The “q” trick - Posted over a year ago, but I’m only now starting to get into Notational Velocity and Simplenote so it’s all starting to make sense now.

I’m sure I’m like seriously late to the party, but if I’m late, then I’m sure a ton of people are late as well. Recently been getting back into writing on a daily basis. It’s actually been easier than I thought, but one of the things that I aim to do is basically write and think in Markdown.

For those who don’t understand what that is, basically it’s a syntax for writing words that can be converted into other formats, with all sorts of embellishes (bold, italic, links etc), while maintaining a simple text file.

Obviously then you realise that there is the next step up which is MultiMarkdown and even something called Maruku which basically enhance the original Markdown with additional options and syntax, and extend the functionality to things other than websites.

The idea of just writing something in text which can then be converted into any number of formats that can be used in a number of ways is something that not only appeals to me, but i wish I’d copped onto this amazing benefit years and years ago. Trust me, don’t make the same mistake I did.

So Owen’s responded to a few things that I’d written. I knew it was coming, and I knew it would be a big one, so true to form the man’s gotten back to me.

To be clear, although I didn’t voice it at the time, one of the reasons why I actually decided to move over to WordPress a while back was in fact when it transpired that Owen might leave the project (I don’t know the exact details, but it seems a community member was maybe hurting more than helping). In any case, Habari without Owen is a much poorer place. Not to take anything away from others who tirelessly contributed to the code, but he’s amassed probably three times as much commits as the next guy (roughly speaking) and generally leads the way - so I listen when he’s got something to say because I respect him enough because he spends the time to explain himself properly. Forget the fact that we don’t agree on everything, I think it’s clear we both want the software to move in the right direction.

The Problem

I would love to replace the logo with something better. But something decidedly, unarguably better.

That’s the biggest problem. Who’s deciding which is unarguably better. I can argue that the question mark is brilliant and the non-descript H is rubbish till the cows come in, as I’m sure others can argue the direct opposite. The point is, it’s your opinion against someone elses. The frame work is not there for moving it forward either. We’re not going to strike lightning in a bottle, nor do I think that I can make something that is universally liked by everyone. Fuck me, that’s pretty much impossible to do. For everyone that thinks the Nike swoosh is an icon, you’ve got others proclaiming that it’s completely pointless.

The point is taking where we currently are and moving forward. Otherwise we end up hurting things more and ultimately not achieving anything.

The way forward

My suggestion? Elect a sub-group of people to huddle somewhere, create a plan, build something usable in a staging place, and then report back to the community for review. They take comments, re-huddle, and iterate until either everyone loves it, or there's no budging by one side or another. And at that point, the community defaults and uses what they've built.

I’ve created my logo. So if anything, I’m happy if I was the one making the decisions. My thought process is clear to me. The logo is out there for anyone to pick at as they please. I had an idea, I put it forward. It didn’t take me too long, hell writing up the previous 5 Habari posts probably took me longer to be honest. Like I said, if anything, I’ve got a nice t-shirt design.

I’m not adverse to exploring the issue further with a task force, hell I think it’s a great idea but ultimately I want to know that our work will be accepted, or voted upon. I want to know the structure, because the exercise will take more time out of me and honestly I don’t want to waste my time - which I’m sure you can appreciate.

The taskforce

The next question that should be raised is, does that then get used instantly? According to Owen, that shouldn’t be the case. It should be reviewed by the rest of the community, lather rinse repeat. This can work, after a fashion. I propose that this is done in a finite number of stages. When we design a building (I’m a building services engineer), the design process is broken down into 4 distinct stages (at least from an engineering POV). Concept, Scheme, Tender, Construction. In a similar fashion, we can also break it down into a few stages.

1. Concept - Ideas about what it could be are thrown on the table. The question mark, the capital H, the doorbell etc. At this stage it is important NOT to rubbish any ideas. This is to create as many ideas as is possible. No idea is off limits.

2. Scheme - The ideas with more legs are weeded out. This is going to be time consuming, because ultimately it is important to come up with one or two ideas options which can be further pursued. The point here is reduce the number of options to a manageable few that can be detailed further.

