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#109 2005-06-23 21:10:15
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
Oh good! I like Mary’s proposal. What I would point out though is that only those in the first category – CSS only – would be hostable (is that a word?), anything that has been customised could only be hosted by the designer. You could do screenshots I suppose but it is nice to be able to walk around a design and get a feel for it.
Stuart
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#110 2005-06-23 22:01:51
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
of course each category has to be judged on it’s own. a simple css template shouldn’t be judged against an “anything goes” template.
(edit 5:17cdt)
Actually, I think I’ve changed my mine. I support davidm’s venture, but I don’t think this is for me. Here’s why:
If you produce an “anything goes” template, you’re producing images, forms, pages, stylesheets, and including plugins. Fine, great and dandy. Now what happens when your lovely XHTML 1.0 Transitional template isn’t standards-based enough? Are you going to walk all the users through how to update it to XHTML 1.2 Strict or whatever?
How about when a security flaw is found in that awesome comment-preview-skipping plugin you used? Are you going to alert all the people using it? They certainly won’t be checking your site or the forum, they already have everything they need. You got ‘em started on not just the right foot, but the left one, too. They don’t even need to look back.
Producing these templates enters you into a sort of contract with the end-user. They expect this template to work from now on just like it’s supposed to. Sure, they’ll add in their own text, but that’s all. Just a bit of personalization. The rest has already been done for them. If they’re going for a template that provides them with audioscrobbler updates and del.icio.us linkblogs, they don’t want to ever have to touch the nitty gritty code themselves, obviously. You don’t start with a template like that, you end with it.
So, my vision stays the same. A contest to produce templates that can be used with out-of-the-box Textpattern, but still requiring the user to do some work to make the site truely theirs. I’ll get the look done for ‘em, they can do the rest. It’d give a new user hope to be able to install the app and then install a template that gets it looking good. It’s already usable (they’ve installed it, so they can post and add links and whatever else they want), but now it looks good too. They can take a break, get their resolve up, then tackle the world of Textpattern forms and plugins.
Until that contest comes along, though, I’ll have to drop out. Sorry, davidm.
Last edited by kennethlove666 (2005-06-23 22:24:41)
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#111 2005-06-23 22:21:57
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
Doing an “Anything Goes” type section is only going to lead to headaches. What happens when there’s other methods to do the things you’re doing in your templates and forms? Are you going to issue releases to all the users who have downloaded it, and tell them how to do things differently? What if there’s tags that get depricated in the future? Are you going to change your design, and then issue another statement? What happens when a plugin you’re adding in has a security flaw? Are you going to help each user fix it?
Even if you say “This is not supported by Textpattern or the community” in big bold letters with six underlines AND italics, there will still be people here, complaining about how it’s broken. It’ll open a huge can of worms that I’m not entirely sure would be good for the community.
Last edited by PeterS (2005-06-23 22:23:00)
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#112 2005-06-23 23:00:56
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
> thebombsite wrote:
> Oh good! I like Mary’s proposal. What I would point out though is that only those in the first category – CSS only – would be hostable (is that a word?), anything that has been customised could only be hosted by the designer. You could do screenshots I suppose but it is nice to be able to walk around a design and get a feel for it.
I just ported Mallow from the wordpress teheme today and have put it up on my site and before it sounds liek I’m highjacking this discussion I should say that I have a point. When i thought about giving hte viewer a preview, I just made a new section and added the css, form and page tempaltes with the sufix of _mallow. so now I have a page called default_mallow and I just applied it to the theme_mallow section of my site. Then I added a couple psots in the theme_mallow section. People get to see a preview and it doesn’t affect the rest of my site. Thought it might mean a bit extra work, it wouldn’t be that hard to have demos pages for the themes people submit.
go here to see what I’m talking about
I’d submit a theme but i just don’t think i have time, or the skills
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#113 2005-06-23 23:21:45
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
Thanks for that SWF. A ray of light in what is turning out to be a dark tunnel.
I have to say that this is now 2 days on the trot that this forum has disappointed the crap out of me. It seems to be full of kill-joys who don’t like anything that doesn’t fit with their somewhat “esoteric” view of what TXP is. I love TXP to bits. I think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but let’s keep things in proportion and admit that at the end of the day it is a CMS. That’s all it is.
PeterS suggests we are opening up a whole new can of worms. What the hell are plug-ins if they aren’t a can of worms? Are they a part of TXP? No. Do they have to be maintained? Yes. If the base code changes do they have to be fixed? Probably. Are you suggesting that people stop producing them? I very much doubt it and there’s a good possibility you use one or two yourself.
