Simply - all the CMSy stuff it comes with. Blogs are an awesome platform. WordPress lets our entire staff contribute to the same blog, maintain tags and slugs, save and give feedback on drafts, upload and store media, back and forward publish posts, group our archive by month, lets our audience comment, lists trackbacks, et cetera, et cetera. It’s awesome! Blogs rock! But we knew this. WordPress is the perfect way for a business like ours to communicate with our audience.

Sounds good to me. David Karp goes on to write about the advantages of Tumblr: "posting with zero obligations, little or no comment". Great for wisecracking, difficult for communicating.

sample tumblr weblog blogwi.se

 But why not have it both ways? Low overhead posts along with the ability to post more substantial piece.

It sounds to me like Tumblr should be a Wordpress plugin or two. I'll probably sign up to see what it is I'm missing out on. I'd like maintaining a weblog to be easier as well. Still at the end of the day, what should be taking the time up is the thinking and writing.

I do agree with David that posting into the default interface on a Wordpress weblog is a lot more complicated and unpleasant than it should be. Genuinely distressful for a design sensitive individual. Here's what Wordpress Admin default post template looks like: 

wordpress default post template

Here's what the Foliopress post interface looks like: 

foliiopress edit template sample

This is just the backend but if you are reading this you are looking at the front end of Foliovision.com. No excess of noise to signal here (5 January 2008). A lot like Tumblr.

The Foliopress Edit Suite does a lot to make running a Wordpress weblog easier. It's great for clients as well who don't want to see a bunch of fields they don't need. But I like it as well as it gives a cleaner environment in which to write and think.

What WordPress needs is:

• custom simplified edit templates with only the fields you need
• a WYSIWYG editor which actually works
• really simple image posting in the exact format you need

Since we've cracked those with Foliopress Edit Templates, Foliopress WYSIWYG and Foliopress SEO Images, I'm not sure I'd want to have a Tumblr as well.

In terms of posting passing links, Wordpress could still use some help. We should probably design a links posting template for our Foliopress Edit Templates plugin. If we hook that up the Foliopress Dashboard with a default link to posting link with commentary we are a long way to Tumblr simplicity.

An alternative would be the del.icio.us plugins for Wordpress that already go along way to making posting links with one line comments easier.

One thing I do like about Tumblr is the really straightforward and attractive design. Apparently another 110,000 people do too.

The archive view is awesome as well. But behind those beautiful archives there is very little useable information. Just links to other sites. Pretty pictures with links could be useful for running a photographer of the day site.

projectionist tumblr archive

As far as I can tell, Tumblr is running on free.

Free is not a good long-term solution for a service. Monetisation needs to be in there somewhere.

If a service isn't collecting money front up from the users, then the owners need to collect it selling ads or data or both.

Of course, Tumblr may just be a pure play for users, to be made popular at a loss but sold forward at a huge gain to somebody who will be able to monetise the original popular service (Google - YouTube, Yahoo - Flickr).

For those who would like to keep a weblog, my advice is if you don't like writing or making photographs or painting - or something which creates original content - don't bother. An ongoing uncommented scrapbook of links is too ephemeral to be worth the candle. In terms of content aggregrators, there are enough machines out there doing it and those programs work faster than you or I ever will - 24/7.

And if you are going to create substantial content, then you want a communication platform with at least the option for comments from users. My suggestion  is stick with Wordpress/Foliopress.

By Alec

Why Wordpress? – the Tumblr Question

Post from: Foliovision

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This is a great idea. From the beginning Wordpress has generally looked great when going out with visitors but she dresses awfully sloppily around the house.

The front end just keeps getting better as the backend stagnates.

Unfortunately, current previews of the updated Wordpress 2.4 Admin interface show a getup which looks worse if anything, than what's there now.

I'm having visions of Mambo circa 2004. What's with the dreadful new brown and orange? The blue on blue colour scheme is about all the Wordpress Admin Panel has going for it aesthetically.

The only good looking Admin interface for Wordpress has been Steve Smith's  Wordpress Tiger Administration, which first saw the light of day in June 2005. 

Tiger Admin Page Management

Tiger Admin Dashboard

I gleefully ran Wordpress Tiger Administration for about six months back in 2005. Sadly, Wordpress Tiger Administration doesn't run on Internet Explorer - there's some very fancy CSS involved, which Steve didn't feel like bending to Internet Explorer. As Wordpress Tiger Administration is free, who can blame him?

The end result though as the clients started to edit the sites themselves, I didn't want to be using an interface that was in any way different than theirs. Otherwise, I just might now know if a site was working properly.

John and I talked about doing an Admin panel redesign but John talked me out of it for compatibility reasons. Had I known just how long the stagnation would go on, he might not have dissuaded me so easily.

In the end we did create Foliovision Edit Templates, now part of the full Foliopress CMS suite with Foliopress WYSIWYG, Foliopress SEO Images and Foliopress Advanced Page Manager and Foliopress Dashboard. 

foliopress edit templates

foliopress advanced page management 

foliopress dashboard

Frankly, Foliopress Edit Templates and Foliopress Advanced Page Manager look better to my eye than what's coming Wordpress 2.4. I'd still like to see a first rate designer have a go at the CSS.

As soon as John gets our registration and download system setup, I will release them for download for free non-commercial use. All of the Foliopress Admin enhancements are easily installed plugins which are fully compatible with all Wordpress versions between 2.1 and 2.2 so switching over is not difficult.

By Alec

Current Wordpress 2.4 Admin Theme a Disappointment

Post from: Foliovision

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Step one of course would be to fill in your username and your email into the lost password form.

But what if you don't know one of either your username or your email?

Are you out of luck?

Not if you have admin access to your server.

First things first.

1. login to your server admin account (cPanel, Hsphere, Plesk, etc...)
2. open up PHP MyAdmin (see your host's help file)
3. open up your WordPress weblog database
4. don't panic when you see the complicated screen
5. click on wp_users in the left hand column
6. choose browse from the top menu
7. you will see all your users with usernames and passwords
8. go back to the login screen
9. request a new password
10. if necessary modify the email to one which will come to you

If you want to make your life miserable you can replace the hash key instead and login directly. But why bother when you can just go back to using the standard interface.

I'm sure I've saved at least one person a call to his or her server admin with this info.

Enjoy posting in your newly recovered WordPress weblog!

By Alec

Lost WordPress Admin Password and Email? How to get back into your weblog…

Post from: Foliovision

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