Shuttle Developments 02

Just to clarify something, this “Shuttle” is NOT a fork. We’re not planning on releasing Shuttle as an alternative to Wordpress. It’s just something that can replace the existing Wordpress admin interface to be more asthetically pleasing. Are we going to add functionality? Well it kind of makes sense. Soo many things are available from the Wordpress community that people would love to use. Obviously we’ll only include things that we think are essential and should be included. That’s why we’re asking people what they think, what they’d like to see, what they use, etc. There might be something we’re missing out on completely.

Everyone on the team LOVE Wordpress and the community and want to bring something fresh and exciting to the software, that will basically elevate it above the rest. There won’t be a reason not to use Wordpress when we’re through with it, because the code is soo good and it’s such a powerful system. Hopefully we’ll enhance the usability aspect of it, make it slightly more fun and attractive to use.

This is taken from the post I announced this idea, I’m reproducing the relavant parts:

So what is it I�m talking about you ask? The tentative title of the project (and most of you know that I�m pretty bad when coming up with names), is Shuttle. What is Shuttle? Simply, it�s going to be a brand new spanking interface for the Wordpress Admin Control Panel. I�m sorry Matt, I love you, but the Wordpress interface is something to me that is sorely lacking in style and sometimes functionality. I don�t think there are that many people (except if they�re serious coders and really don�t care what it looks like) that really love the aesthetics of the Wordpress Control Panel.

I�m going to admit something, and that�s the fact that I nearly didn�t go for Wordpress over Textpattern due to the weak interface. What can I say I�m a shallow designer, who places a lot on the actual appearance. What actually kept me was the fact that the Wordpress community was absolutely buzzing. I just had one look at the boards, and knew that if there was a question I needed it would be answered, and that was reassuring, however I�ve never liked the Control Panel, and well I don�t think it�s really on Ryan�s or Matt�s minds right now, so it�s up to the rest of the community to sort it out. That�s where the Shuttle Team come into play.

What�s the ETA on this? Don�t ask silly questions, you won�t get silly answers. To be fair I think it will be at least 2 months down the line, hopefully less, but I�m being realistic about all of this. So why mention all of this now you ask? Well as this is something that is effectively user based I�d really like to hear which plugins, functions whatever you use, used to use or whatever from other blogging systems (just name them) or whatever that you think would be perfectly suited to the admin panel.

If Matt and the rest of the team like what we’ve done, and agree with some of the changes we’ve made, it would be great to get it integrated into the proper Wordpress releases, if that doesn’t happen, that’s not a bad thing. You’ll still be able to download it from any one of out four sites, much like the 400 plus plugins, and the 40 or so themes. (ie downloading them from their respective creators).

We’re all doing this because we all feel that WP needs to be one step above the rest. The backend is one aspect which the program is somewhat lacking. Rather than bitch and moan about it, and complain, we’re being proactive and doing something we feel is right. That’s what open source projects are about. That’s why wordpress is better than the rest, the community around it is passionate about it’s use, and there are people, hunderds of people devoting hours to make it better to use.