Textpattern Pages
I will be leaving this entry in the series largely open because it will likely be covered more thoroughly in Nathan’s article.
Textpattern pages are the basic template for your site. They are displayed based on sections and control the layout of your site. Accompanying page templates are your CSS styles which can also be regulated by sections.
I’ve often heard praise of Wordpress’ easy templating system, but I’ve used both and have found Textpattern’s to be much simpler. The tags have an intuitive XML-style structure and can be easily generated from a more descriptive popup. Also, direct form outputs can be used to emulate PHP includes so you don’t have to modify each page template.
Designing a website for Textpattern is very simple. Simply follow your normal process and then it is only a few minutes process to attach your template to the CMS. Obviously, some details will have to be tweaked within the forms but that is the topic of my next article.
Textpattern Sections
Textpattern Sections are by far the most misused aspect of Textpattern and I am often guilty of employing them when they are entirely unnecessary. Textpattern sections are strong content and presentation dividers and are powerful enough to create different blogs or websites from the same installation.
Separate sections should only be used if you are trying to:
- Create “static” pages – Tutorial
- Create different “blogs” with entirely different layouts and styles
- Manage archives
Sections should not be used solely for content division; there are categories for that purpose as well as other external tagging services.
The Textpattern Engine
This article is about the Textpattern CMS itself and what you should know about it. The Wikipedia Article covers its basic history if you’re interested; otherwise, let’s get started.
The file structure is fairly simple. Areas seen by the public are in the root directory while the engine itself is found in the “textpattern” directory.
You will most likely not have to edit anything, because almost anything can be accomplished through the variety of tags or plugins available. However, if you do find the need to hack your site into perfection, it’s good to know where the important files are.
Intro to Textpattern
Textpattern Manual
Note: This is only a tentative layout of the series…it may change as I go along.
- Part 1: Intro to Textpattern
- Part 2: The Textpattern Engine
- Part 3: Textpattern Sections
- Part 4: Textpattern Pages
- Part 5: Textpattern Content
- Part 6: Textpattern Forms
- Part 7: Textpattern Categories
- Part 8: Guest Writer: Nathan Smith of SonSpring Design
- Part 9: Guest Writer: Garrett Dimon of garrettdimon.com
Part 1: Introduction to Textpattern
Welcome to the Textpattern Manual, a multi-part introduction to Textpattern. Textpattern is not the simplest CMS; however, once mastered, it is beautiful in its practical functionality. First, I must acknowledge some other tutorials that are still great resources. This series is meant to be a comprehensive manual for Textpattern, used as a thorough guide for beginners and a quick reference for experts.
The most important thing to remember about Textpattern is that it is much more than a blog script and must be approached as such – a robust, business-level Content Management System. This tutorial will aim to give you an understanding of the general architecture of Textpattern so that the smaller program details become less daunting.
How not to teach HTML
A friend of mine recently approached me needing some help on a simple HTML assignment. Granted this wasn’t for an actual HTML course, but I still found it odd that something so…ugly...would still be taught as a viable web design method.
I have included a lovely little sample of the mess of <font> and <br> tags that litter the whole assignment. How an HTML beginner is supposed to navigate through it is beyond me.
Just imagine how much easier it would be to teach XHTML and CSS.