that a massive headache when designing an admin theme (lots of inline CSS and duplicate IDs and suchlike). That would also mean providing them enough core UI widgets so that they don’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel to get their plugin layout looking acceptable.
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