Registan, redesigned

I actually use Typepad for this blog. It’s pretty similar to Moveable Type, as it’s based on the same engine, and it does almost everything Moveable Type can.

Typepad has the advantage over MT in that you can dip your toe in gently and customise things quite well without actually getting technical. But you can develop it a lot using CSS and HTML if you want to, most easily by adapting a template you’ve designed using the Typepad interface. CSS is actually pretty easy to get to grips with, although you’ll probably spend your first several hours just looking at the screen with a baffled expression on your face. When I redesigned a few weeks back I was very pleasantly surprised to discover just how much you can actually do in Typepad - far more than I expected would be possible. For example, although I decided against them in the end, drop-down menus are pretty easy to create.

Disadvantage, of course, is that typepad is more expensive than hosting your own site using either MT or Wordpress. Although the basic option is only $4.95 per month, if you want to do any behind the scenes tinkering, you need to pay $14.95 per month for the pro version. This compares with about $5-10 per month for a hosted movable type site. MT also needs to be set up on a server and, although many hosting companies will do that for you now - I’d really recommend AQHost - you need to have a certain (quite small actually) amount of technical know-how. Or fearless stupidity.

The only thing I really would like at the moment, but can’t do with Typepad, is expandable posts. Oh, and I’d quite like an RSS feed for comments, which I don’t think Typepad offers either.

As for Wordpress, from what I’ve seen, I liked it. It seems much like Moveable type to me, although perhaps less user friendly. My overall impression (based on very limited testing a few months back) was that Wordpress would probably turn out to be better than moveable type in the long run, but wasn’t quite ready yet - it still had too many rough edges. That was a few months ago though, and a new version has since been released. Probably worth checking with Nathan on how it turned out. The big advantages that I can see is that it will (a) remain free and (b) will probably develop more and more over the coming months.

I’d really recommmend signing up for a typepad trial account for one month, and having a play around to see what you can do, and then looking into MT.