Episode 3 of the Thinking About Tools For Thought podcast is now out – interview with Ken Smith, talking about Drummer software and other tools – check it out!
@AndySylvester I've been following Dave for a long time to see when he might release Drummer, which I would certainly try. But I don't qualify to help with the beta version. It sounds interesting though.
@Ron I would not recommend you try it yet, Dave is still developing things, and has already "cracked down" on several people, so I would recommend you hold off until he makes it public.
@AndySylvester I agree completely, Andy. I don't want him yelling at me. Oddly, when I was involved in an earlier one of his beta tests (Frontier?) I did report a bug to him. I was careful to do it in the format he wanted followed. He told me to go to the console and do something. I said, "Console, what's that?" Ha ha.
He was then very patient with me! He said I was sharp enough to learn this stuff. He walked me through opening the console and sure enough it was a bug I had spotted and with my help he tracked it down and squashed it..
But I had no desire to go on to a new career in web development. 🐛
@AndySylvester I’ve got a few. Listened twice today. Ken said many things that I was not expecting. I used Fargo for a while, and have played around with little outliner. Mostly from the blogging/publishing POV. So Ken’s ideas around thinking deeply about language and words before talking software made an impression. I’ll be subscribing and listening to back catalogue. Great length too.
@AndySylvester I see Dave has pointed to a new Drummer blog at an oldschool URL, by a guy named Ryan Tate. So far it looks much like 1999 and/or scripting.com. Very nice!
Here's what I found hilarious. On the very same day Dave posted that he has now been reminded about what sucks (his own description) about doing user support. Which is, users ask for help!
Ha ha ha! Anyone who has ever used one of Dave's tools on a site he supports (like Fargo) will immediately recognize what is unique about micro.blog as compared to Dave's sites. Here, if someone asks for help, someone will offer help fairly promptly, usually Manton. And he'll usually be pretty cheerful about it. I'll always give Manton credit for that.
Dave likes developing great blogging tools and he does it well. But he really hates providing user support!! 😁
@AndySylvester Wish someone who Dave will listen to can explain that his unwillingness to support HTTPS is hostile to users. I know he believes that he is making a principled stand but what is going to happen is people will not be able to use his apps because browsers will block it. The sad thing is that it would be really easy to fix the problem, but it requires him to be willing to change a few things. Using his tools to publish to the web is going to be a problem down the road.
@Ron you are absolutely correct. And if you venture to ask a slightly off-topic question on the user support Github repo - no comments for you! Delete!
@frankm good observation, I will see what I can do. For my information, what would be needed to fix the HTTPS support problem?
@johnjohnston thanks for the comments, I appreciate it! I just noticed that you have joined the Drummer test group, let me know if you start a test blog!
@AndySylvester Besides hosting the html on a server that supports https all the Javascript source includes in the html need to use https. If you view source of the page you see JavaScript source like to several servers, scripting.com, Fargo.io, etc. I would put them all on one server and manage the code there, all you need is a static server. Digital Ocean app platform provides free static hosting based on a GitHub repo and it automated the ssl cert.
@AndySylvester I worked this out by testing hosting pagepark on Digital Ocean app platform but to make it work I had to customize the template files so they used https. I curled copies of all the included JavaScript and images and put them on shared.frankmcpherson.net that is built from github.com/fmcpherso... I took down the instance of pagepark that I stood up but my notes are here: my.this.how/frankm/my...
@AndySylvester Sorry for the multiple responses. Is pagePark the backend for Drummer? I assume it is. If I were Dave I would look at using Cloudron www.cloudron.io to handle the pagePark hosting because it provides very simple, point and click deployment and is free for two apps on a cloud hosting provider of your choice. To do it right though means moving pagePark over to https. My experience found it can be done and how to do it, but doing it for myself breaks from the source locations Dave is managing so I would automatically get any updates that he makes, and manual tracking is too much effort.
@frankm wrote: "Wish someone who Dave will listen to can explain that his unwillingness to support HTTPS is hostile to users."
That's an interesting thought experiment! Can you give me an example of someone who Dave will listen to?? The only person I can think of is Doc Searls, but Doc is not a web developer. He uses whatever the latest thing it is that Dave has produced. So I don't think Doc could budge the needle with Dave about http. Can you suggest anyone else?
You also wrote: "it would be really easy to fix the problem, but it requires him to be willing to change a few things."
See my comments to Andy earlier today about Dave providing user support to his users. It's not something he enjoys doing and I think that is damaging his legacy. He has created many important tools, but I don't think he gets sufficient credit for those things. He's not actually that old, but I think he often comes across to bloggers as the old guy storming out onto his porch & yelling to the neighborhood kids, "Hey you kids, get off my lawn!"
I might be entirely wrong, but I don't see a workable strategy for implementing your plan of how to adjust Dave's way of doing things.
Cheers,
Ron
if micro.blog supported OPML would that remove the need for ‘Drummer’ … or is there something else … ‘glossary’ maybe?
// @manton .. any thoughts on OPML - or does that open up a can of worms - if not necessitate ‘starting again’.
And really is OPML a different use case?
@JohnPhilpin I'll give you my standard answer to all questions like this:
Huh? I'm an excellent tax accountant. I can do double entry and many US tax returns in my sleep.
I hope this helps. Ron
@AndySylvester @Ron There's no chance that I won't try Drummer when it's available. I think Dave's tools are brilliant. I used Frontier for years and there's still nothing else quite like it. Fargo and 1999 were terrific blogging tools that think the way I do. The problem is that I've been bitten by Dave's tendency to jump to the next thing and leave the current users flailing about on their own. And, as mentioned in this thread, his bedside manor has some shortcomings. I was once critical of the way 1999 handled something on the server and he (publicly) called me a "troll". That stung, because I was just trying to help. However, his stuff is so unique and clever that I always go back for more :).
