As I got to the sidewalk a black limo glided up and a couple of educator types got out, armed with rulers, grabbed me by the arms and hustled me to the back of the car. “McVerry, wants to show you something,” said one, with a pencil stored over her ear while the other one shoved a hood over my head. “The hood is for your own protection so you can’t reveal our destination to any of them later.
All I can say, is we ended up at one of Greg McVerry‘s many super secret bases, heavily guarded by librarians and dusty library cats. I was in the Area 51 of Greg’s cyberworld getting a behind the scenes look at a secret Known install.
And you know, Known is really nice. The script is really cool and easy to use. Understandably, I only got to see it from a posters POV and not an admin’s but what I saw was slick and clean UI. And it does Indieweb right out of the box – also cool. I understand there are plugins to add more features to Known but I didn’t get a chance to see those. I like the wizard sort of feature that prompts you to add all your social networks and other websites upon signup – that takes care of your h-card at the same time, I assume.
Some things Known is missing:
- Templates: I always like a sidebar and as far as I can tell Known does not have this.
- Import: I’m told there is no Import feature currently. That makes it hard to migrate in from an existing WP blog. There is an Export function, which is good.
- No automatic updates: I suspect this will come after Known hits 1.0 release but I’m just guessing.
But despite that, Known is a pretty polished script for a project that is not even at 1.0 release. It’s simple to use and attractive. I think if you are starting a new blog, Known is a good place to start if you can sort the installation and update hurdles.
Many thanks to Greg McVerry for the tour.
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