What is xPattern?

xPattern is an open source fork based upon the 4.0 dev branch of Textpattern. Its goal is to improve the application to better fit the needs and desires of the community.

The biggest change you will notice in the initial release of xPattern will be a redesigned admin interface. The current UI is outdated and doesn't have a consistent design between tabs.

Note that this is not the xPattern initiative that first cropped up and faded away months ago. mrdale was kind enough to let us use the name.

Who are involved?

Team xPattern and a few others who have yet to create accounts on LaunchPad.

What is LaunchPad?

LaunchPad is a collaboration site that enables decentralized developers to work together without the expected chaos. It was created for the ubuntu linux community and is now used by many open source projects.

What started this?

Over the years, there has been a very noticable communication gaps between the core developers and the rest of the community. They have done a very good job of helping those in need, but for those of us who would like to give back have felt stunted. Repeated outcries for direction and lack of feedback on submitted patches have left a few of us feeling like unwanted outsiders. xPattern discussions started as a community driven branch (hosted by textpattern) that would give these now jaded members of the community a centralized outlet for their talents. A place where we could colloborate on code and design that would streamline the process of us giving back to Textpattern. Both Mary and Ruud shot down this idea for various reasons. Rob and Sencer provided no feedback. The momentum of those involved was not slowed by this and we continued to move on with our desire to colloborate and make Textpattern better.

What about Crockery?

Crockery has been in the incubator for a very long time. Only the core devs have any idea of if/when it will be released. There is no posted feature set or goals for the release, beyond switching the license from GPLv2 to BSD to allow for commercial plugin development.

Are you done helping out with Textpattern?

Short answer, no. Our code will be synchronized with the 4.0 dev branch of Textpattern. It will be very easy for a Textpattern dev to merge our work back in to Textpattern. The devs have stated that 4.0 is on feature freeze and the xPattern changes cannot be merged in to Crockery because of incompatible licensing.

The xPattern crew still frequents the textpattern forum and chat in the #textpattern IRC channel. I'm not sure how much our involvement will be in 6 months, but that depends as much on Textpattern as it does on xPattern.

What about the plugins?

A few of us run many sites and routinely install 5-30 plugins to get needed functionality. We don't like having to do this all the time and will be resolving this in a few ways that are still being discussed. Changes we make will break plugins, but we will do our best to ensure the functionality exists on xPattern. This will be done by either adding features in to the core or updating plugin code. Team xPattern consists of a few of the more active txp plugin developers and our initial changes will help insure better long term plugin compatibility.

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There is no spoon...only a fork. ;-)

I think there should be a couple of changes so as not to give the wrong impression.

needs and desires of the community.

Should be "needs and desires of parts of the community"

between the core developers and the rest of the community.

Should be "between the core developers and parts of the community"

And I would love to know why -
Both Mary and Ruud shot down this idea for various reasons.

What were these various reasons?

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zero
And I would love to know why -
Both Mary and Ruud shot down this idea for various reasons.

What were these various reasons?

Hi Peter,

The reasons given are at the Community driven SVN branch thread over at the Textpattern forum. It's been closed by the way, like so many other threads that wanted to involve the community more into the Textpattern process. You can rest assured that I'll never close an unpopular thread or archive it into oblivion here at the xPattern forum, we are community driven, this is your forum.

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Bert Garcia - When all you have is a keyboard

Hi Bert and xPats

I read that thread before and txp dev reasons seem valid to me - why can't groups of you work on a patch together and submit it in the same procedure that the txp devs want? But you have your reasons and to my limited understanding, perhaps they are good ones. So when above it says that Ruud and Mary had shot your ideas down, I thought it must have been on IRC when for "the first time in a very long time, the Textpattern devs are interacting with their community in an honest and open way". I thought they must have said something new. But you know what thought did...

So I'll ask a slightly different question - What was it that Ruud and Mary said on IRC that finally convinced you to fork?

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zero
So I'll ask a slightly different question - What was it that Ruud and Mary said on IRC that finally convinced you to fork?

Ruud was the only dev that made an appearance on IRC to talk with us at first, he was nice about it all. Mary showed up after we had decided that a fork was the way to go, she was cool, so were we.

What ultimately convinced us to fork can be found on the Community driven SVN branch thread, the devs shot down the idea, we wanted to do it anyway, end of story. Have you Peter, asked the devs why they closed the thread?

