Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

philwareham · 2014-11-15 17:21:48

Thanks for the input kno!

Some of the points you raise are being addressed… slowly. The .com website and improved documentation I have a fairly clear idea and designs for – just need to slog through it.

Same for the admin UI – a few (but not all) of the admin workflow changes are built in mockup form or in a branch in GitHub. More of that is coming next week as Bloke and I are working on it right now.

Images in the write page is one area I’m in early days of improving.

Other projects are ticking along with updates.

I’d personally have liked to release 4.6 by now with less overall changes than it currently has (which are overall much nicer than 4.5) but a large push was made to modernise the codebase at the same time which we need to complete before the next major release.

philwareham · 2014-11-15 17:23:55

And I agree the Craft CMS way of dealing with custom content is very well thought out.

kno · 2014-11-15 19:17:34

Sounds good!

Additional thoughts on plugins: GitHub would probably be a much better place to maintain them. The old unique developer paradigm isn’t suitable anymore (visible in their naming, among other things). It’s nice to get notified about updates as an admin (like it is done in WP). This of course would be a major change… but a good one. The move to GitHub would be a good chance to sort outdated plugins out ;-)

Cheers
Kai

candyman · 2014-11-18 09:50:09

I agree with kno that image handling from authors is old-fashioned nowadays, anyway I believe that TXP community is still live and powerful like shows this thread.

If I were the CEO of the TXP Inc. anyway, I would improve the advertising sector: take a look at the CMS mentioned by kno: they are all well-packaged. Doesn’t matter if they have a modern, minimal ,b/w graphic or a coloured style with a funny mascotte: they all seems more modern than textpattern homepage and, from my point of view, they make appear TXP less appealing.
I agree that, maybe, a kickstarter campaign or a fundraising to improve the packaging box could help the TXP brand.
I understand that making graphics and docs will need much time and efforts: we can’t ask this too to our actual developers. Maybe we need an external designer to assign this work.
Actually we have a modern formula 1 engine on chassis from the seventies: sure, if we could compete we’ll win hands down but we can’t find any sponsors to race (if we want to, naturally).
The only lack of TXP, according to me, is that is too dependent from a few gurus: if, for any reasons, they get tired all the castle will go down: for this reason I think it’s necessary to improve the communication and make it more popular without changin its style, obviously.
For all the rest, I think there’s nothing better around.

It seems to me the same case of ProVUE’s Panorama database (anyone uses it, here?): the casual customer that get into its simply homepage and has no time to give a try to it will never discover how powerful in comparison with most famous and well presented competitors.

Last edited by candyman (2014-11-18 10:00:26)

kno · 2014-11-18 11:49:51

I agree with candyman – marketing is one major issue. BTW: Image handling is an issue since a while. I’ve found this discussion from 2006!

I’ve started a different kind of research: Google Trends and textpattern over the years….

“Textpattern CMS” (blue) vs. “kirby CMS” vs. Statamic

“Textpattern” (green) vs. the above ones:

Popular searches for “Textpattern”

“Wordpress Textpattern” used to be a quite popular search phrase… (see here).

To me (and probably others) this doesn’t look very convincing. Textpattern would need a real re-launch to turn this trend around…

gaekwad · 2014-11-18 12:52:18

kno wrote #285886:

Textpattern would need a real re-launch to turn this trend around…

I respectfully disagree. Textpattern needs more hands on deck to bump up the metabolism, and the rest will fall into place.

This is my interpretation of the current state of the union with my Textpattern consumer hat on. With a hat-tip to Destry, formerly of this parish, I will be blunt without being overly rude:

there are three developers (Robert, Stef, Jukka) and one designer (Phil)
Robert is a busy professional, Stef is a busy professional, Jukka is a busy professional and Phil is, you guessed it, a busy professional
Robert is enigmatic and mysterious, Stef is helpful and asks questions of folks around here to see what might work, Jukka’s whereabouts are currently to be confirmed after some career changes earlier this year and Phil has a to-do list that appears to be ever-growing and stretches outside the remit of a graphic designer (documentation, for example)
the keys to the Textpattern domains are ultimately held by Dean, a guy who birthed Textpattern a bunch of years ago and now lives in France somewhere. Probably. If he decides to not renew any of the domains, or transfer ownership to someone outside of the Textpattern project, that’ll mean jostling with domain squatters or game over for textpattern.com-net-org domains.