3. Tender - The few options that are thought to be in contention are whittled down to one. Maybe the execution isn't perfect but ultimately it's an idea that everyone is behind. The general thought process is there.

4. Construction - We build the logo based on the finally selected option. The detail is put in here, and the various elements are presented to be used. In the software, on the website, as badges etc. Used in 'press' releases. Whatever.

We report back at every stage. Any thoughts are processed then and then we move on. The other thing that is important is to have a proper timeline for all of this. Otherwise it’ll meander endlessly. Therefore I propose 1 month for each stage. Gives people enough time to consider, think about things, review, reflect, write emails/responses/posts if they have an issues concerns ideas.

We don’t jump back several stages. The rest of the community had the opportunity to review and present their ideas in the given timeframe. Inaction is not allowing progress which as I’ve explained has a negative affect on the software base itself.

If anything it’ll be an interesting exercise to see if design by commitee works on the internet and in an open source project. Afterall, how do you think all those buildings that you live and work in were designed? By the choices of one person? Don’t be silly.

I get the feeling that when you're done tearing the thing down, assuming you have any energy left afterwards, you might actually do something. Am I right?

I hope so. Like I said, it’s not because I think this will raise my profile, or because I want to have the Habari logo as a notch in my design portfolio (I don’t even have one, although I keep meaning to create one). This is all being done to ensure the progression and future of the software (selfishly because I enjoy using it). I’m not going to let a few with myopic vision hinder PROGRESS dammit :).

So it seems I might have come across as being negative and I guess some have seen my last few posts as diatribes.

Just to be clear on something I’m genuinely not trying to be rude, I’m trying to build awareness because I can see a problem that I think will ultimately have an effect on the software and the developers themselves; which obviously I don’t want, because I enjoying using this software immensely and I want it to succeed. I don’t gain anything personally from doing this, except the satisfaction of giving something back.

I think the general consensus in Habariland is split with regards to my logo proposal:

1. Those who think the current logo is good and we don't need something new.

2. and those who like the 'idea' of the question mark, just not the current execution of the one I've presented.

Honestly, I can live with that; actually this can be considered as progress. Would it be useful to have a look at drawing a couple of other question marks? Would that be a rewarding or ultimately futile effort/exercise? Should i just carry on with the next task I’ve been working on (namely the website)? Would it actually be something to present for a vote by the community? Is there any point?

I ask only because I obviously want things to move in a positive direction to make the software better and to make the experience of using the software better.

You want to build a website? Go ahead. Any monkey with a computer connected to the internet and notepad can create a website. Everything else is a matter of scale.

Yesterday I had a conversation on IRC, which ultimately went nowhere (as a lot of these conversations have done in the past over there), so I thought I’d explain the reason for revisiting the branding, website, documentation aspects of the Habari project and why I feel that ultimately it’s hurting the development of the software.

Design

Habari has been going on for nearly 3 years now and while it seemed ok in the first few years for the software to have a less than adequate branding, right now I think it’s hurting the exposure of the software to invite new people. Maybe I’m wrong, but from looking around in the community areas, forum, IRC and mailing list and how active those are, as opposed to how active they could be, I don’t think I’m far off.

The issue here is that critical mass hasn’t happened, nor is a uniform infrastructure in place to allow it to flourish. And while some might think that these things aren’t important, I beg to differ. If you’re happy with the software doing what it does right now, and don’t want it to improve, then fine, there’s version 0.63 blog off; those that want to enhance the software and the blogging experiences of Habari, read on.

Free

It’s not like going Habari, means you get a cheaper product. You get other things with Habari, which unfortunately have not been flaunted properly, because well, they haven’t been flaunted at all. Again the devil is in the detail.

New Blood

Solution

And you're solution is what? A new logo?

1. Branding

2. Website

3. Documentation

1. Branding

Branding isn’t only a logo. Thankfully the admin panel and the code itself has already defined these aspects. Elegance. Simplicity. Modern. Black. Grey. Inventive. ‘Out of the way’. All words to help better define the Habari branding. All elements which should be extended to the rest of the Habari presence online.

2. Website

While you can’t be something to everyone, the website should at the very least try and address the various userbases: hobbyist, developer, designer.

