I have decided to postpone upgrading my Specious Argument Weblog temporarily. With version 3.2, Six Apart, the developers of Movable Type, have dramatically changed the main template and CSS style sheet. I have been poking around and am quite excited by the changes, but I want to learn more before I delve into the guts of the templates and style sheets. At Movable Type's News and Announcements StyleCatcher: Easy Styles for Movable Type 3.2, Anil Dash indicates that more documentation will be forthcoming soon.
We'll soon be publishing more details about creating your own styles that fit the Six Apart standard, as well as stripped down templates with only template tags and basic markup for those of you who would rather get your hands dirty building your own HTML and CSS. This documentation should make it easy for designers and developers to see the benefits of this new markup structure, and why we've made these changes.
That said, Nick O'Neill is the author of a new StyleCatcher Plugin that allows users to choose among very attractive templates. I think this is beginning to show the power and flexibility of the new templates and style sheets. You can download the StyleCatcher plugin from StyleCatcher 1 Plugin Page.
For those wanting to better understand the guts of the templates, please view TypePad Weblog Page Structure. No, that is not a typo. It is TypePad. That is correct. TypePad and Movable Type are now sharing very similar, if not identical, HTML layouts. And Arvind has created a very useful tool at Movable Type Style Generator to adapt your CSS style sheet quickly. With your changed CSS sheet, your site is now customized to your liking.
I am confident that with a bit of learning, Movable Type users will gain much more freedom to innovate and create interesting designs. Moreover, I anticipate that there will be many designs that users can choose from or modify to suit their own. My thinking, which could be wrong, is that the new structure is similar to the CSS Zen Garden in that there is one structure that allows for an infinite variety of designs. In a similar fashion, I believe Six Apart is standardizing on a flexible template that will allow for an infinite variety of designs. Soon different users will be creating their own unique designs based upon the standardized templates. And then users will have more choice in templates and will be able to use other designs as a springboard to their own unique creations.
Overall, I think these changes, though dramatic, will be a strong plus for Movable Type. But before jumping in, I want to wait for the additional documentation so that I better know what I am doing. I hope within a couple or few weeks, I will have upgraded to my blog, including templates and CSS stylesheets, to version 3.2
For those of you wanting to start a brand new weblog, I strongly encourage you to jump in with both feet now. Use one of the default templates and begin to learn Movable Type. Very soon you will begin customizing your own weblog.
Its refreshing to see someone rejoice about the new templates rather than complain about them :) Having spent around a week coding the style gen, I know the templates quite well and they are not too hard once you understand what each DIV does, that's why I've been recommending the style gen to people just to see what happens when you set foo on #alpha etc.
Hi Arvind,
Once I saw the layout for the TypePad structure, I immediately—well almost immediately—understood all the divs. It really does not take long to understand. So I agree—I do not think the structure is as complicated as first impressions would have us believe. In fact, I think once people begin to understand and play with the new templates, they will embrace them, especially once they begin seeing new and creative designs by others.
To be honest, where I am stumbling a bit are the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). I had a look (I've got a private test blog) at the base-weblog.css and theme-vicksburg.css. There is a lot to understand. It's been a while, but I have read Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition and Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design. So I can understand CSS given time and a few explanations. I just need a Hitchhiker's Guide to the CSS and I will be on my way. I'm confident that soon I will be customizing my blog.
In summary, I am excited by the changes. Change always requires learning something new and usually a bit of effort at the beginning. I am confident, however, that the learning and effort will be amply rewarded.
Thank you for your comments.
Upon further reflection, I am not going to wait as long as I had originally thought. I think with Arvind's Movable Type Style Generator, I don't think waiting is necessary. I likely won't change my blog today because it is a beautiful day outside, so no point being in front of the PC. But I will be changing earlier than I had thought. I suspect that by the end of the week, Specious Argument will have its new and improved version 3.2 look. I can't wait!