[pLog-general] Your thoughts on 1.1

[Oscar Renalias]

On 11 Apr 2005, at 18:49, Michael Paluchowski wrote:

>
> Monday, April 11, 2005, 12:49:34 PM, you wrote:
>
>> my idea is to shorten the development cycle, even if that means
>> bothering users with upgrades to their installations every 2-3
>> months.
>
> That's a good idea for the PR - shorter dev cycle keeps an image of a
> project being really alive, but I'm already shaking thinking about
> upgrading pLog too often. So there really needs to be some compromise
> between the wish for more frequent updates and less frequent
> upgrading.
>
> Although I think the biggest pain would be breaking template
> compatibility too often. That's the thing every user would have to
> correct on his own (whilst database upgrades can be achieved by a
> wizard). So as for me thumbs up, as long as the templates keep on
> working.

We're not planning to break templates any more... It's not only a pain 
for users but also a pain for us (specially when we have to main 50+ 
extra additional templates!)

>> Believe me, these changes are so promising that they are enough to
>> warrant a new release.
>
> That is good news.
>
>> Since users only care about new features,
>
> Well, not all of them :) After all blogs are about genuine content and
> not about the site's features.
>
>> we can take Ben's improvements, throw in some smaller candy features
>> for users to be happy and we have a 1.1 release.
>
> Well, I suppose that's OK, although I really wouldn't mind a
> performance upgrade only version.
>
>> - new screens to see all trackbacks and comments.
>
> Ah, hmm... more details please? Doesn't sound too exciting.

now the only way to see trackbacks and comments is by going to the 
"posts" page and clicking the link with the number of comments or 
tracbacks received for that post. So if you'd like to see all 
trackbacks or comments ever received in one screen, you can't.

This feature would add two new screens so that we can see comments and 
trackbacks easily. Perhaps not too exciting, but even myself I miss 
this feature sometimes!

>> - everything searchable in the admin backend, so that we can search
>> categories, users or even links (useful when we've got a lot of
>> pages full of these items)
>
> Not bad. "I remember writing something some time ago, now where was
> it...", righ on :)

Well you can already search posts! Here we would extend this feature to 
most, if not all, items that exist in plog. For instance as a site 
administrator it is quite painful to find a certain user when you've 
got hundreds of them so we will provide a search box so that  finding 
things is easier to achieve.

>
>> - possibilty to upload new files through the pop-up window that
>> allows to insert resources to posts in the "new post" page.
>
> Shortens publishing time, not bad.

Every now and then I find myself opening the "resource centre" in a new 
tab because I forgot to upload something. Hopefully this will help :-)

>
>> - integration of the anti-spam filter with trackbacks.
>
> Yes, that's good. I was quite suprised to see my blog posts suddenly
> having several trackbacks, at least until I saw those. Pure spam.

Yep, they've learnt to use trackback spam on us and it's time to do 
something about it. It'd be a pity not to use all the work and effort 
put into the bayesian spam filter!

>
>> Other big features such as 'friends list', moblogging or integration
>> with other tools such as phpbb, vbulletin or mambo will have to
>> wait.
>
> Oh no, please no community features... how about code cleanup? Less
> warnings? :)

Well for some people these are importants... I suppose we've all got 
different views and priorities!

But worry you not, I am looking at ways of implementing these things 
without compromising too much for single or casual users.

>> Basically because of the reasons described above, because I don't
>> feel so motivated anymore and because it's time to allow new people
>> to join the team and bring new energy. So if anybody wants to take
>> these challenges and work on them, be my guest. If not, then we'll
>> have to wait.
>
> Right now I feel pLog is _the_ tool it's suppose to be. Really, no new
> features needed because in the end it's only the content that matters
> and pLog's only there to show it to the world.
>
> What I would love to see being worked on is "more power to the
> poeple", or designers in this case :) I'd really love to have more
> control over the form of the calendar for example. So maybe more
> flexible template components?

I'm open to fix/improve the issue with the calendar.

As for "more flexible template components", I'd like to hear your 
thougths about that...

Oscar