Jon Hicks
Via Peter : 05 Feb 08 : design, funny, interview, textpattern, txp
Jon is well-known and well-respected in web design circles and the Hicksdesign home page links to many high profile sites, logos and icons he has created.
TXPQ What is life all about?
JH The pursuit of fine cheese - nothing else matters
TXPQ What motivates you or "makes you tick"?
JH
The pursuit of fine cheese, and the eating of fine cheese.
TXPQ Would you like to talk about your dreams, ambitions, long or short term goals etc?
JH My dreams are cheese-fuelled, and therefore not for public consumption.
TXPQ Do you wear Union Jack underpants?
JH I would - if I could find somewhere that actually sold them!
Design Questions
TXPQ
Would you like to say anything about the way you work, how you build a web site, tools or methods that make web designing easier etc?
JH Coda. Its the app that changed my life.
TXPQ Is there a design - site, logo, icon - you are most proud of and if so why?
JH Without doubt, the Escape Committee logo. To me, it epitomises what a logo should be - simple, memorable and if possible, amusing.
TXPQ
Is there a design - site, logo, icon, typeface - you really wish you had designed yourself and why?
JH Plenty! They are mostly here. Usually I'm jealous of their use of whitespace, typography, simplicity, originality or all 4!
Textpattern Questions
TXPQ When did you first use Textpattern?
JH Early in 2004, around May I think. I was using Movable Type and getting tired of having to republish the site when making changes. It felt large and cumbersome, and I wanted the challenge of learning a new system, one that would be 'faster'. I finally moved over in June.
TXPQ Do you use any other broadly similar software?
JHTXP assumes the first thing you want to do is write something - I love that assumption I try everything I can. I can't get on with Wordpress but absolutely love it's template/theme system and would to like see a similar feature in TXP. Its use of raw PHP as tags in the templates is great for PHP developers, but for me TXP's XML style tags are intuitive and memorable. WP also takes you to a 'dashboard' with Wordpress news when you log in, while TXP assumes the first thing you want to do is write something - I love that assumption.
Expression Engine comes the closest for me, but while it's very flexible, I think the admin panel is badly laid out, with options hidden under dropdowns and no image management. Textpattern's clean, organised admin is the best I've seen, and clients love that approach. EE also uses a similar tag system to Textpattern, which is great.
TXPQ Do you like the TXP plugin system?
JH I like the fact that there's no need to upload files via FTP, copy and pasting plain text makes it very quick and easy.
TXPQIt's a feature-filled CMS system yet feels lightweight to use. I don't know why more people aren't using it! Anything else you'd like to say about Textpattern?
JH It's a feature-filled CMS system yet feels lightweight to use. I don't know why more people aren't using it!
1 · Steven Hambleton
26 Feb 08Hi John,
Interesting that you say EE is badly laid out. I have to admit that it can get confusing but you can create custom tabs to take you to commonly used places.
Also for client, I can shut out most things so they just concentrate on publishing and editing.