@jack I always love Dave's excitement with all things he tries with his blogs (for example the way he has finally got tags working with his blog 👍🏽). I cannot appreciate the usefulness of the Outliner the way he does (and many from the early days of the tech). But I respect his belief that it is important. So even I will try out Drummer once it is available. @Ron @AndySylvester
@JohnPhilpin @Ron @andysylvester I'll have to keep an eye on Drummer when it's ready. For OPML, we've thought about import and export for blog subscriptions... Currently we consider the feeds you add to your account semi-private so that's why I haven't added export yet.
@frankm thanks for the details! I thought Dave was using appServer (https://github.com/scripting/appServer) for the Drummer backend, but pagePark makes more sense. I will take a look at your files.
@JohnPhilpin John, Drummer is a scripting environment for Javascript like the Frontier application of long ago from Dave Winer. That is not the same as micro.blog. OPML is a file format for outliners. If there was an API to allow Drummer outline users to post to a blogging service, that would be the way I see people hooking Drummer into other apps.
@jack I understand your concern about "working with Dave's tools". He has already slapped down a few people in the test group for posts that were not within his guidelines. I will keep posting about Drummer as it continues in development.
@manton @JohnPhilpin @Ron if you are thinking about adding "OPML support", my suggestion would be to follow the example of the Meta Weblog API (https://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPCMetaWeblogAPI), allowing alternate editors for micro.blog (which I think is already supported)
@AndySylvester 👍 Yep, we fully support MetaWeblog. Maybe Drummer could support posting so you could author a blog post in Drummer and post to Micro.blog from an outline?
@manton @Andysylvester the metaweblogAPI seems like a way forward. As far as I recall I used Fargo to post to my blog and that was built in via the metaweblogAPI. At the time I was using pivot, rather than WordPress but the principal should be the same.
@johnjohnston @AndySylvester @Ron @jack @JohnPhilpin @amit This is a fascinating thread. I'm an active tester of Drummer (PagePark not the backend, btw) and very much liking the way it returns me to a fluid style of web writing. But Micro.blog and Textpattern, my other tools, are near and dear to my heart (fantastic user communities and support). I plan to write up notes on the experience.
@antonzuiker @manton @Andysylvester @Jack My read is that Drummer could be made to work with micro.blog or other back ends in a manner similar to how Drafts and MarsEdit does today. However, someone other than Dave will have to to it. Since appears to support, and I assume execute, JavaScript, that should be easy enough to do.
@manton @AndySylvester Manton, maybe you could work out a deal with Dave to provide user support for his new blogging apps. He loves to write these blogging apps, but hates providing user support. You do excellent support, so it seems it could be a very advantageous arrangement for all. Read the other postings on these threads about Dave. Support has always been the Achilles heel of Dave's blogging tools. He has written tons of great blogging tools, but I fear his problems with support could seriously damage his legacy in the world of blogging.
@manton yes, I think it could, once the public release of Drummer happens, perhaps a user might pick up this development task.
@antonzuiker @johnjohnston @Ron @jack @JohnPhilpin @amit thanks for being a part of the conversation! Creating posts in Drummer using the Old School blog tool is fun and fluid. I am enjoying trying out different parts of Drummer involving OPML. When the public release happens, I think developers could extend Drummer to use the Meta Weblog API to post from an OPML outliner. To me, though, the more important part of this is the communication (what ideas people have to share) and the community (having conversations with each other). The tools themselves should encourage and support these two goals. And, most importantly, there is no one tool/application that does everything!
@frankm @antonzuiker @manton @Andysylvester @Jack I agree that Meta Weblog API support could be added to Drummer. I think that it will be up to someone else than Dave Winer to do it. In the early days of Drummer testing, Dave mentioned that he does not want to be the only person running a Drummer server. To me, that means a public release so that others could run their own installs (like pagePark, River5, etc). I have written a Javascript script in Drummer to create a web-based presentation (reused logic from Little Outliner), so I think implementing Meta Weblog API should be possible. Do I want to do it? No, I have other projects I am more interested in/invested in. But someone else might....
@antonzuiker does the ‘fluid’ part relate to ability to edit a post at the same place as the view ( does that make sense? ) in other things in the @dave world that I liked this was the best.
@AndySylvester You're probably right. And it's probably also the case that neither of them would ever listen to any advice from me, even if well intended. They are both intent upon doing their own separate thing. Maybe they are alike in that way; stubbornly independent. It's all just a waste of time for me. I'll post this for now, but may delete it later.
@Ron @AndySylvester I'm always listening. The trick is putting all the feedback into the context for what is best for Micro.blog users, which it sometimes takes a while to feel out. For Drummer, I haven't been following it closely so this thread has sparked my interest to keep a closer eye on it.
@Ron you had a good idea, there is nothing wrong with sharing it. I find that it is easy for me to get distracted by multiple things and have to make a conscious effort to stay focused on whatever my top priority project is.
@manton Yes, I think you would be wise to keep an eye on Drummer. Anton has already said, "very much liking the way it returns me to a fluid style of web writing." Dave is a genius at making his tools so easy to use. Dave is actively blogging every day and understands what a blogger needs! That fluid style totally describes what I always experience when using Dave's 1999 software.
@JohnPhilpin John, I suggest that you listen to the 24 mins podcast that Dave posted on his blog yesterday. He discusses his goal of providing tools (Drummer) to make writing more fluid. His tools are great because they are written for writers. That is what makes his stuff so special for writers.