Rodent Regatta

Gary Petersen may (I’m not yet sure) have set off the final collapse of my efforts to learn and use Textpattern this morning. His narrative on Product Blogging actually covers a lot of additional ground.

First, about Textpattern. I’ve really been struggling to understand the relationship between tags, templates, XHTML and CSS with all of the weblogging tools. I understand XHTML tags. I understand a portion of what can be done to style those tags with CSS. I still don’t understand the placement of a weblogging tag in and around an XHTML tag within a template and styled by CSS. Furthermore, Textpattern is a product that is far behind Movable Type and WordPress. If those products represent a teenager and an adolescent respectively, Textpattern is in the second trimester of pregnancy!

Help for Textpattern comes from a discussion forum. There isn’t any documentation. Dealing with the product assumes you’ve already learned and dealt with the relationships between tags and templates and such. Installing and setting up a test weblog is fairly easy, but learning how to style that weblog or to transfer an existing weblog from another tool is unbelievably challenging.

This morning finds me reconsidering WordPress and Movable Type. I realize that I’ve learned a lot more about Movable Type than any other tool. I also like the communities that have grown up around MT and WP.

Gary’s entry makes it obvious that WordPress was easy to set up and easy to start. He also mentions a product called ActiveWords.

Finally, Gary’s entry brings to mind some new ideas for making weblog technology work for a business and its products. We’re going to start applying that advice right away.