S9y vs. Movable Type

[heddesheimer]

I am planning to set up my own blog. I have checked out some available Blog software and found s9y which seems to be a state-of-the-art development.

Now I got a recommendation to use Movable Type for my blog. I know, MT is a commercial product and I don't mind to pay for a piece of good software. But I would like to hear if somebody has alreday experience with MT and switched over to s9y (or the other way around ) and can give me arguments why to prefer (or not prefer) s9y over MT.

Regards Marian

[garvinhicking]

Actually, MT is a good piece software. IMHO it is the most advanced blog system available, because it's one of the oldest systems around and commercially supported.

It's advantages are Static Pregeneration, various DB/File storage methods, easy Multi-Blog administration and many available templates.

It's disadvantages are the licensing scheme, proprietary template code and for many people, it being written in Perl is a pain in the back. Also the static pregeneration can take up a lot of time when people comment, and it largely influences the dynamic possibilities. Of course you can use dynamic generation for the MT blogs, but that IMHO tends to be a bit slow.

The advantages of Serendipity over MT are:

* Licensing
* Full PHP integration, that means: Easier to code than perl.
* Common Template Syntax (Smarty), easy to adopt and use
* Spartacus Plugin System to add plugins on the fly
* Very easy upgrading to new versions
* Flexible WYSIWYG editing with many available editors (if you care...)
* Extensive Multi-Langual abilities
* Built-in media database
* Many german people using it, responsive developer community *g*

In the end, it's a personal choice. You should testdrive each system and try how well you get along with the user interface. Personally I find the MT interface a bit bloated and not so intuitive. But other people see that completely different.

If you tell you what exactly you're planning to do, I can give you a better overview if and how Serendipity is suitable for the task at hand. Try to get the same out of an MT developer...

Best regards,
Garvin

[wesley]

You know, 'responsive developer community' alone is an advantage you
can't get easily. I think most questions have been answered or will be
answered in this forum, so if you run into any problems using s9y you
know where to look to.

[heddesheimer]

If you tell you what exactly you're planning to do, I can give you a better overview if and how Serendipity is suitable for the task at hand.

That sounds great

So here it is:
I am offering online training via my (commercial) domain lernpilot.de where people can sign up to courses in word, excel, html, php and mysql.

When I asked some marketing experts how to get better success in promoting the site, some of them told me to set up a blog. I already offer free tips and tricks for php/mysql through my site heddesheimer.de where I publish tutorials and examples on php and mysql scripting.

So what I like to have is a blog that i can use as a markting tool. I want to publish my free tutorials there and give the visitors a chance to send my feedback via the comments. The same software should be used for the lernpilot site where I offer articles on E-Lerning, Speed-Reading and Mindmapping (all related to the subject "learning").

My online courses are WAI-compliant (hope this is correct english for the german word "barrierefrei") so that blind people can use them also. So I like to use a blog-template that meets the same criteria. From all what I've seen in s9y, it will be easy to port my existing lernpilot-layout to an s9y style.

So, if you can give me some hints, how I can do this with s9y (and which plugins would be useful) that would be great.

Best Regards

Marian

[garvinhicking]

Hi Marian!

When I asked some marketing experts how to get better success in promoting the site, some of them told me to set up a blog. I already offer free tips and tricks for php/mysql through my site heddesheimer.de where I publish tutorials and examples on php and mysql scripting.

If you're aiming for PHP/MySQL teaching, it would be a bit strange if you use a PERL based blogging application, right? Why not use a blog system you could investigate and tell people that you're PHP skilled and thus are using a PHP based blog?

Making a s9y theme barrierefrei shouldn't be a problem, because as you've noticed we use Smarty templates. On my personal page I have a XHTML 1.1 compliant page which is in most issues barrierefrei (except some design choices), so you can see that s9y basically provides this.

One of the cool things in s9y is that it can be easily embedded into other PHP applications. You can never get this with MT that easy. Just take your favorite PHP appliocation, insert a "include serendipity_config.inc.php" and you can use the s9y api to show plugins or fetch entries, or the latest comments or whatever.

Currently I don't see a need for any plugin, as you're using basic blogging functionalities which every blog could provide you with. But the ease of PHP and Serendipity's easy integration will help you a lot with implementing your lernpilot stuff into s9y.

I myself selected Serendipity in the past because it was so easily adaptable for my own custom framework.

HTH,
Garvin

[aacircle]

I bought the licence for Movable Type 2 months ago. Didn't take me long before I jumped ship to s9y! Haven't looked back.

[DortoH]

I have to agree with the responsive community argument. I have asked many a question in these forums, and always get prompt replies and more help than I know what to do with.

Even browsing these forums, I have learnt a lot about Serendipity, PHP, MySQL and web development in general.