So this is the second time now I've seen someone make the (good!) observation that SSGs are a non-option to nontechies but here's the thing: It *should* be pretty easy to make a web editor that shows a directory listing, lets you drag in PNGs and edit ...
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@jalefkowit @mcc @xgranade I will never stop being mad that we (the industry) changed "design" from an integrated part of the workflow where designers edit actual templates (Dreamweaver) to a sort of fantasyland where designers edit in Photoshop, or Illustrator, or today I guess Figma, and then developers "implement" the "designs", with much duplication of process and mutual incomprehension at every step.
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@jalefkowit @mcc @xgranade putting design in this little box where "designers" are drawing pictures of their designs rather than actually designing their designs forecloses a huge number of opportunities for native and fluent work within the medium, meaning that _all_ innovation comes from "designer/developer" hybrids who use highly non-standard workflows, and introduces an enormous magnet for errors where every concept needs to be reworked at least twice as it moves across that boundary
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@glyph @mcc @xgranade WordPress is kind of the absolute bottom of that historical trend, in that its "templates" are just PHP files and its "template tags" are just PHP functions. There is no containment or any other effort to limit what a template can do. Anything it is possible to implement in PHP can be implemented inside a WordPress template. You can drop a thousand lines of raw PHP into a WordPress template if you want to.
As you might imagine, the result is a train wreck. There is an entire way to drag Twig into your theme just because WordPress never got around to adopting a real template system
GitHub - timber/timber: Create WordPress themes with beautiful OOP code and the Twig Template Engine
Create WordPress themes with beautiful OOP code and the Twig Template Engine - timber/timber
GitHub (github.com)
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@jalefkowit @mcc @xgranade have I mentioned that I do not much care for Wordpress (or PHP)
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@mcc @xgranade @jalefkowit I fucking loved dreamweaver. I can code basic HTML by hand still but it made the discovery of that so incredibly powerful. And the template system meant you didn't need a CMS and everything was instant. We fucked up bad.
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to SwiftOnSecurity last edited by
@SwiftOnSecurity @mcc @xgranade Adobe will technically still sell you a product called Dreamweaver, though I have no idea how much connection it has in 2024 to the software we all loved back when Ally McBeal was tearing up the Nielsen ratings
Website design software | Adobe Dreamweaver
Quickly create and publish web pages almost anywhere with Adobe Dreamweaver responsive web design software that supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more.
(www.adobe.com)
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@jalefkowit @SwiftOnSecurity @xgranade remember that time she had the Dancing Baby as a guest star
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@mcc @SwiftOnSecurity @xgranade ICONIC
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by [email protected]
@SwiftOnSecurity @mcc @xgranade Presumably this means that there are agencies out there still using Dreamweaver, and o how I would completely unironically love to see a series of interviews with those people
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SysAdmin1138replied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
@jalefkowit @xgranade @mcc My blog STILL runs MT (locked down so the dynamic bits are only reachable from certain IPs, because that code is elderly.) And yeah, it's a great static site generator; I'm a fan.
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to SysAdmin1138 last edited by
@sysadmin1138 @xgranade @mcc They're still out there releasing new versions of Movable Type! Though they eventually gave up on their brief flirtation with open source and leaned hard into the enterprise software market, so it's priced beyond what most people could justify.
Movable Type - Content Management System, Blog Software & Publishing Platform
Build your website with a powerful content management system from Movable Type. Our blogging software & static publishing platform makes site management easy & effective.
(movabletype.com)
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@jalefkowit @mcc @xgranade fun fact, it was my 7th language, having learned HyperTalk, Scheme, C++, C, Perl, and Java first.
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@mcc @jalefkowit I actually kinda like Kirby’s approach to this: WP-like control panel that updates an otherwise static site : https://getkirby.com/
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@erincandescent @mcc @jalefkowit I’m a bit ambivalent towards that - their licensing is p fair for what you get (and I like that they actually managed to stay small and sustainable), but I have no interest in maintaining a CMS
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@endocrimes @mcc @jalefkowit oh yeah the pricing is perfectly reasonable I just always get a bit spooked by that sorta thing. Also I'm a cheapskate nerd y'know.
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@mcc @jalefkowit I thought about doing this, but if you're catering for a non-programmer audience then there are more usability roadblocks to solve. You can't start your editing app from a terminal, nor distribute it on package registries that require the terminal to install packages. It's a big step to climb all at once.
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Florens Verschelde last edited by
@fvsch @mcc I don't disagree. The median WordPress user has never opened a terminal or heard of a package registry. If you need those things to distribute your software, it is never going to be for them.
That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's a big world and there's plenty of room for software of all kinds. I'm just saying, if you are aiming your software at a technically sophisticated audience, understand that's your audience and don't push it on people who aren't in a position to appreciate it.
