websites for small businesses

This is putting my site re-design off a little further, but I’m thinking it will be worth it.  My hubby Cliff  has suddenly started building the blog software he always wanted, and I’m peeking over his shoulder to see just what he has up his sleeve.

1.  It uses Brevé.  I love using Brevé!  Basically, it lets me write HTML in Python syntax, and while I’m not programmer, this makes my life much easier.  HTML markup, while easy to understand, is not very elegant.  And it’s an awful lot of typing.  Because it’s written in Python, it is much more powerful than HTML, and with a little help I can do some pretty cool things using the Python powered features, like includes, imports, and overrides.

People familiar with PHP might say that PHP driven blogs have all the same features, but I see the difference in my ability to understand just what is happening when I open a Brevé file.  Lines are so short, concise, to the point.  No scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to find that elusive tag that might mean something.  I don’t fully understand PHP or Python, but as it turns out I can work with Python better, at least in this context.

2.  Streamlined process.  Cliff has spent many years contemplating the ranging abilities of users, the top complaints of users, and the features that people want.  Cliff is the best complainer of all, by which I mean he will find the faults in anything instantly and recognize it as a fault because he knows how it can be improved.  Where many people just ignore that squeaky sound that a piece of the car interior makes while driving, Cliff will spend a whole afternoon shoving the parts around, squirting silicon spray in there, making sure it doesn’t happen again.  If I were to go completely metaphorical, I could say that he would rip out all the interior pieces and use them as a template to make something better, but he has a practical side as well.

What this means for the blog software is that unlike, say, WordPress, there will be only one way to do anything.  Themes will be written in code. Content will be managed in an administrative interface.   Plugins will be called on and manipulated  in snippets in the template and do not have an installation process beyond placing the plugin file in the plugin folder.  There won’t be some mysterious settings somewhere overriding a template file that you are frustrated trying to edit.

3.  I get to be one of the first people to use it!  I also get to be the most un-nerdy guinea pig, and will represent an average HTML-and-CSS-knowing user.  I have already given input on what are the most important features to include right now, and will continue to sway the process.  This is not really for people who don’t know how to write any kind of markup.  But it will be perfect for me, a designer of websites that are for people who don’t know markup.  Now they never have to see it.  Just content; the important stuff.

Most of all, I can’t wait to write in Brevé again!  I used it when he wrote it to make a few sites, and then just wanted to start doing sites without his help, but with all the features.  At that point, I turned to WordPress, which has served me well.  I have to admit I was sad to go back to regular ol’ HTML markup with PHP scattered liberally throughout.   The bulk of errors I make are due to mixing up just where a PHP section ends and another begins. And what if I want to put something in the middle, in HTML?  The main goal of Brevé is the inspiration for the name, brevity.  I look forward to working with it again, and perhaps learning a little more about the features this time.