TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

thebombsite · 2005-06-23 10:56:55

OK David. You asked for it. I’ve signed up which makes 24 including your good self. In the mean time I’ve been a little presumptuous and set up a TextGarden sub-domain for hosting. I’ll put the URL up when it’s fully propagated. The site name will be TextGarden so assume the use of that in your headers. I haven’t thought of a “witty tag line” so if anyone has any ideas. My next question is which revision are we going to use? If we’re thinking that these designs should work with TXP 1.0 when it arrives then I would suggest we use as high a revision as possible. I’ve made r416 available on my site but I can go higher if preferred. On the other hand is everyone in the “designfest” comfortable with using SVN and keeping their design site right up-to-date themselves as an on-going process? Of course this may introduce the odd “bug” here and there so maybe we should just fix it.

michaelkpate · 2005-06-23 11:22:41

> thebombsite wrote:

> On the other hand my TXP Gemini styles use a very basic template set which really only have the odd extra div added to enable “faux columns” and decent “clearing” for a footer.

I just had a thought: create a new template around Gemini. Gemini has a long and distinguished history and has proven to be customizable in both simple, complicated, and colorful ways.

Just a thought.

Destry · 2005-06-23 12:51:39

Wow, I step out for a few days and davidm has run with the bulls in Pamplona.

I will just be watching what transpires and not be submitting any template of my own. I have other reasons for this (on the matter of providing free templates in general), but here is my stance (which likely means about zero) for the situation at hand:

First, I appreciate what davidm is doing here, in fact I applaud it; it’s a great community activity, it’s fun, and if it’s done right, there might even be some quality products as a result. (And yes, it’s good for TxP newbies and know-nots …yadda yadda.). But to be honest, I’m not too impressed with the track record of this community when it comes to dealing with “contests”, or more to the point, not dealing with them properly.

When I tried to organize a Texpattern Showcase and started talking about the need for judging metrics, a lot of whining and poo-pooing started about having metrics at all. When the Which TXP site you regard to be well designed? was first announced and I commented on the need for some basic ground rules, or clarification about what constitutes a worthy entry into such a distinct collection, again moaning and groaning ensued about having to be clear about that (with an exception or two). Basically, most people just want to take the easy way out and base decision on subjective opinion.

well I have news for people, you can’t have a contest and not have judging metrics, if you do the results don’t mean jack! And frankly, metrics should be the very first thing drafted for this event, but it’s the only thing I don’t see any mention about. I would recommend that if you want this thing to work, you need to be firm about it being a quality activity, and that means having a clearly defined set of judging metrics for the design submitted. If you don’t, you are likely to end up with a lot of mediocre templates, and oh boy…won’t that be nice.

Another thing that would put fire under the pan is if there were a small prize for the best in show, it’s called incentive…I-N-C-E-N-T-I-V-E, and I personally think something like an iPod Shuffle (or whatever) from the makers of Textpattern would not be such a huge thing to expect since all this is ultimately for Textpattern’s benefit anyway. By the way, has anybody bothered to ask the maker’s of Textpattern what they think of all this, and whether they have input of their own, or would like to give some?

Having said all that, I can provide ideas about judging metrics (certainly others can as well), but I won’t bother with them until I see what path this activity takes…the well-trodden subjective path, or the harder but potentially more rewarding objective path.

In any case, particulary if you go the direction of including plugins, I see all this as a great opportunity to capture some quality material for TextBook. So if you take any input from me at all, let it be this: take copious notes about your design process, and consider providing your design schemes to the worthy cause of TextBook.

Now, run like the wind and watch out for those bull horns.

PeterS · 2005-06-23 13:21:29

If we’re going to sit here and try and make another Kubrick, Gemini, MT Default, or Blogger Template, we’re going to fail miserably, simply because the idea behind it is going to get lost. The default templates aren’t meant to be an install and stay medium. They’re meant to be a placeholder until a user finds their own, or to give them a choice with something marginally interesting if they have no clue about code.

If we design a site with a bunch of plugins, what’s to say in three months that those plugins are even going to work? What happens if those aren’t the “en vogue” plugins of the moment? What happens if live search and livearchive are replaced by something completely different? We’re going to be stuck with something that no user can use, and that no user will even want to understand, and they’ll go to some other CMS instead.

These designs need to stand the test of time, absorb any changes to the default code, allow flexibility and options for a user to add and subtract whatever they’d like, and show a user how a clean, semantic markup can and should look. Otherwise, in 1.5 we may very well be looking at a library of 35 designs, 30 of which are completely unusable.

reid · 2005-06-23 14:23:14

> kennethlove666 wrote:

> once again, this isn’t a gallery, it isn’t a template shop. it’s a contest.

I think this needs to be discussed and a consensus reached. I’ve been thinking about signing up for this (I’m just way behind these days). I understand the idea of incentive, but if it is merely a contest for one person to “win” … count me out.