Textpattern is a flexible, solid content management system that powers many thousands of sites. It has little no marketing. It has little to no financial support outside the occasional ad-hoc donation and the year-end/Christmas tip jar. The patience and commitment of the core team amazes me.

Comparing Textpattern with Brand X CMS is a counter-productive exercise, unless you factor in the people and processes involved with creating and maintaining it. I remember when Textpattern was essentially Robert-only for a considerable time. Developers come and go, such is the nature of the project. Right now, three of the four people on the core team are accounted for and these three people are actively contributing.

Honestly, I’m excited to be a part of this project, even as a lowly consumer and forum helper drone. It’s never dull and yet sometimes so mind-boggling frustrating that it drives me to despair. Yes, I have a shopping list for things I’d like to see, but on the grounds that the software source is readily available at no cost there’s nothing stopping me contributing code back. I could also, for example, throw up a bounty for someone else to code it for me since I’m not a coder and — to date — I haven’t made it a sufficiently high enough priority to learn.

@kno: I agree with many of your points in your first post and the way you presented them. There appears to be no shortage of smart, willing people around here who could be involved in some fashion. There’s apparently little to no organisation of that, though — at least that’s my interpretation. I’m guilty insofar as I’ve had ideas and not followed through with them in a reasonable time, and I’m hoping to be able to clear that list by spring 2015.

It’d be great to have someone who’s privy to the development team changes that is tasked with passing that information to the masses here, and elsewhere, which would take some of the pressure of the annual blog post. It’d be great to have a documentation person team to wrangle the Textpattern words instead of a graphic designer. It’d be great to have this, that, the other, two of these, one of those, a faster thingy, a cleaner doodad and so on.

How is this achieved? More bodies. Recruit a docs co-ordination person. Recruit a liaison to co-ordinate the development and consumer sides of Textpattern. Recruit another developer to work on the project; the counter-argument about Google Code being a barrier to contributions is moot now that Textpattern has shifted to GitHub. Pick an issue from the GitHub issues list, take dibs on it, work on it, and raise a pull request. Don’t like the way the Textpattern project is run? Fork it. I got annoyed at the Textpattern demo linked from the website effectively being abandoned, so I made my own. It’s by no means perfect, and there are improvements being worked on, but it’s a whole lot better than what’s currently linked.

Aside from the super-keen weight loss and herbal supplement spammers who run riot most days, there’s a bunch of people around here who want Textpattern to be great and evolve — I count myself among these people. How about we all make 2015 better than 2014, eh? How can you as Textpattern-er actually help the project progress outside of forum support?

Bloke · 2014-11-18 13:23:56

Regarding the annual blog post issue, I’ve taken it upon myself to highlight any interesting developments that go into core and point people back here (or to G+ for as long as Google deem it worthy) for discussion.

For example, the current admin-layout-update branch in Github is a hotbed of activity as we thrash out some of the alterations that’ll ease people’s admin-side workflow. Also, if we can nail down a solid implementation of the first-class plugins concept, that’ll be a big deal for site admins, saving typing and making template logic easier to follow. Again, when/if that lands I’ll write a post about it.