The real shame of it (which is why I’m writing this) is that the site, does the software base a HUGE disfavour. The software and admin is better than that. It deserves better than that. Many times depending on how professionally put together a website appears it will attract or drive away potential users.

At the moment the page doesn’t do a good job of conveying what makes Habari special and better than the other solutions. It doesn’t distinguish itself.

3. Documentation

Remaining Questions

I don’t have the power to enforce said changes, so I’ll talk and present my ideas on this site; if they’re employed, then that’s fantastic; but in a year’s time when we’re looking at the same general user base (having not gained much further traction) then maybe some of this will become more important. If not I’d happily eat some claim chowder.

You don't need a designer. You need a marketeer.

That’s what my brother said to Yanni last week sometime when we were discussing his online radio station as he was lamenting that not many people were listening to his station. That got me thinking about Habari. It’s been going on for a while now, and yet I don’t feel like the software has hit a critical mass, which is a shame. I think there are several reasons for this, but I’ll start with the first part in trying to help the guys and gals move forward.

Branding

To be completely blunt, from an aesthetic POV it’s not terribly elegant and doesn’t really convey anything about the actual software, the community, etc. That eyesore has to be sorted out for the good of the software (I’ll be going into this in more detail in a future post). Rather than just bitch and moan about something, and not actually do anything about it, I thought I’d take up the challenge. The thing is I did attempt to do this 3 years ago, and I came up with this lovely collection:

Yeah, shut up. I can actually see my thought process, but I guess at the time I was more interested in making something that appealed to the people that had originally started the work (the original Cabal). Thankfully, now I’m just out to make a good logo, that people can use in a plethora of applications, is memorable as the Habari software and is nice enough for me to want to include said mark on my website as well.

Obviously the logo should reflect the software itself, which I have repeatedly been calling it elegant, both in code and in design.

The Question

1. Habari

2. What's the news?

Then I paused. Why the hell didn’t I think of this before? Habari may by definition be a noun, but it’s also a question. What’s the news? Habari is also the answer, a method to provide the news online. The simplest answers are sometimes staring you in the face. The logo should be the question mark. For some reason I instantly knew how that question mark was to look like, at least in my head, but first I thought I’d try seeing what it looks like with some typical typefaces, Helvetica, Gill Sans etc. This is what it looked like:

Convinced that the actual idea had legs and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that this as an idea is a good one I started sketching. The thing is I didn’t need to sketch for long, because like I said the second I had the idea, the logo was fully formed in my mind. There would be no harsh lines. The reason for this is because that’s not what Habari is about. It’s about elegance, not sharpness. It does things slightly differently than other to smooth your general experience (this is evident from the installer through to the admin panel and beyond).

So here’s my proposal for the new Habari logo:

I’ve also included this set of iterations, which show the logo in both dark and in light colours, on white and on dark backgrounds. The logo remains distinct in all these incarnations.

This next set shows the logo at different sizes: 100px, 75px, 50px, 25px and 16px - click here for the full size of the image.

There have been other attempts at looking at this in the past, all of which have failed, so I don’t think that this time is going to be any different, because it’s a very touchy subject (which is why it’s not moved forward in 3 years). I don’t really expect anything from this exercise to be honest, except that I for one want to at least know that I tried to help in this regard and gave a viable (and hopefully useful) alternative.

And if anything, it would make an awesome t-shirt as well:

One of my absolute favourite plugins on Habari is the Publish Quote plugin written by Michael. The plugin has done well by me for like over a year, but in my mind there is some room for slight improvement in the way it operates. Habari does a great job of staying out of your way (as I found out the hard way) and I feel that this plugin is really a direct extension of that, which will make it even easier for you to actually publish your thoughts quicker and faster, ultimately making you blog more.

Currently the plugin works by taking you back to main admin panel with all the various fields filled in (according to your option preferences). There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach. As long as you’re logged in, you have no problems (and seeing as I use the persistence of memory plugin my Scott, I’m ok on that front as well).

Proposal

The ‘new’ Publish quote plugin would operate in a similar fashion. Clicking the bookmarklet would provide a drop down card which would sit above the page. The card would look like this:

Details

The card has rounded corners (to be consistent with the admin panel) and also includes the slightly greyed rounded box in the top left hand corner around the title of the plugin (more on this below).

