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Reviving Blogging plugin

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Re: [fuzzy logic] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
For those wondering what's going on...

I've been rewriting the whole thing from scratch. I'll probably have a browseable demo (no admin access) posted this weekend.

Here's a short rundown of how things are going to work now:

URLs to each article, profile, etc., look like directories/files, like how page.cgi works. For example, articles can be accessed as "blog.cgi/site_directory/article/12345.html" or "blog.cgi?g=site_directory/article/12345.html". This means it'll be easier for you to run a simple rewrite rule to get these dynamic pages to appear static.

A single user can be own one or more blog sites. He may invite a friend to become an editor. That person would recieve an email with an activation key to join that blog. The person would need to register a Links account and/or login if neccessary to complete the activation.

The owner can then individualize the permssions for each editor. They may be marked as "admin", where they have same control as the owner of the site. Or, you can specify which functions: general settings, templates, etc. they have control over.

Same goes for posting. You can assign a category to each editor, whether or not they need to be approved prior to posting, and so on.

You'll also be able to "sticky" a post to the top of the main page and/or its category. Or save the post as a draft.

I'm sure I'm going to alienate a few people with this next one:

I've become pretty fond of using GLinks 3.0 template system. It allows for complex data structures in tags, as well as nested loops.

It's because of this I'm going to be making 3.0 a requirement. (I suppose you could copy GT::Template into 2.x)

I believe it makes sense to enforce naming structure for related data (ie, <%Post.Title%> rather than <%Title%>). This also helps avoid a global tag from being temporarily overwritten during a loop.

As I said, nested loops are very helpful when bulding tabular data. For example, a calendar.

Code:
<table border="1">
<tr><td colspan="7"><%Calendar.Title%></td></tr>
<%loop Calendar.Weeks%>
<tr>
<%loop Week.Days%>
<td width="20">
<%if Day.HasPosts%><a href="blog.cgi/<%Site.DirName%>/archive/<%Calendar.Year%>/<%Calendar.Month%>#<%Day.Date%>"><%endif%>
<%Day.Date%>
<%if Day.HasPosts%></a><%endif%>
</td>
<%endloop%>
</tr>
<%endloop%>
</table>

The nested looping also makes it possible to include a date header between each days posts.

An idea I'm toying around with is building static pages. Since this is potentially hazardous, I'd like opinion on whether or not to include this option. Maybe this would be on/off globably in the plugin options, or individualized on a site by site basis.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [fuzzy logic] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
Can this plugin be used along with the links or is it one or the other (blog/glinks) but not both?
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Re: [jgkiefer] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
the blogger requires Links 3.x. Since it does not use the links or categories tables, you can use the blogger and run a directory simultaneously.

I invision the blogger being used in three ways:

1) ezine/news service to supplement content, where only admins make posts, and users add comments
2) value-added service for registered users
3) stand-alone service, ala LiveJournal and Blogger (in which case, a search engine isn't really maintained)

Due to the large overhaul of the entire plugin, I don't expect to have a fully functional demo running until September.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [fuzzy logic] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
Wow, sounds great! I will keep watch for the release.
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Re: [fuzzy logic] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
Where can the blog plugin be found?
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Re: [gaorenst] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
Sorry, I'm not sure when this is going to get released. everytime I think I think I'm near a finalised version, I think of something that should be added/changed, which usually causes a hefty rewrite. I also must admit I haven't worked on it since maybe November... I do have other commitments, and my interests are swaying away from programming/visiting this site.

in the meantime (if you want to play around a bit) it is incredibly easy to convert a clean install of Links into a basic blog by simply customising the link fields and sort order options.

Obviously that wouldn't be quite as robust as a specialized plugin would be, but it is how I've run my web site for the past 2 years or so. Some of my categories host links, while othes are for blog entries, use additional fields, and are sorted in reverse chronilogical order (rather than new, popular, etc.).

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.
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Re: [fuzzy logic] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
May I see one of your sites so I can see an example?
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Re: [gaorenst] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
http://www.perlmad.net (doesn't get updated much)

blog categories are "Day in the Life of WalMart" and "Ramblings", and uses the "link detail" page to display content ("internal links"). A minor hack was required to add a custom sort order so that when a custom sort is defined, it's used instead of the sort order defined in the admin panel. (That might have been posible with a plugin, which is prefereable to do since an update/upgrade would likely overwrite those changes, but I couldn't figure out how at the time.)

Standard link categories are "Links" and "On the Bookshelf".

"Photo Gallery" is another example of internal linking, with a custom link template for thumbnail views and descriptions.

"Programs" is FAQ, programs, and project listing using the "link detail" function.

Remember, a lot can be done by simply adding more fields and assigning different templates for each type of category.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

Last edited by:

fuzzy logic: Jan 20, 2006, 9:19 PM
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Re: [fuzzy logic] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
does not appear to be up.
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Re: [gaorenst] Reviving Blogging plugin In reply to
typo... try again

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.
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