In the meantime, I agree with the majority of the sentiments here in this thread, and subscribe 100% to gaekwad’s newsletter. More bodies = more visibility = more evangelicism = more bodies = …

Anyone who can help out in any regard, be it documentation, coding, marketing, improving awareness, blogging, etc, is encouraged to do so. If access rights are required to do that, just shout and we’ll sort something out.

txstyle.org came about because the old Textile reference manual was out of date. As Pete says, the old demo site was pants and the new one is spiffing. The plugin repo needs modernizing and hooking into Github / composer so we can change the plugins panel to allow notifications of out-of-date plugins directly in core, with a long-term view of permitting auto-update or one-click-updates. The move to Github has prompted some great interaction, pull requests and discussion of the code base. The .com site is being revamped as time permits. Moves are afoot to ease Textpattern into a far better state for multi-linguality. The list goes on.

In short, lots of dominoes are poised, but we need people to help knock them down in a timely fashion, otherwise we continue at the same pace we always have.

kno · 2014-11-18 13:52:58

I respectfully disagree. Textpattern needs more hands on deck to bump up the metabolism, and the rest will fall into place.

Gaekwad – It’s about resources, right! And I definitely share your feeling, that there is a lot to do in different areas – beyond marketing.

Textpattern [..] has little to no financial support outside the occasional ad-hoc donation and the year-end/Christmas tip jar. The patience and commitment of the core team amazes me.

Agreed. That’s why I’ve brought up the crowdfunding idea…

Comparing Textpattern with Brand X CMS is a counter-productive exercise, unless you factor in the people and processes involved with creating and maintaining it.

I see the partial feature comparison with other projects as legitimate. Not so much in terms of website design (although important for the 1st impression; I’ve seen a number of crappy CMS’ with posh websites…). It’s worth a look, if something works fine in an other CMS and would fit into textpattern’s design, or?

Not invented here should not be the argument.

There appears to be no shortage of smart, willing people around here who could be involved in some fashion. There’s apparently little to no organisation of that, though — at least that’s my interpretation.

I think overall we are on the same page :)

The most important change in my view would be to take the users more into account: the website developers in terms of overall information architecture and first-class-plugins, the authors in terms of back-end usability.

gaekwad · 2014-11-18 14:39:08

kno wrote #285897:

Agreed. That’s why I’ve brought up the crowdfunding idea…

+1

I think overall we are on the same page :)

Yes, absolutely. My opening line wasn’t intended to be quite so linkbait-y or antagonistic, I apologise if it came over that way. I’m from a marketing background, too, and I want to make sure there’s objectivity and common sense in what I say. I see many well-intentioned hey, Textpattern should do X – that’d be AMAZING requests and it all goes back to yeah, there are three or four people and a biiiig list. It’s cyclical, of course; the lifeblood of a project depends on its creators, maintainers, users and the interaction (I actively avoided saying synergy here because I’d die a little inside) between all parties.

candyman · 2015-10-08 19:25:36

Into another thread, Steve told that:

springworks wrote #295467:

I don’t really do any Textpattern development any more […] check back here every now and again to see what’s going on

… and I see from his portfolio some creations made with Craft. So I’m curious and I ask him if and where he found advantages using this CMS. I bumped this thread because someone talked about a possible txp version of the craft matrix.

Last edited by candyman (2015-10-08 19:27:55)

bici · 2015-10-08 19:37:00

candyman wrote #295504:

Into another thread, Steve told that:

… and I see from his portfolio some creations made with Craft. So I’m curious and I ask him if and where he found advantages using this CMS. I bumped this thread because someone talked about a possible txp version of the craft matrix.

Custom Fields +1

michaelkpate · 2015-10-08 19:58:43

CraftCMS is built by Brandon Kelly and his team over at Pixel & Tonic. P&T was one of the most well known Expressionengine Addon development teams, with some of the most famous addons being, WYGWAM, ASSETS and MATRIX. – Choosing CraftCMS

hcgtv · 2015-10-08 20:35:03

candyman wrote #295504:

Into another thread, Steve told that:

… and I see from his portfolio some creations made with Craft. So I’m curious and I ask him if and where he found advantages using this CMS. I bumped this thread because someone talked about a possible txp version of the craft matrix.

We’re all heading in the same direction, just calling it by another name.

