Hi I have nearly finished a mini-blog plug-in and wanted to share and discuss this with forum members. First of all the I in "I have finished" is mainly Virginia from GT, since the plug-in is based on the Personal Page plug-in that I share info about here :
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...i?post=286271#286271
So that people who are discovering this post on a blog plug-in have some forum type background info both "fuzzy logic" and "pugdog" have posted about doing plug-ins and so this is not the first post about the idea. I wouldn't want to steal their thunder or anything.
My approach is the following :
I was looking for a way to allow a Link user to create their own blog page. My strategy is that getting people to create something for themselves is generally easier than getting them to create something for you or a community. My site is about letting people share their travel experiences so that others can read about it and potentially also enjoy the place or things described.
A minimalist definition of blogs : they allow people to publish articles in categories and let visitors post comments about the articles.
Rather than go into detail on how I did it here is what the mini-blog plug-in does.
Each user that want's to can activate a blog page (make it publicly available). They can choose how many of their last articles they want to display. They can allow people to search in their articles or/and in all articles on the site. As an admin you can potentially let them choose between differently styled / designed pages…
You can get closer and closer to a full blown blog by adding the following plug-ins I had GT create : Review Mod plug-in allow as many comments as you have defined in the admin panel to be posted and require comments to be validated before being posted. Permalink plug-in allow a short permalink type url for users to refer to their articles.
By using Andy's plug-in that alerts people when a comment has been posted about their article or even a comment posted about an article where you also posted a comment you get more than most blogs solutions offer !
I am discussing with GT about creating a trackback plug-in that would allow the trackback functionality as well as a calendar/archive type plug-in that would provide the side bar link to previous articles function seen on some blogs. Although this might not be necessary from what I have just been reading about Andy's Search Date plug-in (have to check this out). I don't know if anybody has any knowledge of the trackback system as per (http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/docs/trackback_spec) ?
It is possible to add blog functionality to Links in varied degrees of complexity and I'd really like to know if others are interested in this. I've been trying to persuade GT this an interesting addition. I think it is a great way to get users involved in a site and get them adding content to your site and talking about the theme of your site. Let me know what you think ?
John
Significant Media
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...i?post=286271#286271
So that people who are discovering this post on a blog plug-in have some forum type background info both "fuzzy logic" and "pugdog" have posted about doing plug-ins and so this is not the first post about the idea. I wouldn't want to steal their thunder or anything.
My approach is the following :
I was looking for a way to allow a Link user to create their own blog page. My strategy is that getting people to create something for themselves is generally easier than getting them to create something for you or a community. My site is about letting people share their travel experiences so that others can read about it and potentially also enjoy the place or things described.
A minimalist definition of blogs : they allow people to publish articles in categories and let visitors post comments about the articles.
Rather than go into detail on how I did it here is what the mini-blog plug-in does.
Each user that want's to can activate a blog page (make it publicly available). They can choose how many of their last articles they want to display. They can allow people to search in their articles or/and in all articles on the site. As an admin you can potentially let them choose between differently styled / designed pages…
You can get closer and closer to a full blown blog by adding the following plug-ins I had GT create : Review Mod plug-in allow as many comments as you have defined in the admin panel to be posted and require comments to be validated before being posted. Permalink plug-in allow a short permalink type url for users to refer to their articles.
By using Andy's plug-in that alerts people when a comment has been posted about their article or even a comment posted about an article where you also posted a comment you get more than most blogs solutions offer !
I am discussing with GT about creating a trackback plug-in that would allow the trackback functionality as well as a calendar/archive type plug-in that would provide the side bar link to previous articles function seen on some blogs. Although this might not be necessary from what I have just been reading about Andy's Search Date plug-in (have to check this out). I don't know if anybody has any knowledge of the trackback system as per (http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/docs/trackback_spec) ?
It is possible to add blog functionality to Links in varied degrees of complexity and I'd really like to know if others are interested in this. I've been trying to persuade GT this an interesting addition. I think it is a great way to get users involved in a site and get them adding content to your site and talking about the theme of your site. Let me know what you think ?
John
Significant Media
Blog Plug-in Project