User Experience

After all the whole point of this is to communicate your thoughts and ideas as easily as possible in an enjoyable fashion.

Future Iterations

Lets turn our attention to the main menu in Habari. As I mentioned before there has to be a better way than the current method. The reasoning for the current menu is simple, once you start adding all the menu items (including those provided by the various plugin) the list becoming very long indeed. Without any plugin menus this is what is currently there (including one of the expanded menu version):

And here’s that menu with one of the side menus popping out:

From my personal use, I only need 8 menu items in total:

1. New Entry

2. New Page

3. Manage

4. Comments

5. Dashboard

6. Plugins

7. Options

8. Logout

For me everything else is completely superflous, or at least it’s bloody rare for me to even go there, like once a year if that (I don’t think I’ve ever gone to the logs and groups menu for example). As I said that’s only because of the way I choose to use Habari. Other users might feel like they want something a bit different, and this type of functionality would allow

Proposal

The other aspect of this Menu plugin that would also hopefully enhance the experience, would be bringing the shortcut numbers back. In the options menu we would also provide an option to assign the menu option with a keyboard shortcut to a menu item. This way we’d get back to a more streamlined workflow, which is slightly hindered by an additional keyboard stroke (at least in my eyes it is).

Future Details

In looking around the Habari admin panel I’ve got to thinking which areas are important to me in the way that I use the software and how to take care of those pesky little design issues which I see as glaring mistakes. These are the areas that I feel could use a little bit of design TLC, which basically will give the software that added bit of polish and maintain it’s elegance.

I’m currently in the process of learning PHP, so hopefully in a few month’s time I’ll have hopefully created the plugin to deal with these few issues. If they’re seen as a good idea, then maybe they can be included into the core, but I’m more interested in getting the software to do what I personally would like it to do, good ideas often times find their way back up the trunk. If someone wants to jump in now, I’m not going to stop you, and will gladly help where I can.

Dashboard

Solution: This information should be collected into another card that sits with the rest of the cards and can be moved around in the same fashion to suit the person’s preferences.

Drop Down Sub-Menu Items

Solution: I would go even more minimalist. As an everyday user, I don’t actually need to have most of these options available on my screen. I don’t need to have:

1. Logs

2. Theme

3. Users

4. Import

5. Groups

6. My Profile

Personally, the only secondary options that I would like to have are the Options and Plugins (secondary options being New, Manage, Comments and Tags). Other people might have a different approach, but again I would probably argue that every person has got options in that menu which they rarely use.

To that end, I would reinstate the original design of having a sub menu present inline of the main menu item. Within the ‘Option’ page there would be an additional section which would allow the end user to ‘hide’ some of the menu items. The only backend menu items that would be present as a default would be the Dashboard, Options and Logout. You would then reduce the length by 6 lines deep.

Google Chrome OS - It’s official. Coming in the winter of 2010 to brighten our days. That’s over a year away really, but still exciting news for operating system enthusiasts.

SourceForge Redesigned - Don’t typically go there anymore as I’ve more or less found most of my software requirements in one way or another at the moment, however this was a site I used to visit all the time back when I believe in open source software (but that’s a discussion for another time).

“Outside the Box” Navigation with jQuery - Although I absolutely LOVE how stacks looks on OS X, I can never get around to using it because I hate the dock at the bottom of my screen. However the implementation onto a website looks so appealing.

Moblin v2.0 Beta - Short for Mobile Linux, this is the OS that has been massaged by Intel to better integrate (and utilise) with their atom processors. Definitely one of the best operating systems I’ve seen for netbooks (apart form OS X). Definitely check out the video to see it in action. Also with a rumored 2 second startup time, this does seem like the way to go for these smaller computers.

The League of Moveable Type - Open source fonts. Two out of the three fonts I would gladly use in any project.

Linux Turns 15 - 15 years ago today, version 1.0 of Linux came out. I used Ubuntu for a year, but the lack of the kind of software that I wanted just wasn’t forthcoming. This isn’t to say that there isn’t great software, just not completely for me. I am happy to see how Linux does see poised to take over the mobile world (who would have thought it) - in the forms of WebOS and Android.

