So I’ve not posted anything for over 6 months…
…why on earth not?

Well, mainly because I have been really busy, but also because I’ve been spending much of my time getting lost in WordPress.

By getting lost I don’t mean disorientated and confused – in fact WordPress is a great little blogging/CMS system for the non-technical user with it’s intuitive user interface and now in version 2.7 the ability to cusomise the admin, hiding panels and options that you don’t use on a regular basis.

I’ve been absorbing myself in the code, examining plugins and themes, and getting to grips with hooks and filters. Under the bonnet, WordPress provides an extensive interface into which developers can create complex plugins and created rich, visual, interactive themes. And one thing is clear…

…a WordPress site does not necessarily have to look or behave like a blog.

Check out some of these themes and sites – they all run WordPress, honest (or at least they did the last time I looked):

• Reform & Revolution
• Seek & Destroy Clothing
• Modularity Theme
• On Demand Theme
• BuddyPress
• Typographica
• John Saddington
• Fotofolio Theme

This looks interesting…
Easy-to-integrate online website content management.

Adobe InContext Editing appears to be a move on from Adobe Contribute, disposing of the local application and providing a Rich Internet Application (RIA) which will allow you to edit predetermined areas of your web site, presumable defined by Dreamweaver-style editable areas. This it great as it will

• give website designers control over their design
• give website owners control over their content, anywhere with a web connection

Adobe have published only a limited amount of information on their site at present but do say that the service will use Flash and Javascript to provide an editor interface via your web browser.

I can currently find very little technical information about the service or ideas of pricing/license structures. Will it run directly on your own web server or will it work via an Adobe server, and as such will it be a one-off fee or will there be a subscription-based payment plan. At the moment Adobe really aren’t giving anything away.

Furthermore, I won’t be able to try it out yet as Adobe have decided to release the preview version only in the United States in October 2008. Why Adobe, why?

If you are lucky enough to live in the US and able to try out inContext Editing next month, please post your comments below so all of us across the pond can get an insight into this CMS solution.

Read more on the Adobe Web Site.