Beaten With The Ugli Stick

I know I said I wasn’t going to write much about Tangelo on this weblog anymore, but I can’t help myself. And, what, are you gonna stop me?

Huh?

Didn’t think so.

Anyway, I’ve released a new version of Tangelo into the wild, version 1.2b5. The big news, aside from some bug fixes, is that it supports the new Tangelo Skin system I’ve devised. The original templating system left some things to be desired. For example, the only way to specify a background image for a page element was to use an absolute URL OR to require the user of your theme to upload a certain image manually. Both options suck. So I worked around that by creating a file format (based on SQLite – Will rocks!) that bunches all the images and templates together into one file. Tangelo can then open that file, show you a preview of the skin, upload any necessary images, back up your old templates, and replace your old templates. Republish, and you’re done.

So, how to create these special files? With Ugli! Ugli is a free add-on to Tangelo that lets you create and distribute your own custom skins. And I have to say, it’s pretty cool. I still need to produce some skeletal documentation and get it over to Dave so he can flesh it out.

And the burning question: Ugli? What the crap kind of name is that? Well, an Ugli is an exotic breed of Tangelo from Jamaica. So there’s the Tangelo connection. Aaaaaaand… I couldn’t resist going for the cheap joke and releasing a design tool called Ugli. It’s too funny.

A few people (including Tom) are already working on Tangelo Skins using Ugli. I hope to see a lot of third party skins developed in the future. That would be really cool, to see a tool I created being used like that. I’m personally developing several to include with the release of Tangelo 1.2.

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