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Bert Garcia - When all you have is a keyboard

zero, what exactly are you looking for? the reasons given by the devs were clearly found in the linked thread.

specifically this post: [forum.textpattern.com]

or if you really need quotes:

"The answer for major feature improvements/changes in dev/4.0.x is the same as it was before: no." - mary

"I’m not interested in supporting users of that, so if that were to ever happen it would have to be private and not publicly available." - mary

"It sounds like different people want it for vastly different reasons, which I think indicates that as it is, it would self-destruct as group because you don’t know what this mysterious entity would actually be. You gotta decide what it is you as a group want before you can assess if the group would be successful. Do you really want to “utilize a lot of underused energy”… to achieve nothing?" - mary

basically mary telling us NO and that we're not going to amount to anything.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2008 06:21PM by iblastoff.

I don't want to curb your enthusiasm - it's great to see you so passionate about txp and trying to move it forward. However, I don't see anything there that has shot you down.

Mary has her reasons regarding adding to 4.0.x and crockery, and they haven't changed, so she's not trying to shoot you down, it's you who are trying to change the txp dev minds.

Keeping dev.textpattern.com free from public interference sounds like a very good idea.

"It sounds like different people want it for vastly different reasons, which I think indicates that as it is, it would self-destruct as group because you don’t know what this mysterious entity would actually be. You gotta decide what it is you as a group want before you can assess if the group would be successful. Do you really want to “utilize a lot of underused energy”… to achieve nothing?"
This says what I feel about it too. Are you sure you xPats are all on the same wavelength? I really don't think Mary is shooting you down but asking good questions and I hope you all can find good answers to them. It might sound condescending but it's not meant to be. You just have to look at the amount of great ideas that have fizzled out because the practicalities weren't thought through enough.

But if you felt shot down, then I guess you were pretty attached to the idea of a fork anyway, so discussion wasn't going to change anything unless the txp devs came around to your way of thinking.

What exactly am I looking for? Well, I thought there might be a faint hope of stopping the fork before it goes too far. But your minds seem to be set. "If it's not broke don't fix it" and as far as I am concerned txp is far from being broke. I am not saying you are, but I hope you are not breaking it so you can show how good you can fix it.

I'll ask Mary why she closed the thread and if she'd share any views on the fork.

Whoop, there's a lot of things happening when one leaves the forums for a week or so ;-)

From my understanding, xPatterns short term technical target is, in brief:

- a revamped admin interface
- more functionality in the core to reduce the set of ubiquituos plugins

Imho, the plugin ecosphere is one of the most underestimated benefits of Textpattern. Trying to pull lots of their functionality into the code would probably require a much higher frequency of core releases driven by bugs which would otherwise be cured by a simple plugin upload (read: WordPress style site owner stress). Of all "must-have" plugins" am aware of, MLP is the only one which suffers from an inadequate base system and requires modified core files.

The majority of all other plugins has the freedom to run at their own (faster) release cycle which is a bonus for site owners from my point of view.

Besides that, honestly: Good luck! xPattern certainly adds to the world's intellectual wealth, so it is a good thing per se.

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wet
Good luck! xPattern certainly adds to the world's intellectual wealth, so it is a good thing per se.

Thanks Robert, that means a lot to us.

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Bert Garcia - When all you have is a keyboard

Yeah, thanks wet. Excellent view, as always.

Well here I go, sittin' on the fence again...

I can see Mary's perspective in terms of maintaining stability of 4.0, and imo it's the right thing to do. A lot of the features that are being talked about for xPattern are already ideas that are in (or are planned for) crockery in one form or another; it's just that xPattern will likely appear sooner. I don't feel particularly shot down by the devs, and the fact TXP doesn't have a new version out every few weeks is, frankly, a relief because I don't have to spend vast swathes of time updating the core on 10 sites and checking/waiting for plugin compatibility to catch up.

As to fixing it when it isn't broken, well, that's also arguable. In the vast majority of cases, TXP is perfect (in fact, more than perfect). But the times it doesn't do stuff in quite the manner we expect is good enough reason to take it to the next logical/practical level for those users who want just that bit/a lot more. It may be a concern that there are so many people with so many ideas that nobody can agree on a way to go and the wheels fall off. But that's what this board and the IRC channel is about; talk stuff over, throw ideas out, get the collective minds of people writing it and people using it, distill it and try to work out a best fit. And remember it's ok to decide "no" if the potential fallout isn't worth it :-)

I don't think anybody wants to put stuff in the core for the sake of it or simply because it's cool, 'coz that may sacrifice power and flexibility. Plugins, rightly, have their place as Ruud says time and again; a plugin or a little line or two of PHP are sometimes way more beneficial than making the core achieve the same functionality, even if it seems trivial.

