Finally I'm going to switch. People might say that Movable Type is a great weblogging tool and they are probably right. But I like to keep things simple, and I don't like a template for every file I create and a file for every entry.
A new weblog system is asking for some improvements as well. Right now I'm hacking (actually, Mark does all the work :-) ) into Wordpress to get comment preview and validation(!). Especially comment preview was needed, since most of the commenters where also quite good in markup (although some keep forgetting the simple fact that BLOCKQUOTE can only contain elements that are block-level). Comment preview is something that was requested from the moment a went over to Movable Type. I remember that Jacques Distler requested that feature a couple of times.
The markup will get some improvements as well and I'm creating a site without DIVs just for the fun of it. Not sure that will be entirely correctly according to specifications (and dictionaries), but come on, it is a personal site! I want to add 'quicklinks' or 'href', as I would like to call it, as well. Every day I come across lots of things that interest me: specifications, test cases, bugs, features, posts et cetera.
Styling is going to be quite difficult (I hope Arthur has some free time the following weeks), but I want to use the content property for replacing text with grahpics, that is one thing I know. I also know that it is only supported by Opera, but I can live with that, as long as I can read the comments from Mozilla :-). If someone fixes a small part of bug 215083 (content can be applied to type selectors) I would be really happy. A lot of other people (the ones that don't care about cross-browser, when it is personal) would like it too probably, since the hacks we have now are quite bad.
Another change is in the URI system, which will be /archives/year/month/post when I finished everything. The feeds will also move to a new location, but you will get plenty of information about that later. I will try to keep as much links working as possible (you don't have to worry about the 'permalinks'), but maybe you have to update your RSS/Atom link in your newsreader.
Hey Anne, good luck with the new venture! I'm slowly coding my own blog for fiftyfoureleven, but work takes precidence... Well, that and I'm still mulling over what to do about comment validation...
I'm very curious on how wordpress works for you, I think I'm gonna try it myself in a testing-env, cause I've heared quite a lot of good comments on wordpress.
Hi Anne, With Textpattern oh so close you might consider waiting before delving too deeply in to Wordpress hacks. -tim ps - i love your content-rich blog!
Let me know how your work goes, those are definitely things we'd be interested in rolling back into the codebase.
I also know that it is only supported by Opera, but I can live with that, as long as I can read the comments from Mozilla :-)
Good luck with your work! Also: welcome to the wonderful world of generated content. I am sure you will have lots of fun with it...
As Anne pointed out, I'm doing the actual hacking. I can say the WordPress hacks are about done. I'm going to create a hack installer to automaticly alter some WordPress files, which should make things easier on the next upgrade.
The comment preview is all done. I've hacked it into wp-comments.php. It's nothing hard, although there were some code conflicts between the form elements and the query string variables WordPress uses. Took me some time to figure that out, though.
No idea when Anne will launch the new site, I can but say: stay tuned!
Mark, are you gonna make the new hacks available through the Wordpress Wiki, or somewhere else? I'm very interested in the comment preview hack. Greets Rogier
Rogier: I don't know yet. The preview really is a hack, but perhaps that can be included in a new WordPress version. I could post the hacks installer, though. We'll see.
Try DotClear. It's well done, fast, small and validating. Find it clicking on the icon at the bottom of left column of my blog.