whew.
Reading urlgreyhot : Is Movable Type scalable? and then speeding up movabletype I wonder if I'll have to consider migrating to something like drupal. MT is my third blog tool. I started on blogger, migrated to greymatter for feature (and stability) reasons, and then ended up on MT when greymatter stopped being updated. I've been pretty happy with MT until recently as my rebuilds grew longer and longer and died more often. jay helped me make them never die (as well as creating the wonderful mtblacklist) but i wonder-- the poor classification, the slowing rebuilds. Maybe it's time to move ship again.
I have mixed feelings. MT is the tool I have a personal stake in, as I helped with an early version of it by providing user testing as well as beta testing. So I feel it is *my* tool to a degree.
Also, I love the Mt community, especially Brad Choate and Jay Allen, whose constant hacking has taken the tool so far beyond the clever vision of its creators.
On the other hand, it's just a program. And when your tool no longer meets your needs, you get a new tool.
MT is like my old fiat, which I loved even though it was steadily apparent it was no longer the right vehicle for me.
I'm trying out trackback. anyone else using it?
(and yes, I'm writing, I just took a half hour break. sheesh.)
After reading text sizing - up the garden path, I implemented Matt Round's script. Let me know if anything explodes.
The front page has been waiting in the wings for a little while, I broke down and launched it. It will change more; I will keep experimenting. I'm sticking with css, despite misgivings, because I do believe it is the right way to go, for so many reasons (many of which well articulated in Owen's Design Rant)
I especially want to thank Mark Newhouse for his wonderful article on css flexible layouts: you rock.
Please resize it -- hit F11 and go full screen, make it narrow... mark's a genius.
NN4.7 users (and lower), sorry, you are still stuck with this.
MORE...Reading Joel on Software - Rub a dub dub, it suddenly occured to me that this is also an excellent approach to curing a site.
Don't redesign the whole thing, throwing out all that's working!
What if instead you slowly gently fixed all the little bugs, one at a time. One week check and fix all the error messages, and rewrite them into human language. The next week gently redo the labels, making sure they make sense, addign sublabels as necessary. The next week add alt tags to everything that doesn't have it. And so on, until the site is more acessible and more usable.
My redesign has been haunting me-- I haven't gotten to finish it, I am disappointed with how some aspects work. But I've been feeling so overwhelmed. Now I wonder if I should just slowly polish it, rather then tear my hair out trying to figure out how to redo it again....
For those who cannot hack the css layout, you have two choices.
text only (it's actually the gleanings export I use for the mailing)
now I just have to figure out where to link to these form the homepage....
The book page is now in MT, and that means comments! Go and give your opinion on the books!
Well, new front page, new blog-management tool, and probably a million bugs.
please let me know about any and all problems. templates have *not* been extended into individual entries yet, but I have everything imported, so this puppy must go live.
everything broke today. I hit my disk quota, and cause both greymatter and MT to explode upon rebuild. greymatter may never recover. MT did, only because of the love that Benjamin Trott gave. donate today, and he'll save your blog tomorrow...
anyhow, I will be finding and crushing bugs over the next few days, expanding the templates into the individual pages, and so on. why? because it's my treat... write 500 words, build a template... everyone needs carrots.
among the benefits... a spellchecker. multiple format outputs. categories. soon search, and search by recent comment, if fooljay is to be trusted ;-)
and so much more. I promise.
Gleanings is incorporated into the blog. I'll be mailing out a weeks worth for gleans. When I did the survey, some folks liked them separate, but many more wanted them the same. Honestly, my busyness has trumped everyone-- I can't really do both as separate things. Luckily MT allows me to import everything into the mass.
As you can se the front page tells you if I've posted something new about the core of my site-- IA, UX, etc. The blog continues to allow me a place to post all those silly things I trip over... apropos of nothing.
Yes, the site is all css. Again, much easier to maintain. I can create a plain html version if there is outcry for it. Again, bless MT.
Same for xml and rss and any other acronym you can think of. if enough people ask for it, I'll look into it.
Anyhow, ask questions.... let me know if you like it, how you like it, how can I make it better... and so on.
thanks!
C
Keith is the brave soul who got this layout working. He also has a lovely blog (IMO-- I tend to like sparse and elegant)
One of the single biggest changes you'll see is correctly spelled entries. Thanks to jay, whose instructions then IM handholding got it up and running. Thanks also to matt haughey who tried to help me the first time. And a pox on the rotten instructions at spellchecker.net.
Everything broke this morning, due to a stupid server problem (looong story) but the blog should be able to take comments again. gleanings was untouched. the only casualty is the redesign log, which will probably stay broken for awhile, as I've got a ton to do this week. As soon as i can stick my nose down in the perl, i will. If you see any weirdnesses, please don't hesitate to write me.
Return to your regularly scheduled conversation...
The survey is proving to entertaining and edifying. (it's not too late to add your two cents!)
My favorite responses to "How can I improve Eleganthack?"
In any case, the most common requests were
Well, I promise you ALL of these will be addressed (hey, we're already in greymatter). I've actually hated the front page rambling quote for some time now, and want to redo it, except it seems silly since I'm about to redo everything. But the blog *will* go to the front page, and that dang quote will go. And for those who don't know I do a little newsletter called gleanings.
You may like it, if you like this blog.
Keep sending in your comments!
And by the way, Gabe is great! It's such a pleasure to work with him! Every sunday I lie awake in bed 'cause I'm so excited to work with Gabe on Monday-- it's like Christmas eve! Gabe is the Santa Claus of UX!
(see, I told you I listen to your comments...)
Okay, folks; as requested, going to greymatter.
Actually I had planned to some weeks ago, but didn't have time to get it up and running. Then I realized I archive monthly, so waiting for April 1 was the best launch time. But this is not an april fool's joke! Oh, no...
Anyhow, will be messing to get this just right for the next hour or so. Please use the feedback form on the left to tell me if something ain't right. Or add a comment. I guess you can do that now!