If the idea is to create templates and styles that more inexperienced users might like to have, give them an easy way to import them, and thus, possibly increase the popularity of Textpattern … I’m all for it.

kennethlove666 · 2005-06-23 14:31:21

reid – i’m sure your latter idea is what will end up happening in the end. starting it as a contest (with or without physical/monetary incentive) is just the means to the end. enter the contest, win, and your template gets a lot of exposure (hell, maybe Dean’ll include it as the default instead of his Textism-based one). don’t win? oh well, you’re still involved and someone’ll see it and like it.

ubernostrum · 2005-06-23 14:58:01

Pete! You’re alive!

I think you’re right about needing to stay as codebase-agnostic as possible. XHTML, CSS and core tags can be relied upon, but probably nothing else.

Meanwhile, as I’ve watched this thread develop I’ve been wanting someone to pop in and play Devil’s advocate and argue against TXP having templates. Since no-one seems to have stepped up, and since it’s a wonderfully curmudgeonly thing to do, I’ll give it a try.

Systems which have templates like Kubrick seem, inevitably, to turn into a “website in a box” and spawn legions of cookie-cutter sites. Looking at them is like looking at sprawling subdivisions where every house is a carbon copy of every other and every lawn is mowed to exactly the same height. Where there’s no trace of individual identity left. To me, that’s utterly repugnant.

Now, this is not because Kubrick or any of the other popular templates are ugly or badly designed; it’s just that after the fortieth or fiftieth or five hundredth site, you start wishing somebody would do something different. Generally the houses in those subdevelopments are well-designed, too, and would, on their own, be quite pretty. It’s only en masse that they become dehumanizing and unbearable.

So maybe there’s merit in a system that needs some configuration before it looks nice. Maybe there’s merit in a system that doesn’t come with a beautiful layout pre-designed and pre-configured, a system that doesn’t have easy, drop-in, set-it-and-forget-it templates. There’s a market for the set-it-and-forget-it system, to be sure, but I’ve never seen Textpattern as catering to that; if you look at the followers it picked up, it didn’t attract people because it looked gorgeous out of the box. It attracted people because of what you could do with it once you’d taken it out of the box. It was the present every web designer wanted to find under the tree on Christmas morning. It was a CMS for people who loved to build websites.

And shiny, pretty, pre-packaged templates… well, maybe they’d detract from that, and not a little bit. Maybe they’d encourage people to go the subdivision route rather than design and build their own houses. And I don’t say that out of any concern for my job — there are enough people who still need sites that don’t come in a box to keep me in business until Kingdom Come — but out of concern for Textpattern. As we start talking about templates, we need to keep in mind what that might mean for the future of the TXP community: this is, like it or not, a move toward the website-in-a-box mentality, and that needs to be discussed. So while this template contest is still taking its first baby steps, I think we should be asking ourselves what we want TXP to become, and what role we want template-based design and development to play in its future. Dean and zem and kusor are daily moving us closer to the elusive 1.0; Textpattern is going to be all grown up soon, and now is the time to make sure we raise it right.

ubernostrum · 2005-06-23 15:09:08

Continuing in the same vein, I’d like to point out this morning’s post on gapingvoid:

When people talk about your product five, ten, twenty years from now, will they be saying “I was there”? Does your product have the “I was there” factor?

davidm · 2005-06-23 16:47:12

@ubernostrum : I am glad to have a devil’s advocate, and I am glad it’s you taking the job :-) Sivni’s thread, “coders are nicer than designers”, was the beginning of the idea, for me. It bugged me to realize I did not contribute with the few skills I have (since I can’t write plugins), and seing that Sivni’s thread had not changed anything I just started this out of an impulse to try and make things move.

It occured to me along the way that maybe templates were a risk of taking a bad turn, that’s what I meant when I wrote :

“The contest idea was just an incentive, a way to give us motivation to work on this (most of us like the idea of a blank slate, and can build from there : proof is, the non-standard look of most txp sites, and what in my opinion makes this community different).

The thing is, like some others here I’d like to share txp’s power with non-tech users, create a buzz and have more people enjoy this wonderful tool that TXP is. On the other hand one big reason this community is so great is the talented people that it has brought together, be it coders or designers. You had to have an understanding of what Dean was trying to do, when you joined this community and decided that this was “different”. TXP is not “streamline” (correct me if the word is not well chosen)”

Who knows, maybe that’s why the promised template system has not yet come to life…

@reid : I am glad you consider joining, and I definitely had the latter in mind. As I said, contest was not a good choice of words. This is certainly not to have one people to win. The winners should be the textpattern users. As kenneth points out, maybe the best templates will be in the distro if Dean so wishes.

One thing is sure : we have to reach a consensus.

