as should be blazingly obvious, I’ve been working through the templates in all of the various tools that i’m using, trying to get a unified site design. I found myself doing something unexpected: not using a single PHP template file…there were just too many slightly different conditions amongst the various tools and their output. I may go back and pull out the site navigation into an external function, and maybe the footer…everything else is going to stay in the various tools.
oh, and I’ve gone entirely nuts with the site maintenance tools:
- emergency weblog: WordPress.
- remarkably easy template management, although not as “robust” as MT. I find I *really* like the page generation from database, but the entry form is still a little awkward for me.
- snapping links: Movable Type.
- huge and complicated, for a weblog system, with a bazillion options to set. the admin interface feels the most professional. my biggest gripe is with trying to remember what plugins make it work the way I really want it to.
- media diet: oddbook.
- I like the fact that it just handles reviews. on the other hand, it’s needed massive tweaking to do what I want. on the third hand, I was able to implement an Atom feed in less than an hour, and most of that time was getting variables right. (stupid html timestamp format.)
- albums: PhotoStack.
- Well-nigh perfect for what I want; templates were easy to change, and I dig the tiny cropped thumbnails. Now I just need to add more pictures!
- about: Pages.
- light and refreshing. 😉 I wish the default template had a little cleaner html, but it was easy enough to change. (I had to rummage around to find the default output for the “archive” list to make it a list, for example.) I may go back and see if I can integrate textile so as to not require HTML input; not that I can’t do HTML, of course, but I’m sort of thinking of other uses for this app.
whew. (I’ve also got a textpattern install, but I’m not doing anything with it yet.) now my todo list is a bit shorter; some fixes and tweaks, but now it’s mostly a question of improving the design. what, you thought it was going to stay grey-on-grey forever?