Textpattern's face to the public

giz · 2025-08-16 20:48:23

textpattern.com is where Textpattern starts for curious users who’ve heard about the platform.

We can do more to promote what makes our platform special; focus entirely on its core concepts (with tighter wording as attention spans are low). Lean and clean, like Textpattern.

How does everyone feel about revisiting the homepage design?

Personally I’d like to:

drop the animations and sketch diagrams; they do little to add to our message, and feel out of place with the rest of the site.
promote languishing content in the about section instead (its excellent :)
make more of the typography and text patterns (no pun intended)

The top of the page is critical; whatever we place there has to juggle many needs. I have an ideas for this, but first: comments, please!

Bloke · 2025-08-16 21:02:00

I’m always open to ideas, but have very little input on .com. That’s 100% Phil Wareham so you’ll need to win him over!

I actually like the sketches because they have a lovely homemade aesthetic, which echoes the fact that Txp is for people who like to craft things, rather than making stuff the same as everybody else. And it has throwbacks to Dean’s original “carver”.

Not married to the animation, but it is quirky.

By all means put some ideas out.

bici · 2025-08-17 03:05:37

giz wrote #340216:

textpattern.com is where Textpattern starts for curious users who’ve heard about the platform.

How does everyone feel about revisiting the homepage design?

Revisiting can only but be beneficial: Good to re-examine, gain new insights, and fine tune the message.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

jakob · 2025-08-17 07:32:37

Yes, I’m with you. I share your general sense that there’s potential for visual modernisation and more clarity in the messaging, and your initial suggestions sound good to me.

The sketch-puns and the underlying ‘craft’ notion make me smile more than the animations and sketches themselves. I’d prefer to see adaptability and versatility rather than homegrown as the message. The lone carver was fun in its day, but the actual image never transported the idea very well.

Bloke · 2025-08-17 10:29:53

jakob wrote #340219:

I’d prefer to see adaptability and versatility rather than homegrown as the message.

Works for me. I’m crap at visuals, so anyone with skillz, let’s see it.

giz · 2025-08-17 17:24:58

Thanks all; I’ll see what I can do.

giz · 2025-08-18 23:29:50

I’ve been perusing the content of the homepage:

The Adverts panel: In Safari (running no Ad blocker), all you see is a lone ‘Advertisements’ in a grey banner. In Chrome, you see the ad.; If you change the class of the div holder from “ads” to “adsz”, the ad displays. Go Safari :)
Site showcase: The offerings are very thin; surely we can provide a shitload more examples and display them in a carousel or something?; The detail showcase pages are nice, but I’d wager they get few visits. Their content requirements are also likely a hindrance; TXP users are more likely to promote one of their sites if all they need to provide is the url and an optional glowing comment.; How about the showcase being simply a thumbnail linking to the site in question, with a paragraph below?; If we have enough examples we can categorise them (small label on the thumb), revealing the various sectors that TXP is used.; Randomise da tumbs.
Side bar Featured at: Do we want this? It has no value, other than promoting website informer.

Bloke · 2025-08-18 23:43:41

giz wrote #340224:

Side bar Featured at
Do we want this? It has no value, other than promoting website informer.

It pays some of the bills…

Showcase. Sure if we get enough examples, it’d be nice to put some fresh content up there and rotate it. Don’t know about the ads panel. Haven’t looked for a while.

giz · Yesterday 20:42:53

Bloke wrote #340225:

It pays some of the bills…

We’re being very misleading and spammy then; the title is Featured at yet its an ad…

Maybe a better ad network, or placing it in the ‘advertisements’ section?

giz · Yesterday 22:53:17

Homepage Sketch v1

Note: that’s not a virulent fungus growing on Textpattern; its my lame-ass attempt at freezing motion.

Menu banner

Swapped-out the colour icon for the b&w version. Could still do with some abstraction / simplification. Possibly animated upon hover.
Sticky for larger screens
Lose the hamburger for mobile; better to display offerings immediately

Download banner

Sticky for larger screens
Animated when used¹

Fungal hero animation

Textpattern is static; its the unflappable focus of moving dots (and sequences of dots) which flow in and around it. Dots = complexity / concepts / routines / taxonomies etc. interpretation is up to the viewer.

Different dot animations sequence one after the other, and while ideas for these are still nebulous (better explored in code), examples could be:

A single dot zips left to right, jumping or dipping at consonants, gliding through vowels. Kind of like a heart beat monitor, or a Karaoke prompt.
A single dot races through the letters, left-right-left dog-trial style
A sequence of dots describe a helix twirling left to right
Letters grow a skin of dots, which then rotate along the letter path Vegas-style
etc.

The animation would likely be done using GSAP, and rely on simple 2d graphics and z-index changes (or masks) to give the impression of the dots moving behind letterforms.

Main Content

6 to 8 panels
Brief and to the point. The words needs massaging, and there’s some repetition in this first draft

Questions answered

Max 12 entries, using <details> toggles
A useful way to pack a load of info in a small space

Vertical message

A bit of fun I’m trialling; it coerces you to scroll down, revealing the other content. Even if all visitors do is a quick scroll, they end up learning something meaningful. A possibility would be having the text size adjust to how many Answers are toggled open.

Showcase

URLs, category badges and quick descriptions would round this out. Carousel using Flickety.

Footer

Other bits

Rationale

We need to stand out from the crowd; ultimately to be memorable in a sea of template knock-offs.

Key areas with generous white space to convey importance.

Short, sharp, chunked text to suit modern audiences.

.

The layout is still a bit clunky, but I get bored shuffling pixels in 2d software. Refinement is better left to css…

¹ I’d like to see the page respond to clicks (and hovering over actionable items) at every opportunity, but subtly…

Last edited by giz (Yesterday 22:59:15)

wet · Today 05:49:39

giz wrote #340227:

We’re being very misleading and spammy then; the title is Featured at yet its an ad…

Maybe a better ad network, or placing it in the ‘advertisements’ section?

Aside, from the Textpattern advertising department (i.e. me):

We already had AdSense and SeedingUp (and web host referrals). They both ceased placing ads here for unspecified reasons.
informer.com is very particular about the wording they require for payment. You can probably guess why. One might say that web advertising is institutionalised misleadingness. “Honesty” is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue.

Bloke · Today 08:42:21

@giz. Well I’m sold. I love that vertical text idea. And it’s all incredibly clean and appealing. Totally happy to explore this concept and find a way to work it onto the .com site.

Of course, I am not a designer, so let’s garner views from people with a better aesthetic eye than me. For example, maybe icons alongside the top 8 Reasons might add some extra visual interest for people who like that kind of thing (if it needs it at all?).

But as far as I’m concerned, that’s a superb stake-in-the-ground and gets a big thumbs up from me.

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#1 2025-08-16 20:48:23