Chevereto - Open Source Image hosting script. This looks like a pretty cool idea, however I haven’t had much love playing around with it, as the software hasn’t really been fully translated into English (I don’t know what the interface is like for accessing the uploaded images). Definitely one to watch.

First Screenshot of Chrome for the Mac - Easily my favourite app on Windows (after Excel). Although I’ve been using Webkit proper for a week now (much faster), the speed and the general feel of Chrome is exactly what I want in a browser (along with plugins like Firefox). It’s just a matter of time before Chrome becomes a real player.

feedly: a magazine-like start page - Easily my favourite Firefox plugin; so much so I’m considering using Firefox as my main browser because of this plugin.

Fedora 10 (Linux distribution) Solar Theme - Although I’m a mac man now, I still do admire the effort that is always going into desktop linux distributions. For a while Ubuntu was the king, however Fedora is definitely pushing the boundaries of good taste with this, their latest offering.

Habari Article on Linux.com - Slowly but surely the revolution will begin.

Cappuccino Web Framework - Interesting web based framework for developing applications online, one to a look out for in the future.

I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I was even remotely excited about a new application. Chrome definitely fit that bill. For some reason or another I really wanted to test this little application out. I wanted to see if Google had done anything worthy of their name.

I use Google for searching, I use Google as my RSS reader, to store my story online within Google Docs, and obviously I use Gmail and have done for many years now. These things I use on a nearly daily basis (except for Docs). So playing around with a browser from them obviously was somthing I had to try out. If you look around the blogosphere and the net, everyone’s got a friggin opinion about it. Some have decided to take extreme views on the subject, while others are all playing the waiting game to see what the deal actually was with the browser once they had it in their hands. Others still are pretty optimistic about the whole affair.

I’m not new to this new browser game. When Flock was announced a few years ago I was pretty excited about that…until they dropped the ball, added more cruft and shite to the actual browser and well to be honest made it ugly rather than this extremely slick entity that it could have been. With the exception of Safari usage every once in a while, Firefox has been my default browser for years. I used it originally because it was soo ahead of the game when compared to the available products on the market at the time, probably IE6.

So does Chrome give me that same leap? No, of course it doesn’t. It couldn’t because the idea behind Firefox revolutionised the net in many ways. The truth about Chrome is that it does what it says on the tin and it does it well.

1. The tabs - I thought these would be the biggest annoyance, having them at the top. Truth be told, after 5 minutes, I love them there. They sit perfectly and work great, because there is nothing above them. Effectively the browser uses all the screen real estate wisely. That is something that I really have to applaud Google on. They seem to have achieved this by actually making the rest of the browser minimal as well.

2. OS integration - Yeah, ok it's not OS integrated properly, but seriously for once I don't care. The additional stuff associated with the browser as soo small and unobtrusive that you don't really care that it doesn't have the Vista shite (I'm on holiday in Athens, thus using whatever is available, and this case it's shitty Vista). I can imagine that when the Mac version comes out, it'll be very nicely integrated with Leopard. Hell the icons are practically from Leaopard, but decidedly different at the same time so that it keeps it's own identity, that is if they keep these icons and give me the proper grey.

3. Front Page Tab - Love this. I didn't realise that this was a good idea, until it came as a default. In the same way for FF3 I didn't know what a great idea the star and you've bookmarked a site is (in the navigation bar) in the same way I didn't realise that this actually saves me a lot of time, by displaying the latest sites I've visited and the latest sites I've bookmarked.

4. Speed - Yes it's fast. Scrap that, it's FUCKING fast. I mean, seriously that's the fastest browser I've ever opened. Hell IE7 on Vista isn't this fast. There's got to be something going on here. Is everyone else seeing the same lightning speed at opening up that I've noticed?

5. Task Manager - Now that's a good idea. Much in the same vein as OSX, which allows you to kill any application that is giving you grief, so too does Chrome allow you to shut off any tab from the task manager. The task manager also allows you to have a look and see what amount of memory is being consumed by which application. Case in point Facebook is a power hungry bitch.

