Monologue: two weeks later
I’ve launched Monologue two weeks ago now. It’s been a great ride since then. There was much more noise around it than I could have dreamed of for an initial release. Here’s a summary of what happened and what’s next.
Being featured
Monologue was first featured on “A Fresh Cup” and then on a few Ruby and Rails blogs and such. It was then featured on the well-known Ruby5 (a great show!) from Envy Labs (Gregg Pollack and Nathaniel Bibller recorded that one). Thanks to Olivier Lacan from Codeschool/Envy Labs who’ve inserted a story in that Ruby5 episode! And then, a bunch of resources talked about Monologue including Ruby Weekly. People from all around the globe visited my blog and talked about Monologue, in multiple languages I don’t understand (sorry, I’ve only been taught five languages, there is a bunch left!).
So what?
This is pretty cool as it confirms that there is some need for minimalist Rails (mountable) blogging engine. There’s, as of now, 83 watchers and 11 forks of Monologue, which is astounding for something so young and so basic. I was thinking: “if there are 10 followers after a week, I will be more than happy”. There were 70 watchers after 5 or 6 days and already like 9 or 10 forks. This meant a load of hit on my blog too compared to what I am used to, which is completely insignificant compared to projects I work on every day, I know! ;)
What’s next?
There’s a 0.1.1 version coming real soon which will include at least those:
- the “comment” link in admin now works as expected and shows all comments from your Disqus account;
- you can now use your main_app layout. You only add a configuration to Monologue to do so.
There are plans to add tags and much more (but not too much). Here is a preview of what 0.2.0 might include: http://cl.ly/200Y2H0z443e411V0c3O.
There will be soon™ work to make sure Monologue can be embedded painlessly in an app already using Spree, Refinery or only Devise which are pretty common uses for mountable engines I think. Not sure yet if it will be in 0.1.X or 0.2.0.
There is also plans for extensions for things like:
- Markdown editor
- Syntax highlighting
- Sitemap generator
- Easy contact form
For extensions, I will probably go with the same unwritten rule as Spree: it will be in core if 80% of people is using it, else, it will belong to extensions.
Peace.