The Matrix is just Forms in the Textpattern world, reusable snippets of code or text.

What sets them apart is that admin side, something to shoot for.

But I prefer Textpattern tags than their way of doing things. Template tags blend in, while their Craft coding stands out from plain HTML.

Destry · 2015-10-09 08:19:15

kno wrote #285897:

The most important change in my view would be to take the users more into account … the authors in terms of back-end usability.

Yep.¹

But it’s not being ignored, exactly, it’s just not easy with no money. Not that software development, brand design/recognition, or content strategy is easy, per se, but with user research the logistics are different. There’s no short-form version that allows working alone in a cave. Someone has to reach out to the users — engage with them, ask them questions, and do follow-up — and nobody here would have the time, interest, or ambition to do that without compatible funds for the effort (and pocket). I have done usability testing before, and there’s a lot of pre-testing work that needs done alone, before you even sit down with your representative subsample of users. And then there’s the post analysis and presentation of the intel, and hoping anyone acts upon it. That kind of work needs compensation.

The most we can hope for, and what I have seen on rare occasions, especially coming from Jakob, is someone from the forum’s 1% reporting back about what their clients say after website hand-offs. I’ve had clients give me a few “negative” comments about Txp, meaning there were things they didn’t find easy to do, or intuitive; often the typical stuff we already know is weak (e.g., image handling) or is unclear (e.g, “Forms”), but sometimes new perspectives too regarding the publishing flow and whatnot. I’ve mentioned these from time to time, but its all lost in the bog now.

One problem with that, beside it not being real user research (only better than nothing), is that it’s reported to this forum where it’s then promptly forgotten about and lost over time. The forum is a nice community spit can, but it’s too often used for everything. For instance, the forum is still the best place for finding and learning about plugins (a bit mind-boggling), and a forum thread usually appears over a blog post, which would otherwise be 100x better for project visibility… These kinds of things have been pointed out again and again but it never really changes anything. The forum is like the crack house. Due to this tendency (since Txp’s beginning), good initiatives brought up here only get half-baked before sinking away again into the bog’s maw.

So, with respect to “user research”, there would ideally be a different place/process setup and designated for Txp web providers like Jakob to report client feedback to; where it’s itemized, organizable, and can be mapped to repo milestones. That in itself takes some thinking about. But then it takes commitment from devs to shape a development plan with that intel in mind. I can only trust they might if they had the intel to begin with — the numbers to show that, yeah, thing A and bobble B are issues, and people hate them. Those are the real priorities, not what the 1% in the forum thinks.

But lets not undermine the forum — or the 1% — entirely. After all, something is better than nothing, and a few of us have always been impassioned. This forum is often akin to one of politics, like the House of Lords or the European Parliament, and some like myself (case in point here) can get long-winded. But such arguments are important if done right; based on facts, industry conventions, and historical reference. They’e needed on behalf of the end users we never hear from. They’re needed in order for core developers to do anything at all. The key, in terms of progress, is to argue for the right and sensible things.

Another strategy, when no formal processes for user research are in place, is to tackle content, build the supporting assets (e.g., style guides), and work with designers to map it all with brand identity. Doing that addresses user experience problems from a different angle — customer touchpoints with the project (btw, great article here). Not just the CMS, but Textpattern’s whole public presence. It’s called “service design” in the wild, and when these kinds of things are addressed, they can reveal similar issues that direct user testing on the product would uncover, though certainly not all.

For example, I’m rewriting user documentation, and taking deep dives into the nuances of the application to do it. This often brings things to light that I report back to this forum for discussion and debate (when it concerns more than just a GitHub issue). Otherwise these things never get properly addressed, or against such an important artifact of customer experience — user docs. The overlap between documentation and application is great. There’s the functionality, of course, but there’s also the UI elements, and here it should be obvious where things like style guides play an important role, and where people in this community can help make the product better — by providing input on the style guides and following them. Any plugin developers here? ;)

There are other similar ‘inside’ projects that contribute to customer experience the same way: The efforts on Textpacks. The (stalled) efforts on a plugin repo. The brand-harmonization of project platforms (and “family” real estate). A newsletter. Use of social media. And so forth. Some of these things are being addressed, others not so much, but there’s only so many people working on them and only so much time available from those who are. Textpattern needs a lot of money to pay for full-time attention, or a lot more quality volunteers, or maybe some mix of both. There’s no fourth option.

