The Habari project just released version 0.5 of its blogging software!

You can download Habari from this link or you can read more about the project here.

The third development release of the Habari blogging platform is out. You can download it from the Habari Google Code repository or read more about this version on the Habari Wiki.

There's a great interview with the developers of Habari on the Turkish site blogkazani.

Read the interview here.

Yesterday the Habari folks released the second developer release. So I downloaded it and set it up on my localhost.

Things were pretty buggy (thus, the developer release). It would double post when you edited it, and it wouldn't work at all in Safari (my localhost give it the url http://localhost:8888/habari and Safari reads it as http://localhost:8888:8888/habari which, you know, doesn't work.

So I decided today to upload the script to my web host to see if the problems were because of my localhost setup.

At least I can say I tried.

One of the things that really bothers me about WordPress is polls. Now there are a couple of really good poll plugins for WordPress, but if you want to make the poll as part of the blog hierarchy, as part of the normal chronology of the site, you have to create the poll in one screen then add the tags to your post. Not really a friendly way to go.

In Drupal, you create the poll, and if you have the polls content type set to appear on the front page, it'll be there after you submit it.

Follow the conversation on Habari Dev's Google Groups.

Here's the reason I feel that Habari should be using categories in addition to tags:

Structure.

Categories, as archaic as some may think they are, are useful in giving sites a basic structure to build on, to navigate by, and to design around. And, I believe most importantly, gives users the ability to extend Habari better than with tags alone.

I've always believed that a content management system should be able to 'go beyond' it's basic premise. Textpattern is more than a blogging platform. And Habari can be, too.

But does this jive with the Habari mission statement? The first part reads:

Habari represents a fresh start to the idea of blogging. The system is fast, easy to use, and easy to modify. New users should have no problem using and enjoying Habari. Advanced users should have no problem tweaking Habari to do exactly what they need it to do.

So it's a blogging platform with the promise to do exactly what they want. Going on...

User-created plugins make Habari do nearly anything imaginable, and a robust theme system permits the use of several popular templating solutions.

But in order to do anything I want, Habari needs structure. And tags aren't structure. Well, they're a basic categorization system. But tags are very limited.

Mostly for my own reference (since I keep forgetting the sites) here is a list of sites for Habari the blogging software. (Currently in pre-alpha - use at your own risk.) (I'll post more about Habari later.) (Is this too many parenthetical expressions?) (Just wondering.)

Sites:
The Official Homepage
The Official (?) Wiki

Google:
Current Project Site and source