
Textpattern CMS 4.8.0 - Tomte
https://textpattern.com/weblog/423/textpattern-cms-480-released
======
Tomte
Textpattern is a bit like "everything that's modern and hip right now, like
SSG, let's do the opposite".

It got a lot of attention and love back in the day, because everything is in
the database. No template files or anything. You just backup your database.

(It would be great if SQLite was officially supported, or anything but MySQL)

It has a large (for the time) ecosystem of plugins. Which are base64-encoded
strings that you upload in a web form in the admin interface. The horror, I
know! But back then it was seriously cool.

All templates, forms etc in the database also means you don't have a file
lying around. Which means you cannot point your favorite text editor you it.
You either use the builtin "editor" (just a form field) or copy and paste it
into your editor and back, if you need syntax highlighting, validation or
whatever.

Textpattern was pretty much dead a few years ago, but then development picked
up again, and now you get a new release every now and then. The development
team finally made XHTML optional and HTML5 possible (already quite some time
ago), they expanded the builtin template language with new tags. It's tasteful
development, not hectic.

Textpattern is great! I'm thinking about using it for a new project as a
quasi-SSG, building my site and then wgetting it into static files.

~~~
petecooper
>I'm thinking about using it for a new project as a quasi-SSG, building my
site and then wgetting it into static files.

This is an interesting idea - presumably a sitemap-esque file could be
generated for an SSG to parse and then bulk download. I've never thought of
that. Thanks for the tip!

~~~
Tomte
There are sitemap plugins, using those will be my first step. We'll see how
far it takes me.

Edit: Turns out, you can do sitemaps natively, like that:
[https://github.com/colak/neme/blob/master/pages/sitemap.tpl](https://github.com/colak/neme/blob/master/pages/sitemap.tpl)

------
chipotle_coyote
Textpattern is sort of a forgotten CMS, and that's a shame; it's got a
powerful template language, a good extension system, and a tiny but very
enthusiastic community. It's often easier to set up a custom site in TXP than
it is in a lot of other systems, in my admittedly now out-of-date experience.

Textpattern was created by the late Dean Allen, a great early web designer and
typographer -- and creator of the also somewhat forgotten Textile, an early
markup system that's somewhat like a more complete Markdown.

~~~
Nux
Wasn't it somehow linked to Joyent? If not involved with development, they
certainly helped popularise it, at least back in their freebsd/virtualmin/RoR
days.

My memories about it are plenty vague now though...

~~~
Tomte
Joyent merged with TextDrive, a hosting company by Textpattern's creator.

They got bad press years later when they didn't honor TextDrive's "lifetime
account" anymore, which TextDrive had used to get early funding.

~~~
gexla
And bad press again when Dean Allen popped out of nowhere to save the day with
continuing the lifetime hosting (but shared.) I don't quite remember what
happened as I don't use shared hosting. I believe people actually got their
shared hosting but it didn't last long. Dean Allen disappeared again and the
service went away.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
You're right, yes. I was an original TextDrive customer and had the "lifetime
hosting" plan, although I'd moved off of it well before Joyent shut it down --
it was clear that Joyent didn't have any real interest in keeping that
promise. I think I got into an argument with a Joyent person or two by
phrasing it similarly bluntly, but Joyent went through several pivots in their
lifetime -- their original pitch was SaaS, providing "simple, powerful, web-
based software that provides small teams with email, calendars, contacts, and
shared applications" (quoting from their web site circa 2005 courtesy of
archive.org) -- and when they pivoted into Serious Big Iron Enterprise Hosting
(tm) it was clear fairly quickly that not only was shared hosting on borrowed
time, but that they had no real interest in "low end" hosting of any sort.

I suspect we'll never know the true story of what happened with Dean Allen;
looking back, there were definite signs even from as far removed as I am of
him battling with depression, but of course, I'm writing this now with
hindsight. At the time I'm pretty sure I just felt mildly annoyed that he
seemed to have vanished from both TextDrive and Textpattern.

~~~
gexla
> I suspect we'll never know the true story of what happened with Dean Allen;
> looking back, there were definite signs even from as far removed as I am of
> him battling with depression, but of course, I'm writing this now with
> hindsight.

Or he just liked to drink. Have you seen this piece from Om Malik?

[https://om.co/2018/01/18/dean-allen-rest-in-
peace/](https://om.co/2018/01/18/dean-allen-rest-in-peace/)

There's a story in there about Dean Allen getting drunk and locking Om Malik
out of the apartment. ;)

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Heh. I did see it, but that's also the piece with the line "I think I heard
Jason say that Dean gave up on the struggle," which sure seems suggestive.

~~~
gexla
Ouch, I forgot about that part. That's sobering.

I remember the drinking part of the story, but as with any story, there's more
to it than we'll know.

I suppose this is a good moment to say, RIP Dean Allen. This is another moment
where we remember you at HN.

Regardless of the history of Textpattern and all that followed (including the
hosting) - I spent many hours happily hacking on tools provided from that
shared journey. It was a great ecosystem, or we wouldn't still be talking
about it.

Thanks to everyone who participated.

------
yodon
I don't know anything about Textpattern but I love that the homepage of the
project has a picture of a Commodore PET on it. That's going back a long ways.

------
petecooper
Textpattern web ops guy here.

Thanks for giving our server a good workout today!

------
egeozcan
Textpattern was the first CMS I ever used, and purchasing its custom fields
plugin was perhaps my first online transaction. It was very pleasant to use.

~~~
petecooper
>purchasing its custom fields plugin was perhaps my first online transaction.

Wow. That was a long time ago! Custom fields are standard these days, albeit
limited to articles and 10 maximum, though there are plans to extend to
unlimited custom fields in core.

~~~
Tomte
Are there plans to give them some type? As of now they are simply strings, as
far as I understand. Having a date picker for date customs fields etc. would
be great.

Of course, if you give us that, we will always ask for more, until you have
implemented half of Kirby
([https://getkirby.com/docs/guide/blueprints/introduction](https://getkirby.com/docs/guide/blueprints/introduction)).
:-)

~~~
stefblokedawson
> Are there plans to give them some type?

Yes! The next custom fields implementation is, as far as I'm aware, one of a
kind in that it a) uses the 'best' field type to store the data under the hood
in the database (int for numerical data, datetime for dates, and so forth),
and b) will permit you to output any html component to support that data type
at input time. So, yes, a date picker for dates if you like.

All the built-in data wrangling is customisable by plugins so they can
override/extend data storage and offer different input methods as needed.
Though we do have to finish that bit of code yet! The branch is still lurking
in our repo, awaiting final tweaks for prime time.

------
petecooper
Github stuff if you're curious:

[https://github.com/textpattern/textpattern](https://github.com/textpattern/textpattern)
(CMS)

[https://github.com/textpattern/textpattern.github.io](https://github.com/textpattern/textpattern.github.io)
(docs)

[https://github.com/textpattern/](https://github.com/textpattern/) (project)

