4 ms·

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 com

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 It's often easier to set up a custom site in TXP than it is in a lot of other systems, in my admittedly now out-of-date experience.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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
    - petecooper 7y ago
      I think you're talking about Kaizen Garden. They came and went, though it was a galant effort. http://web.archive.org/web/20140810052728/http://kaizengarden.co/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140810052728/http://kaizengarde... Edit: though I do have a vague memory of Dean wanting to resurrect TextDrive and not getting very far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455896
      - gexla 7y ago
        Nice detective work. What I'm referring to is the subject of the second link, "TextDrive is back."
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      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 7y ago
        > 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 7y ago
        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 7y ago
        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.
mhd 7y ago
I ran my first blog way back when it was in the pre-1.0 stages. Worked quite wonderfully, Textile was a joy to work with and I had a lot of fun delving into the referer log page, wondering at how others found my posts through seemingly random searches...

Nux 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
  - petecooper 7y ago
    I think you're talking about Kaizen Garden. They came and went, though it was a galant effort. http://web.archive.org/web/20140810052728/http://kaizengarden.co/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140810052728/http://kaizengarde... Edit: though I do have a vague memory of Dean wanting to resurrect TextDrive and not getting very far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455896
    - gexla 7y ago
      Nice detective work. What I'm referring to is the subject of the second link, "TextDrive is back."
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      > 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 7y ago
        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 7y ago
        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.

mhd 7y ago

I ran my first blog way back when it was in the pre-1.0 stages. Worked quite wonderfully, Textile was a joy to work with and I had a lot of fun delving into the referer log page, wondering at how others found my posts through seemingly random searches...