This responsiveness seems to come from the front end being created using JavaScript (only 62kb compressed, apparently) and the HTML5 canvas element (update: more on that implementation). Seeing other examples of what its capable of, I really need to start learning more about canvas.

Bear in mind that I’ve only really noticed the power of TXP in the last year or so, and there may be a heap of other plugins that I’m unaware of; listed below are just my favourites that I’ve discovered so far.

First, as I mentioned before, is the Restyled Admin Interface theme. I find the default admin theme to be plain (if not ugly) and the tabs and links too small, so this modified theme makes it a little fresher and easier to use. Also, if you’re delivering a TXP site to a client, you may want to consider a branded interface.

TXP uses keywords to provide folksonomic descriptions of articles, but on a fresh install they have no interactive properties. Tru_tags (latest (undocumented) release available here) extends keywords into a full-featured tagging utility, allowing you to categorise and increase the findability of your articles.

A must for any modern blogging software (sadly) is a spam filter, and mem_akismet integrates the popular (and excellent) Akismet filter into TXP. You will need a WordPress.com API key, however.

Another vital feature is provided by wet_parachute, which flashes up an alert if you navigate away from an article without saving your data. I’ve lost incomplete articles in this way before; this would have saved me the time I spent rewriting them.

For the times when you need to take your site offline temporarily: cbs_maintenance_mode provides a switch to toggle between states, and displays a 503 error message page.

Once your site is up and running, rah_sitemap generates a sitemaps.org compatible XML file which will aid search engines to crawl your site. The default options should be sufficient, but a customisation panel is also provided for you to fine-tune the output.

I think these five plugins and the admin theme mod provide tweaks that really complement the already impressive default install; in fact, I’d suggest that their functionality be rolled into the next release.

That said, there are so many plugins available that I’m sure I’ve missed some important ones; if so, do be sure and let me know in the comments.

The revamped UI for WordPress was released in March of this year. It was created by the esteemed Happy Cog Studios, in a process which doesn’t seem to have been much reported on (at least, I can’t find anything) other than in their own portfolio.

For the forthcoming release of 2.7, the in-house team at Automattic (the owners of WordPress) are preparing a slight refresh of the admin theme, which will focus on layout issues raised in user feedback. In the last few weeks they’ve begun releasing details of the plans; you can download copies of the wireframe proposals, for example.

One aspect of their process I find a little strange is asking users for opinions on layout decisions — without providing demos. I mean, user feedback is good; but it’s hard to make an informed decision on usability unless you actually get to try it out. You might think that something is aesthetically pleasing or logically positioned based on visuals alone, but then change your mind completely when it comes to actually interacting with it. This user involvement is doubtless not harmful, but I’m not sure how useful it is either.

That aside, it’s nice to see another big open source project taking user experience seriously, and making the process transparent.

Now, if we could get him to design the Drupal user interface (as Veerle Pieters is doing with Expression Engine), that would really be something.

This was the case with a client site I’m building using CMS Made Simple at the moment, and the results page suffered from a lack of clarity. Thinking of a way to simplify the page, I remembered the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” and hit upon the idea of using Google’s Chart API to replace the figures:

<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bhs&chd=t:{$entry->weight}&chs=32x16" alt="Bar chart showing {$entry->weight}%" title="{$entry->weight}%" />

That made the resulting output very easy to understand at a glance:

There’s nothing spectacular or groundbreaking about this technique, I just used it on a site I’m building and thought it would be nice to share. Plus, it gave me the chance to do a little promotion for CMSMS, which I use a lot.

Unfortunately, what I learned is that Textpattern is not suitable for most of the projects I work on. It’s easy to work with, but doesn’t have the flexiblity I require.

It requires that the site admin marks up the blocks that will be editable by adding class=“cushycms” to their containing elements; the web-based application will then automatically find each marked element in the pages you assign to it and open a text area (with or without WYSIWYG editor) allowing the user to edit.

In its current state it wouldn’t be suitable for sites with a lot of pages, but if you run a small, brochure-type site for a customer who wanted to make occasional updates, this could be a better solution in some cases than installing a full database-powered CMS.

I’d prefer it to have a better WYSIWYG editor, and it would be more useful if the interface could be branded and hosted on your own server. However, the creators are open to feedback and these ideas and many others have been suggested already.

While it may not (yet?) be the answer to all your content management requirements, CushyCMS is a neat, clever little app that would be useful for small businesses or for small clients. It’s currently in Private Beta only, but if you watch the introductory video closely, that won’t be a barrier to entry.