But yeah, meaningful user research. It’s importance can not be overstated, and something is better than nothing.

¹ As usual, I’m not really addressing Kno here, but speaking to the general assembly.

springworks · 2015-10-09 11:51:13

candyman wrote #295504:

Into another thread, Steve told that:

… and I see from his portfolio some creations made with Craft. So I’m curious and I ask him if and where he found advantages using this CMS. I bumped this thread because someone talked about a possible txp version of the craft matrix.

Craft is a very attractive CMS to work with on many different levels:

It is completely content focussed. It supports unlimited custom fields which enable you to build a content model for a site that exactly matches the needs of that site. No more sticking everything into one big body field and working around the limitations of up to 10 extra text fields site wide.

The Matrix field is incredibly powerful and enables you to build rich modular content layouts with ease. It’s not about reusable code blocks that Bert alluded to above, it’s about reusable content blocks. Watch the video on the Craft matrix page to see how it works.

Live preview is amazing and a great feature for clients. It gives you a split screen editing capability with a live view of how your updates affect the front end of the site as you type.

The different section types (singles, structures and channels) make building different types of sites quick and easy. Within each section type, you can also define different entry types (think of them as similar to being able to make different types of posts within a single stream of content like Tumblr), which give you even more flexibility.

Everything in Craft can have custom fields applied to it: entries in sections, categories, tags, users, assets (images, files, etc.), globals, etc.

Craft has a powerful relationship engine which allows you to relate anything with anything else. This allows you to build very complex models of inter-related content and follow the relationships to output content as you need to in your templates.

The Twig templating language is extremely powerful and enables you to build modular reusable templates following a DRY (do not repeat yourself) methodology. Twig is almost a programming language in itself, with support for variable, looping, conditionals, macros, includes, etc. as well as basic text and array manipulation.

Craft has complex multi-user and multi-language support built-in natively (Pro version). The powerful and granular permissions and user group functionality enable you to build large community membership sites with ease.

The documentation is excellent and includes a full class reference of the source code, which is very helpful when writing your own plugins.

The user-experience for both content creators, content managers and developers is very nice.

There is a very active and knowledgeable user community, both on Craft’s own community Slack channel and also on the Craft Stack Exchange site.

There’s more coming too, including a first-party ecommerce plugin (due by the end of this year) and a built-in, curated, plugin store (so you can browse, buy and install plugins from the control panel).

Yes, for most sites, Craft is a commercial product and there is a licence fee ($199 for Craft Client and $299 for Craft Pro). For the projects I work on, these fees are easily justifiable. The development time saved and extra power and flexibility that Craft gives me is well worth it.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#76 2014-11-15 17:21:48

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#77 2014-11-15 17:23:55

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#78 2014-11-15 19:17:34

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#79 2014-11-18 09:50:09

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#80 2014-11-18 11:49:51

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#81 2014-11-18 12:52:18

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

kno wrote #285886:

#82 2014-11-18 13:23:56

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#83 2014-11-18 13:52:58

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#84 2014-11-18 14:39:08

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

kno wrote #285897:

#85 2015-10-08 19:25:36

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

springworks wrote #295467:

#86 2015-10-08 19:37:00

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

candyman wrote #295504:

#87 2015-10-08 19:58:43

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

#88 2015-10-08 20:35:03

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

candyman wrote #295504:

#89 2015-10-09 08:19:15

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

kno wrote #285897:

#90 2015-10-09 11:51:13

Re: Is the development of Textpattern at the end?

candyman wrote #295504:

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