Tumblr thoughts & issues

There were a number of things that influenced my decision to move jeffawaddell.com to Tumblr, rather than another blog platform, such as Wordpress.com.  I like Tumblr’s iPhone app and being able to post by email. I really like the ability to use a my own domai and custom themes, and the ease of editing them. It seems as easy to use as Tumblr is on the surface, there is a lot of power available to those who want to hack it via custom themes. All and all, though, Tumblr just makes Wordpress’s dashboard seem exceptionally complicated and non-user friendly. I’d compare the interface and usability of Tumblr vs. WordPress to Apple vs. Microsoft. However for all of the good, I have come across some issues, peculiarities, and areas where Wordpress, for example, still reins supreme.

• Text editing on Tumblr is limited. Why isn’t there an underline option? Granted, you can use HTML, but that requires you to go to a separate editor - you can’t intermix HTML and rich text in the editor. Wordpress’s editor is much better.
• Rich text is all messed up when editing a post on the iPhone app - is shows up as HTML, and (to my eyes) the HTML looks messed up (<span> tags everywhere, between many, many words).
• There is no way to import an existing blog (from say, Wordpress) into Tumblr - I don’t think. I ended up importing 60+ posts by hand, which was very tedious.
• On the Dashboard, are not listed by date (annoying if you backdate a post, and it still shows on top because it was the last post you made). Also, there is no way to sort posts by date for editing purposes (in both the Dashboard and iPhone app).
• Save as a draft should be a button, not an option in a drop down menu.
• There is no easy way to specify a favicon, although I suppose I can do this through custom HTML. I haven’t tried yet.
• There should be custom image and video host integration with Twitter, so a picture could be upped to Twitter from Twitter for iPhone (Tweetie) and create a new photo post on Tumblr at the same time (similar to the Wordpress plugin TweetPress by @brandontrab)
• The amazingly talented Marco Arment had left Tumblr to focus other projects (such as his fantastic Instapaper service and iOS app). This can’t be good for Tumblr’s future development. Seriously though, if you don’t have Instapaper - get it - now!

I’ve already made a number of customization to the stock Ichi theme I’m using, and I’m sure there will be many more to come:

• Add Twitter widget (and adjusting font)
• Add Tag Clouds
• Make post titles into links
• Adjust spacing
• Add header image (and menu option for uploading image to Tumblr)

On a side note, I’ve been trying to integrate my last few Tweets into my page, and came across Tumblr’s custom HTML docs where it talks about adding a {block:Twitter} block.This works, but it only shows one Tweet (my most recent). I’d like to show five tweets. Does anyone know of a way to do that?

Hello Tumblr…

Over the years, I’ve used a number of blogging platforms for hosting my website and blog. Most recently, I’ve been using a self-hosted WordPress installation, but before that I went back and forth between Blogger and Wordpress.com. Even though I’ve rarely posted thoughts to my blog since the advent of Twitter and meta-blogging, there are times when 140 characters are not enough to express myself, and I resort to writing a new post. I’ve really enjoyed the flexibilty I’ve had these last two years with Wordpress, and it’s ability to easily install custom themes (and the vast number of themes available) and tweak features to my liking through extensions. The limited customization available with Wordpress.com and Blogger are what drove me away to begin with.

Alas, the fantastic $14 for two years hosting deal I have with DreamHost is coming to an end, and I really can’t justify the expense of a hosting plan relative to my current needs. So, I once again began the search for my blog’s new free (or cheap) home. I again considered Wordpress.com, but quickly ruled out Blogger, as it’s been languishing for years. However, there have been a few newcomers to the scene during my Wordpress absence that I wanted to checkout, and which honestly, impressed me a bit more than Wordpress.com. These included Tumblr and Posterous. After experimenting with my options, I ultimately chose Tumblr (at least for now), and here I am. Hello Tumblr. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.