A new WordPress, a new design but not before a new adventure

Posted on March 31, 2008 in Blogging
12 comments 

My blog was offline the last past couple of weeks because I was out exploring other platforms that are out there. It all started when two weeks back, WordPress was throwing back an “Error connecting to Database” message.

Thankfully, using WordPress’ export utility, I had backed up all my posts and comments only the night before. My first impulse, ofcourse was to clean-install WordPress again and start off with a new database. But then, I thought maybe this was a good time to try out the other options that are out there.

I don’t blog for a living, nor do I make money off my blog. I have a blog schedule but when I run out of ideas, it’s tucked away under the pile o’ laundry. I don’t live from my blog as I’m more an active commentator, I respond to e-mails and I have a bunch of other enjoyable social activities.

Thus started my adventure from WordPress, to Textpattern, to Joomla and back to WordPress. I also had a brief encounter with MovableType and ExpressionEngine before I switched to WordPress.

I am obsessed with customizing every website I create. Anybody can write and and pubslish a post but like the Wordpress motto says, “Code is Poetry”. Therefore, in this article I am going to discuss my experience of templating (theming) customizing with the listed platforms.

MovableType

When I moved to this domain, MovableType was the very first platform I used. I was influenced because of the number of large corporations and CEO’s using it like Boeing, GM and Playboy.

MovableType is a 5MB download and a 15 MB installation on the server. That’s three times more space than WordPress requires. Installation is fairly straightforward. I think MovableType has the prettiest Interface although some may argue that they dislike the drop-down menus

MovableType has an extensive documentation albeit, it’s not easy to find exactly what you want. For templating, MovableType uses special tags that look like: <mt:foobar>Content here</mt:foobar>. Passing a variable can look something like<mt:Entries category="((Cats AND Dogs) OR General) NOT Private">. One can modify any aspect of presentation including the RSS feeds which is a plus point over WordPress.

Although it looks quite easier than the PHP tags of WordPress, creating a template from scratch or extensively modifying one can be quite overwhelming. Just take a look at the underlaying code of the default template ! For me, just understanding the concepts of MovableType’s tags and variables was a lot of hard work and I gave up as soon as I took a look at ExpressionEngine.

ExpressionEngine

ExpressionEngine is a propriety software by Ellislab. It comes in two versions ExpressionEngine which costs $100 for a non-commercial license and ExpressionEngine Core, a free version but lacks several features included in the paid version.

ExpressionEngine is a powerful Content Management Software. A single installation can handle multiple blogs on the same domain. The Commercial Version can handle blogs on multiple domains with a single installation. Talking about Installation, you need prior knowledge about file permissions otherwise, the rest of the process is straightforward.

ExpressionEngine uses it’s own easy to learn templating language. But it’s powerful enough that one may not require any external plugin or widget to control their presentation. I was easily able to create an impressive archive page, list latest posts, show latest comments, customise and create multiple RSS feeds exclusively by using the appropriate template tags.

The default installation of ExpressionEngine does not come with a theme. Instead, users are encouraged to create templates from scratch and referring to online documentation. It’s a perfect platform for power-hungry designers like Veerle Peiters.

ExpressionEngine lacks a backup utility like that of WordPress and it supports importing from only a limited number for platforms. The free version does not come with a Pages module for static content but there are ways around it.

One drawback on ExpressionEngine is it’s default URL structure and its lack of customizing URLs from the administration panel. A typical link will look like http://www.example.com/index.php/blog/page. There is a way to remove the index.php by using a URL rewrite, but that depends if your hosting provider allows it.

Textpattern

My first encounter with Textpattern was only after glitches with WordPress. I heard a lot about Textpatten’s stability, and flexibility and a small footprint and decided to try it out.

Installation was a snap. The administration panel is simple and clean. Customization although, was a nightmare ! Like MovableType, Textpattern uses template tags which look like <txp: variable />. But constructing a template is a two part process.

One part is “Pages” which defines a page structure, and the other part is “Forms” which defines what is actually shown on a page (This is seperate from the CSS !). The source of the nightmare lay here, trying to figure out, how to get the Forms and Styles to talk to one another.

Frustration was further fuelled by lack of documentation. Textpattern developers are proud of their forums but that’s no excuse for not having a proper documentation. The only official documentation I found is a bunch of FAQ’s and a confusing Wiki. There is one book about Textpatten out there but it costs money and is not available in the libraries in my area.

Worse, there are fewer third-party resources out there, that will discuss customization. Whatever few I found, were dutifully bookmarked. Later I found out that template files are actually stored in the Database. What happened to separating content from presentation ?

Searching for “templating in Textpattern” only brought back galleries of stunning Textpatten templates. But not a single template I downloaded came with a readme on how to install it.
Textpattern plugins are installed by copying actual code, and pasting it in the admin panel. From there you can enable and disable the plugins.

I’m definitely going to take another look Textpatten because I am intrigued by the number of people using Textpattern, including Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold and the Arizona Democratic Party. (One time throw-away sites ?)

Joomla

Joomla is yet another powerful Content Management System, comparable to ExpressionEngine but free and open source. When installed, it costs 24 MB of server space because it comes packed with features a typical blogger may never-ever use !

Joomla is better suited to multi-user websites, businesses, online-commerce and communities. Therefore, it should be no surprise when one comes across professional Joomla designers, and templates available from paid subscription only websites.

Theming a Joomla website is easy once you get the basics. But unfortunately, building a basic template is just not enough !

To display content, Joomla uses a set of “modules”. A basic page displays the sidebar-module, a menu-module and a content-module. Each module is hard-coded to how certain content is displayed, including css attributes id’s and classes. A module can contain several files and folders and without proper documentation and most importantly teamwork, going for complete customization can turn to a migraine.

Going Back to WordPress

Last week, I checked out “Wordpress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson from the public library. It’s a fun guide for new bloggers and also a handy reference for veterans. Like the online documentation, it covers wordpress from A-Z, but unlike the online documentation, it’s written in a natural language with a few laughs here and there and has numerous examples and tutorials not available online.

Lisa discusses the three flavours of WordPress in the book: the hosted WordPress.com, the self hosted WordPress.org and the multiuser WordPress MU. She also covers how WordPress can be used for more than just blogging like using it as a CMS to manage a company website.

As usual I was mostly interested in the Template chapter and I must say, it has made things a lot clearer. The default Kubrick theme has a little too much than what a typical blog needs. The book instead only focuses on the important tags and discusses those in detail.

The new design

As I was going through the book, I was inspired to re-engineer my templates and clean up redundant code which I did not understand before. But then I decided to create a new theme from scratch, making sure I understood what every line in the code did.

The new theme is essentially the same as the old one. There is a sidebar which works well on the home-page but is not needed in the articles. I also rediscovered the beauty of monospace and used it in the header.

At the time I was looking for a suitable colour scheme, I was craving for an espresso. I discovered the perfect colour palette at Adobe Kuler called “Barista”: a gorgeous Italiano in white shirt, black pants and a red vest, serving espresso with a delicate aroma. The rest is history .

And what a perfect timing too, because only last Sunday, WordPress 2.5 was released. It’s not a major milestone, but the interface is revamped and modernized. I have read of some people disliking it but I think it’s an improvement over the previous interface.