Despite all of the movement by Dave and Jake and Bryan to clean up the templates and streamline the process, they still have a long way to go. I’m hoping they hang in there. But as positive as these efforts are, I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever get what we need, those of us down here at the classroom level. I mean a spam free e-mail and a “neat browser-based blogroll editor” might be nice but how about getting Trackback working, or making an easy way to add links to the side column without having to create an include message and all that stuff? (Really, wouldn’t it be nice to be add content to the side columns without all the configuration that’s required now? Surely someone can include an editable list or two in the template.)
All Dave is doing right now is making blogs for individuals who want to implement for personal use…I haven’t heard or read anything about implementation for courses or classrooms. I guess I’m just going to have to find some more patience…
Right on! I wonder if Dave Winer even uses Manila in a multi-author environment? Yeah! The hypothetical question was blown off by some guy named Jerome and then Dave. I did take into consideration that these guys probably do not use multi-authour Manila sites. Dave doesn’t even have his comments macro on. I went back in again and tried to provide context to the question. Looks, function ( I think layout serves function or purpose of site) , and ease of use in editing to changing the look are important. That has been my experience from folks. Chime in at Manila Dev because right now, because you never know… the architect Jake Savin may come up with something… he is really in a groove with maybe close to 50 + updates on the server already this week.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manila-dev/
Keep slugging away on that list. Grovel as a non programmer should, but pitch yourself as a customer, someone who is paying and who if satisfied will lead others to pay. It seems to get attention. Or go directly to John Robb at Userland and ask him to forward suggestions. I sent him my requests for changes to membership Admin management and he keeps sending me requests for me detail about how I want it to work. Other good news is that they are working on a 4-part left nav / right nav / About / footer theme. And the navigation editor is a done deal. And Bryan has a cool way of personalizing banners coming up.