I have come to wonder if people expect me to settle this thing, since I started the whole idea. I don’t see it that way. The thing is, my way to contribute to the community has always been that of the “enthusiast-cheerleader-evangelist”, some translating and some helping around, but I am in no way as expert as many talented people in this community from which I have learned a good part of what I now know (and BTW thanks for that !).

I truly don’t know which way templates should go (and if they are not contradictory with txp’s spirit), what metrics we should choose… I usually have an opinion, and a strong one at that, and I can make a case when I do have one. On this quite important subject, I don’t feel I can say one way is better than the other.

As I said, this thing has totally overgrown me, wether it be running with the bulls or dancing with a bear !!!

Last edited by davidm (2005-06-23 16:47:53)

Mary · 2005-06-23 19:48:10

Being “objective” is a nice thought, and something to aim for, but no one involved can be completely objective, because we are all human beings.

I don’t believe anyone has suggested having “no metrics”, explicitly or implicitly, so I don’t know why we all need to say there needs to be metrics: we are discussing what they are to be.

I want to stress: this isn’t the time to exclude anyone based on preconceived notions of skill, otherwise the ‘contest’ is over before it starts. It is very possible for a “simple” template to be elegant, or not, just as a more “advanced” one can be elegant, or not.

Creating submission categories – in my opinion, of course – solves some of the problem. How about I throw these out there. and maybe some of them will be constructive to this discussion, or give someone else a good idea.

<hr />

Edit: Because of misunderstanding, I’m explicitly adding this to my suggestions: no plugins. There’s plenty you can do without them, anything after that is just icing on the cake.

<dl> <dt style=“font-weight: bold;”>Exclusively CSS</dt> <dd style=“margin: 10px;”>Default forms and pages markup, only a stylesheet.</dd> <dt style=“font-weight: bold;”>Customized Defaults</dt> <dd style=“margin: 10px;”>Default forms and pages may be changed, but not added.</dd> <dt style=“font-weight: bold;”>Anything Goes</dt> <dd style=“margin: 10px;”>Default forms and pages may be changed or added.</dd> </dl> <hr />

So, can templates be kind of evil? Yes. But so what? The more templates we shove out there, the less likely we’ll see cookie-cutter sites.

Last edited by Mary (2005-06-23 23:34:10)

bizartist · 2005-06-23 20:01:56

You know, after some careful consideration of Ubernostrum’s position, I think I really have to change my tune.

Kubrick makes me sick. It’s like that catchy pop song that has been so played out that you scramble for the dial the minute you hear the first few notes. Whenever I see that big blue box at the top, I immediately click away. It just smacks of THX-1138, or some sci-fi future dystopia of cloning gone awry.

It does it’s job, which is to remove barriers of entry to the personal publishing world, and it does it well. But why do we have to do that same thing?

For me, the greatest thing about people is their individuality and the depth and breadth of their personal expression. The acknowledgement of this is what attracted me to TextPattern in the first place. It is a vessel for expression. A canvas waiting for a masterpiece, a notebook that begs to be a great novel. Textpattern is open to new ideas…

Maybe we don’t need to tackle WordPress territory. It is a good, solid, blog system that requires very little intervention from the unskilled user. I think it has chosen a niche and run with it, and I think for TextPattern to try and tackle that same user would be to the detriment of the framework. Textpattern should be where you look when you are ready to graduate from WordPress.

Maybe what we really need to do is show off what TextPattern can be with a little dedication and lot of imagination.

I know this is sort of a 180 turn here but maybe we need to make this a showcase of possibilities, which is what TextPattern is about anyway.

davidm · 2005-06-23 20:39:47

Mary pinned it down, we should do the submissions categories.

It’s nice, and it gives a wide lattitude : after all, who says guys like us won’t use an advanced template if it’s done well. I do websites for friends also, which do not require highly customized thingy. Let therebe beginner’s templates as well as beginner’s template.

This way it will be about freedom ! Bizartist, I understand your 180, I have been doing 360’s for a few days ;-)
I very much am into the texpattern spirit, and in fact, that’s why I came to this community.

But consider this : even with templates, textpattern is far more versatile : you can do blogs, but you can do a wide lot of other stuff like corporate websites, galleries, community websites… so, no risk of going streamline there.

Let’s stop discussing this, stick with Mary’s proposal and build some metrics / rules (just go to the wiki for that)
Then we can start building these templates :-)

Last edited by davidm (2005-06-23 20:41:31)

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#97 2005-06-23 10:56:55

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#98 2005-06-23 11:22:41

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#99 2005-06-23 12:51:39

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#100 2005-06-23 13:21:29

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#101 2005-06-23 14:23:14

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#102 2005-06-23 14:31:21

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#103 2005-06-23 14:58:01

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#104 2005-06-23 15:09:08

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#105 2005-06-23 16:47:12

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#106 2005-06-23 19:48:10

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#107 2005-06-23 20:01:56

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

#108 2005-06-23 20:39:47

Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?

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