Looking forward, what do I want? Of course not everything is rosy and I want some things to be sorted out in future revisions of the software.

1. I want this on OSX. So it's really a matter of time I guess. Make sure it's got the same speed as the Windows version and make sure it's got the proper OS colours as opposed to this light blue. It's ok for Windows, it's not OK for OSX.

2. I want this to be open to plugins and extensions. This is the power of Firefox, that no other browser has ever had the chance of coming close to. You can find nice things you like about other browsers, but ultimately Firefox has got it all and then some. So unlike Safari which is a real pain in the ass to develop stuff for, and even then it's not a proper system, Google really should learn from that and have people develop extensions because that is what will make people take the leap.

3. Sort out that loading bar which is at the bottom of the page. Rubbish idea. Safari does it correctly by loading in the navigation bar. Use that idea instead, it's much more intuative; in the same way the tabs at the top of the page is a great idea.

Edit 1 - Seems they are serious about bringing in more developers to help out and extend Chrome, there is also the Chromium project which has been set up for this purpose. It's going to be pretty interesting to see where this browser will be in a year's time, damn interesting.

Christian wrote a little post asking why the Habari community was snubbed in the recent Smashing Magazine 10 Weblog Engines Reviewed post.

Why was Habari not included in this list? Well it was included in an honourable list. Instead though they included Joomla and Drupal. All very good applications in their own right, but far too bloated to be considered weblog engines (they’re designed for bigger sites are they not?).

In any case, I feel that the reason why Habari wasn’t included in here is a collection of things, but it is telling. While I wouldn’t go so far and say that Smashing Magazine in the authority of the internet Zeitgeist, I will say that they generally put a lot of effort into their posts and do a certain amount of research, so their not so much dismisal but rather short billing is indicative of where Habari stands right now. The problem is that I don’t think that Habari, the community or software is to blame here; rather I feel it has something to do with the net landscape as we are right now.

You could say that Habari is still pretty young in it’s cycle, however it’s a HELL of a lot more developed than the bit of software called WordPress was when I started using it (version 0.6 I believe). Back then WordPress didn’t have ANY themes. The plugin library was in the single most infant state you could imagine (if you compare it to now). The less we talk about the interface the better (that ship is stll a rudderless pile of shit as they change it more for version 2.7 if the latest betas are to go by, and believe me I don’t care enough to go there anyway). I don’t think the reasons for the lack of credibility can be attributed to the software’s limitations, because if you’re looking for something to post a blog, and enhance your site with any one of the currently available plugins, Habari is a pretty solid foundation that is only moving forward, moving into the future, because honestly all of those other ones that are on the Smashing Magazine post feel like the past.

So what is missing? Blogs are now a standard part of the net landscape. Open source projects are a dime a dozen (hell that list isn’t exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, since it doesn’t include Habari or Chryp, to name a couple). Blogs are not this new and exciting medium that they were 4 years ago. People know about them and have had one at some point in their lives, even the completely tech neophytes out there will have dabbled. The options to create something online are a lot larger than before.

The other thing is that Habari hasn’t had a catalyst that exploded the scene. There was no Moveable Type changing their license rubbish and now back again (or whatever). That was the push that WordPress needed, initially. Right now, work is being done on WordPress but honestly it feels more like a rudderless titanic. Then you’ve got Textpattern….seriously is the project still alive? A while back I heard of a Textpattern fork, not heard anything else about it since then, but then again I’ve not been actively seeking any information so they could have moved forward?

The thing is that to draw people in there has to be some form of marketing push. What I mean by that is the word of mouth about Habari really has to begin in full steam. The great thing is that people are starting to do this, slowly but surely. Michael is talking more about Habari, as is Owen and Chris. Remember those badges that lived on the side of blogs? Remember the ones for Firefox? The thing with those of course is that the actual image usually pretty distinctive. The firefox logo is extremely iconic. Something akin to this would help spread it out again. It could be a community push that al those actively running their sites on Habari should have the badge to wear proudly.

Clearly there are other things that need to be done, however as with the Habari motto, the word really needs to be spread in a number of ways which can only be a good thing for the software and the community.