Published: 05-09 2006
Title: Seasonal Images
Topic: Blogging Software

I've added a banner image, and set it up so that the images change by season, well sort of:

$season = date('m');

if ($season >= 1 && $season <= 4){
$season = 'snow.jpg';
}

elseif ($season >= 5 && $season <= 8){
$season = 'summer.jpg';
}

elseif ($season >= 9 && $season <= 12){
$season = 'autumn.jpg';
}

Published: 02-09 2005
Title: RSS feeds
Topic: Blogging Software

As I continue to tinker with my weblog software, I am beginning to see it as a desktop replacement, the primary two-way link to the outside world. I've added a news feeder, a drop down list box containing xml rss links to various news sources. At the moment, this is just a file. But it could be drawn from a database instead. I think I should add it to GSU_Blogs setup files so that when students create a weblog, it will come with links to good news sources. I guess I should first decide what "good news sources" might be.

Published: 03-29 2004
Title: Updates to blogware
Topic: Blogging Software

I've added a "permalink" feature, which i called bookmark. The script simply snags the url and opens it in a seperate page so a person can bookmark that particular blog entry.

I've added a "trackback" feature that keeps track of referrers. I have to track down where this script came from because i didn't write it and don't remember where it came from now.

I fixed a bug in the email notification script.

currently my own blog has these features and I've not ported them yet to the http://rhetcomp.gsu.edu/blogs site.

Published: 09-21 2003
Title: Beta release of GSU_Blogs
Topic: Blogging Software

I've been trying to develop a blogging infrastructure that will enable GSU students to keep an online journal without having to pay money or install software. I've got a beta together that does pretty much what I want. It's not particularly well built in that it replicates all of its files in a new user's directory instead of just permitting users to use exising files. Nevertheless, as it's made of just text files, for the most part, it's not to bad.

Features:

1. calendar navigation
2. key word navigation
3. comments
4. search
5. email updates
6. upload images
7. most recently updated blogs list
8. css modifiable
9. links list
10. topics list

Published: 09-11 2003
Title: Progress on the portable blog software
Topic: Blogging Software

I've got a system working now that enables people to keep their own blog on rhetcomp without having to do anything more than fill out a form. If they want to skin it they have to deal with CSS, which is something I need to work on. I also need to separate the mysql connect statements from edit and display and delete and put them into config or sysmain I guess it is. The whole system could use a most recently blogged list. And I need a better picutre upload and link procedure. (link)

Published: 05-21 2003
Title: Enhancements to the original software
Topic: Blogging Software

Things I've added or alterted to the original blogware that this system is based on:

1. html wysiwyg interface on entry screen
2. password protected edit function
3. password protected delete function
4. search facility
5. sort by topics
6. date in unix form
7. email list
8. disintegrated comments
9. more extensive style sheet

Published: 05-20 2003
Title: broadcasting script
Topic: Blogging Software

First go at including a broadcastor. If I get it working I will come back and elaborate.

That took all of 15 minutes. Well, I haven't put the signup form on my page yet, but who the hell wants a realtime update for me? Anyway, the code's cake.

$update = "The following just appeared on Pullman's Blog
";
$update .= "Title: $title
n";
$update .= "Content: $body nn";
$recipients = "emails.txt";
$fp = fopen($recipients, "r+");
$emails = fread($fp, filesize($recipients));

mail("$emails", "Pullman Blogs",$update, "From: gpullman@gsu.edu");

edit to suit and don't forget to make a file called emails.txt and chmod it to 755 so it can be written to.

Also, there should be a back slash to escape each of the end-of-line "n"s. You may not be able to see it here because stripslashes is in effect.

Published: 05-16 2003
Title: More tweaking
Topic: Blogging Software

I just realized that the comments feature isn't working. I guess I severed whatever ties the comment to the blog entry when I disconnected the comments feature and moved it to it's own file (comments.php). May take a while to fix that and I should really work on the CW paper instead.

four hours of rumination and 1 hour of mucking about I have it working. The problem of course was that by disintegrating the comments script I left in ignorant of the id it needed to call the right comment. It took me a while to realize that view=$id was the expression I needed, some time to get that into the popup javascript, and some more time to realize the popup function would have to be not in the top of the file but anywhere below where $id had been define. Seems to be working fine now.