But when a feature helps any subset of plugin authors, content creators, developers, designers and end users to work better/more efficiently it's serious consideration for inclusion. Examples:

1) Static CSS : designers still use the interface to compose/paste CSS rules; static file is generated; pages render faster; fewer database calls; end users benefit. Result: win-win, it's in

2) Back-end redesign : easier theming for clients (and hobbyists to trade); more consistent interface for developers; better hooks for DOM and jQuery effects (which help shift server power to the desktop and allow things like MLP to cook). OK, it breaks a few existing admin-side plugins, but so does the upgrade to 4.0.6. Result: pretty much win-win, it's in

3) Multiple categories and true sub-category support : binary tree functionality is already there, just not being taken advantage of; allows better tagging of articles and useful hierarchies to be built without completely sacrificing backwards compatibility (if you don't like it, don't use it and stick to two categories/no subcats). OK, it might eventually take the form of something like tru_tags instead of categories as we know them now, but it adds power, flexibility and does away with current limitations. Result: win-win, it's in

And so on. We must tread carefully for, as wet says, plugins help maketh TXP. What we can do is smooth the plugin creation process a lot... and the backend redesign is a huge step towards that.

Perhaps the way to go to save forever releasing core updates is to take something akin to the crockery "elements" route where things like MLP can have their own dev cycle and evolve faster than the core but be "almost plugins, almost core, on/off only". It always struck me as a good idea, perhaps others think it's rubbish or have better ideas that fit the xPattern paradigm? We can certainly explore the options on the forum/IRC.

In the end I don't think a fork harms the community or the spirit of TextPattern. Yes, we're determined, yes we differ in outlook from the 4.0 branch; but it's all good and instead of one kick-ass CMS you can choose from two without a massive learning curve switching between them.

A bargain!

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Manfre
Over the years, there has been a very noticable communication gaps between the core developers and the rest of the community.

So true!!!
I have seen so many people leaving TXP for this reason. It was/is a shame.

PS I like to add that marys policy over at the TXP forum closing all threads she dislikes is disgusting! Kindergartenspielchen, infantil - as we say in germany. Sorry to be so ... but i put so much work into TXP and whenever we liked to improve something, we got a bang infront of the head... it made me sooooooooooooooo sick!!!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2008 10:33PM by alex.

I can only agree with Alex here, usually it's a good sign it's time to jump ship... there are a few forums like this (Etomite comes to mind) and it just stinks... open soure shouldn't just be about licensing, but also about sharing ideas openly...

If you can't do that, you turn into the autocratic... not that autocratic is bad, it depends who is the autocrat and how open they remain. Dean was a funny guy and when he ran the forums the mood was way better...

But back on track : I like what's in store with xPattern, and it would seem I have a knack to spot great apps early (and get involved with them)... it my thing.

Trust me, provided the team manages to build up the community, xPattern will take off !
I am willing to help, for the record Community building is also something I have a knack for !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2008 09:37AM by davidm.

Is this project about code, or about bashing?

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Wikipedia
Bashing is a harsh, gratuitous, predjudicial attack on a person, group or subject

I don't think Alex or I are prejudiced in any way, nor are we being harsh. We speak from experience and we got quite a bit (hundreds of hours on the textpattern forums). We never have been anything but helful with community members, and we have contributed plenty to what Textpattern has become.

Now, it's only normal that people express how they feel, especially when they're frustrated about something they care about. I have only been here shortly, but the 2 hours I just spent reading the forums were pretty dense and 99% of what I have read is nothing but ideas being exchanged.

This thread is special since it explains where xPattern comes from, and it means that some of the people who have contributed quite a bit are entitled to an opinion on how things are run and done, don't you think ?

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The best way to predict the future is to invent it



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2008 10:52AM by davidm.

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davidm
This thread is special since it explains where xPattern comes from, and it means that some of the people who have contributed quite a bit are entitled to an opinion on how things are run and done, don't you think ?

David pointed it out nicely. For quite some time i enjoyed beeing a txp community member, spreading the word. I liked to support the TXP "product" because it is a great product, though i noticed how zem/marys policy drove many great people away. In the end i wondered why i put so much work into TXP mag and the german TXP Resource Blog for less and less users. It seems nearly impossible to point the txp devs and some community members to the fact, that keeping up 2 comprehensive websites just dealing with TXP is incredible lot of work and noone is doing that work for 2 visitors per day per website.

Another weird fact is, that by now plenty strong contributors to TXP have complained about lack of communication between the devs and them. Still there are some community members who believe those complaints arise from plain boredom...sigh..

Personally i appreciate the TXP product and the work mary, Ruud, wet et al put into it. Though i don´t feel happy with "the company". Partly that are the reasons why i withdraw.

However, i did not want to stir up the drama again. Just for the record....
Hope the best for xPattern!