May 17th, 2004

Progress with Drupal 4 Bloggers

» ,

Update: 18th May – Just release V0.4 which includes Simple Blog Admin, ISO 8601 bug fix for syndication, taxonomy hacks to make it easier to use.

drupal4blog-comment-config.PNGI just release V0.3 of the Drupal for Bloggers. The major work I done over the weekend is the an upload module which allows bloggers to upload and manage files. (Entries, Comments, Trackbacks and Pings are already working as of V0.2) I think I have 4 major things on the todos before I can switch over to Drupal and start eating my own dog food – Blogger API, Simple Admin Function, MT Migration functions and Templates. But things will slow down a bit this week as I have to prepare for the APT-ITU IDN/ENUM Workshop this weekend in Brunei.

I understand there is a outcry from users about SixApart new pricing plan for MT 3.0. But for the record, I am with Dave winer (via Loic). and I couldn’t put any it better. I am not upset with SixApart and in fact, pity their predictment. (similar to ISC with their BIND). Folks, pay them if you like and use their software!

My decision to switch has nothing to do with their pricing plan. It is because i have outgrow MT and need a more powerful system, one where I dont need to constantly rebuild and ability to zap comments spams on the fly.

Another reason is their lack of empathy of people who developed plugins for them. For a company that develop social tools, their inability to bring people who develops add-on together is an irony.

May 14th, 2004

Drupal for Bloggers

» ,

Okay, I am ready to release 0.1 version of the Drupal for (MT) bloggers. You can give it a test run at my development site and you can download drupal4blog-0.2.tar.gz now :-) (Update: 16th May: 0.2 has been release :-)

I can’t claim it has all the features of MT yet but for those features I have, it is definately better then MT. For all the missing features, I am working towards it.

And yes, I need help! If you willing to help in this project, drop me an email at jseng_at_pobox.org.sg.

May 13th, 2004

Migrating to Drupal

» ,

I love drupal. The source code is elegant and beautiful, and plugins are properly design, de-coupled and as-independent as you can get.

But as powerful as drupal. is, it is still fairly complex for a typical non-geek blogger. So instead of waiting around for it to be matured, I decided to start modifying drupal to make it suitable for bloggers to be at least good enough to replace MT.

Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful for MT as it introduces me to the world of blogging. But many little things in MT is getting on my nerves lately, like comments spams and the constant need to rebuild, makes drupal a God-sent. Above all, despite all my time and effort to write plugins for MT for comment spams, I still feel like an outsider, which makes me wonder why I even bother.

So I am going to stop working on MT from now and move over to Drupal with the focus to make Drupal “good enough” to replace MT. You can see some work in progress here and the list of todos.

Email me at jseng_at_pobox.org.sg if you interested in this project or better, interested to help out ;-)

ps: Somehow, I having a lot of trouble posting this entry. Arggh!