Movable Type is a great program. Its customizability and its flexibility make it possible to do just about anything when it comes to using it to power your web site.
But therein lies the danger (yes, danger) of Movable Type. Because there is so much you can do with it, it's very easy to start playing around with it, tweaking your blog, and doing fun things and not find time to actually write anything - (presumably) the whole reason you started your blog in the first place!
I've been finding myself guilty of this lately as I begin to delve a little deeper into customizing MT. The steep (for me at least) learning curve had put me off doing any more than the basics for a while, plus the sheer volume of plugins and hacks available is somewhat overwhelming.
But now I'm starting to play around with it, and believe me, once you start it's hard to stop. A couple of hours can easily pass, at the end of which you've made some (possibly) interesting cosmetic improvement to the way MT renders your site, but have you actually written anything that someone (you, your friends, family or peers) might want to read - heck no!
So, for me at least, I'm going to remind myself to keep the MT tweaking in line with writing actual content. After all, anyone coming to my site does so not to check out the fancy latest feature I've added but to read the content written on that large, featureless area called the page.
Posted on: March 20, 2004 | 3 Comments
3 Comments Posted
Hey Christian. Sounds like you are getting a bit too caught up in putting the technology first instead of letting your creativity lead the way. You make a good point, I think you might benefit from doing what I do.
I only look at plugins and such when I encounter a problem with something I want to do. What I mean is that I let my ideas dictate how I'm going to hack MT, not the otherway around.
So far MT has been able to handle just about everything I've thrown at it.
1. Posted by Keith on March 20, 2004
Christian,
I agree with you totally. Having started in October 2003 I am still finding more and more plugs-in that would help me keep my MT installations clean and easy and graphically intuitive.
At first I thought it would be difficult to get my head around this but it really is very simple. Speaking of which I also wrote a Customised Archive Page code the other day. Yeah but I know what you mean. All good fun though :)
2. Posted by Amit Karmakar on March 20, 2004
Keith, I think you're right on the money - I'll add features as I find a need for them. For example, I wouldn't mind starting a photo blog, so I may start looking into my options for doing that.
Amit, I am checking out your archive code right now...
3. Posted by Christian on March 20, 2004