Now I could not produce a nice, new, shiny plug-in – yet. For me it would be difficult. There are people here who produce them like shelling peas. They think it’s pretty easy.
On the other hand I do port styles to TXP which are not just CSS. They have modified and additional templates and include plug-ins. Do I maintain them? Yes. If a plug-in is updated do I update the download? Yes. If tags are changed do I update the download? Yes. If someone is having a problem with one of my ports and they email me or post to the appropriate thread do I answer them and fix their problem? Yes. I do this all the time. I find it easy. I think it’s a case of horses for courses.
I think some people round here need to lighten-up and stop treating TXP like it was made of glass or something. We’re not trying to break it. We’re just trying to make it a bit more accessible!
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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#114 2005-06-23 23:30:49
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#115 2005-06-23 23:32:05
- Mary
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- Registered: 2004-06-27
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Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
I specifically did not list plugins for any of the three.
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#116 2005-06-23 23:47:05
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
Was that to me Mary? I’m sorry if I mislead anyone. I wasn’t suggesting plug-ins be included. I was merely comparing 2 different “cans of worms”.
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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#117 2005-06-24 00:09:22
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
Actually SWF, now that I’ve got my head around what you’ve done, that’s a nice bit of lateral thinking if you don’t mind me saying so. You wouldn’t need the style-switcher for those styles, though I would still use it for the CSS-only styles just to keep the hassle to a minimum. What it does mean though, depending on how many “custom” styles there are, is that there would need to be a list of “section” links in the menu. Am I right?
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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#118 2005-06-24 02:27:16
- sivni
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- From: Norway, Hamar
- Registered: 2004-10-27
- Posts: 39
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
I’m number 25! Yeah!
I can’t believe I did not spot this thread before… :)
Great initiative davidm!
Last edited by sivni (2005-06-24 02:34:32)
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#119 2005-06-24 04:04:38
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
I’m not talking anything about worms, or how this will lead to the fall of Western Civilization.
I’m simply looking at this from a point of view of an end user. Everyone is looking at this from a point of a designer or “Ooooh, me want pretty!” No matter what happens, above all else, they’re going to think that any of these templates and TXP are one in the same. They’re going to expect this to work out of the box, no questions asked.
Douglas Adams said, memorably “A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” The more you add for a user to make it easier on them, the more you’re going to find that they aren’t going to make it that easy on you. It’s supposed to look exactly like the picture, and if something changes between now and then, hell will surely break loose when a user that just two days ago was convinced that tables and invalid, crummy markup was the way to go, because it “just worked” tries to upload a template, and it doesn’t look like the picture.
If you’re trying to make something beautiful and simple, and representative of Textpattern, then it should fit the idiom of Textpattern itself: Lightweight, simple, elegant, extremely flexible, and user-friendly.
Maybe I’m in the minority there.
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#120 2005-06-24 04:07:50
Re: TXP Template Contest : Starting a Pledge ! Will you sign up ?
Coming late to the discussion — but I tried to read all the 5 pages of posts…
So far what I gather is that David and a hand full of others are interested in offering a collective gallery of sites with TextPattern managed content. Each site will be made from the default install of Textpattern and some part of custom CSS, custom “pages” (xhtml, txp xml), custom “forms”, and custom “images” (and maybe “plugins”, but I understand the hesitation).
Is this right?
my 2 cents: In addition to — our maybe in parallel to — an organization by released parts (as Mary suggests), why not consider categories by Site Genre or Content Genre?
What I’ve noticed is that many people have mentioned TextPattern’s single greatest attribute being it’s versatility in managing diverse content types.
Personally, what took me the most time (about 10 Textpattern sites) is to realize the diversity of Textpattern’s CMS implementation. And this is what I believe to be still missing from the txp-related service sites (.org, .net, .com, forum, tag manual…). A gallery of what sites Textpattern can be used for to build.
Granted if you’re going to offer a collection/contest of “Textpattern as a blog” or “Textpattern as a photo blog” or “Textpattern for your corporate website” or “Textpattern to manage a large library of texts and files” then I see the crucial choice being: plugins or no plugins.
What I would love to be distilled from this exercise is a selection of a few choice, well-crafted implementations (ie. putting repeating code snippets in forms and call output_form, and other trivial but not initially apparent techniques) of different types of sites that can be used as a starting point (ie. downloaded or copied into their site) by someone new to Textpattern but with a similar content management need.
Last edited by bluearc21 (2005-06-24 04:09:25)
“If you build it, they will come.”
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