Published: 05-16 2003
Title: More tweaking
Topic: Blogging Software

Added search feature. It queries the cBody table of the blog db and returns any instances of the word. The results are displayed in a separate page. Not elegant, but functional. I got the search script from http://www.designplace.org. It was missing a semi-colon on line 14 and so it took a while to get running. After changing the script to view your db, you will want to also alter how it displays the results. What's left?

Published: 05-13 2003
Title: More tweaking
Topic: Blogging Software

In the past several days I worked on the css, added the script that transforms the mysql date stamp into a unix one (entry in mysql topics) and today I disintegrated the comments from the main entries, to make it look more like most blogs. I simply cut the relevant script out of the index.php page and saved to its own page called comments. php. I think used a javascript popup revised for php to popup a window for the comments to appear in:

echo " &ltSCRIPT language='"JavaScript"'>
function view(){
window.open("comments.php", "comments",
"width=650, height=300, menubar=yes, resizable=auto, scrollbars=no, titlebar=no, toolbar=no, left=no, top=no") }";

and then the standard call: &ltA href="javascript:view()"&gtcomment&lt/A&gt

 

Published: 05-12 2003
Title: Date Transformation
Topic: Blogging Software

The blog software I based this system on uses a mysql date format yyyy-dd--mm but most people would rather read Day, Month, Year. To transform the mysql data, include the following in your index.php file

//date transformation script from http://gertrude.anglia.ac.uk/webteam/tips/php_sql/convert_date.htm

list($Year,$Month,$Day) = split('-',$html_date);
//Remove the '-' from the standar MySQL sate format
$stampeddate = mktime(12,0,0,$Month,$Day,$Year);
//Create a UNIX style timestamp from the result
$html_date = date("l, M j,  Y",$stampeddate);

Published: 04-25 2003
Title: Yet more tweaking
Topic: Blogging Software

I've added a .quote class:
.quote {
 border: 0px;
 background-color: #fff;
 margin-left: 50px;
 width: 400px;
 font: 12px/16px trebuchet ms, times new roman, monospace;
 color: #666;
 text-align: justify;
 }

I also added a .table class so that I can separate some tabled items but not all

.table {border: 1px solid black;

These css effects have only been added to the index.php page. I could add them to edit_display and topic_display, but I don't think I'll bother for now. I think maybe I want to re-write the code so the way css work is clearer to me. I can't seem to get the "friends" or other people's blogs links separated. Its tabe must be differently stuctured.

Published: 04-22 2003
Title: Still Tinkering
Topic: Blogging Software

Can't seem to get a color scheme  I like. The ones out there i admire have fonts too small for me to read and layouts less busy that mine. You'd think if you know what you want you could make it, but not me or at least not yet. Orange is said to convey confidence. But it reminds me of holloween. Then again, I see bugs bunny cartoons when I hear classical music. So as a test audience I'm way too unreliable.

Published: 04-15 2003
Title: Finishing touches?
Topic: Blogging Software

I have the display maintaining state now. I'm still unsure of exactly how the color scheme works. There's a css file but also some colors in the config file and also some inline styles. I've exaserbated that by adding a few of my own on the fly. But, I'm nearly done tinkering for now.

For the future, it would be neat if instead of topics I had students and when you clicked on a student the diplay in the center showed their work (can do that now) and the calendar switched to their calendar. Must require some kind of bridging in the db. Unclear.

Published: 04-14 2003
Title: More progress on my version of this blogging sofware
Topic: Blogging Software

Well, I now have a list by topic feature and a way to add new topics to the selection, so I guess there are now at least two ways to sort and locate information, but date and by topic. I wonder if one stores by topic if one is no longer blogging. After all, the definition of blogging is typically regularly updating a site with posts displayed in revers chronological order. So, what are the significant differences among blogging and online news reporting and electronic commonplace books and online diaries? It seems as though the form of display, the kind of content, the kind of retrieval, who writes, who reads, and what is written might all play a part. I'm getting off topic. 

I still have to integrate my additions to the code better with the existing setup, so my efforts display in the center of the index page and not on entirely seperate pages that look completely different. To do this I have to grock the original script better, but I feel pretty close to there. I also want to change the color scheme.

Published: 04-13 2003
Title: More additions
Topic: Blogging Software

There's a blog I've seen (and bookmarked at work so can't cite it here) that sorts its entries by topic. It has multitple contributors, which means also that it's bound to have many different pieces of information.

Note: Also need to decide a style sheet -- should titles be initial caps or just the first word?