Forum OpenACS Development: lars-blogger v0.7d committed to CVS

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Posted by Vinod Kurup on
I finished porting lars-blogger to Oracle and committed it to CVS just now. lars-blogger is a tool for creating and maintaining weblog entries. There's more information at http://www.pinds.com/doc/lars-blogger/. Here are a couple sites using lars-blogger if you want to see it in action: Report bugs & feature requests at the SDM. Enjoy!
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Posted by Lars Pind on
Thanks for porting it and adding it to the OpenACS tree, Vinod.
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Posted by defunct defunct on
Yes, many thanks also. We may actually need this quite soon...

Just on a real nit-picky point. Is there any chance of renaming the package? I know it sounds really,really trite, but a little while ago there was a discussion about giving packages more 'recognisable' and 'proper' names (I hate that expression, apologies)....

For example Spam, was considered a name with negative/unprofessional connertations....

I also recall a posting not too long ago wher some asked what a 'blogger' was...!

Could we not just rename it to web-logger, or something like that??

Cheers
Simon

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Posted by Roberto Mello on
I also thought about this for a second when I saw vinod's commit note. Of course, the package author should be the one to answer this question, but a more recognisable name would be nice, IMHO.
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Posted by Janine Ohmer on
FWIW, blogger is a pretty common term these days.  I was recently talking to someone who went to an O'Reilly conference where there was a lot of talk about blogging;  he didn't know what it was either when he first heard it, but when O'Reilly starts using a name you know it has become mainstream. :)
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Posted by defunct defunct on
Hmmm.... are you sure its not an Americanism?

Can't be all that common if neither I nor anyone else I know has come across it..?

Hey ho... not a big deal really :)

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Posted by Michael Feldstein on
O'Reilly actually uses blogging quite a bit (and fairly well, too, IMHO). Check out the right-hand column at http://www.oreillynet.com.
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Posted by Ben Koot on
Here's an interesting article on blogging. IMHO you can see it as a modern replacement of a personal homepage. At least that's the way I will be introducing the blog concept in my travel network That could save me a hell of a lot of discussion about creating websites for members, as well a save time un maintenance and updating of content. and maintenance. I hope blog will make it as part of OpenACS core.
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Posted by Roberto Mello on
I don't see any reason why lars-blogger should be made part of the OpenACS core. It should remain as a package available for everyone, of course, but not as part of the core.

"Core" is defined as: "The most important part of a thing; the essence; as, the core of a subject." (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary).

We want to keep the OpenACS core clean and mean. If you want an OpenACS that will automatically create everything for user personal pages, then create a vertical app which will also install lars-blogger.

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Posted by Tom Jackson on

So is blogging something like a bboard thread where only one person can contribute? I thought I knew what this was, but I am beginning to wonder given the hype.

I need to write an app where a user can log progress on learning a numbered skill. The point is to provide context to the user as they learn, and to assist others in learning by reading their comments, if the comments are public. Maybe a coach could read the comments to catch up on what the user is doing/trying. I would hate to have to mount a new instance for each log. Is this the way the lars-blogger works?

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Posted by Jon Griffin on
Tom,
I was about to ask a similar question. I host a site for an alumni group and I would like each person in the group to have their own blog without mounting a subsite for each person.

I don't think this is the way it works though. In my case I can mount the blogger on the group subsite, but I would have to make it writeable to everyone in the group. This sort of works but not really. It is an interesting concept though I think it is not so much a community based package.

Please correct me if I am wrong as I haven't mounted the package yet so I am not sure.

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Posted by Cynthia Kiser on
Hmm I want to do exactly the same thing as Jon. Sounds like we have our first feature enhancement request - before even downloading the package - add the ability to have multiple blogs with different owners without making separate sub-sites for each. (FYI my application of a blogger would be a training diary - horses in my case but the same concept would hold for runners, etc.)
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Posted by Dave Bauer on
You don't need a subsite.
Just mount the package in more than one folder.

Edit-this-page has code that actually manages this for you.

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Posted by Tom Jackson on

Actually this is a pretty major feature for the website I am working on. Just becoming a user should be enough to create a separate log. However, the idea of training of horses, seems to imply the focus of the log may not be the user. Some users might need more than one log for different purposes. Some users might share a single log. Hmm.

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Posted by defunct defunct on
Michael,

But they don't refer to it as 'blogger' but rather weblog..... that was my only point.... just a naming convention

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Posted by Ben Koot on
Sorry for my misuse of the term acs core. I meant to say "it would be great to have it available as default module in the acs distribution".
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Posted by Lars Pind on
As the author, I figured I'd jump in :)

I don't really have a problem one way or the other. Blogger, weblogger, weblog, it's close enough to me. Saying weblog spells it out a bit more.

/Lars

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Posted by Jeff Davis on
I am coming to this late but one thing I would point out is that blogger
is in fact a trademark of Pyra Labs ( http://www.blogger.com ) or so they claim (I could not find it at the PTO).

We should change the name.

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Posted by Vinod Kurup on
OK...

anyone object to 'weblog'? If not, I'll make the changes. I'm going to change the SQL files and TCL files so that all the procs and tables are named consistently with the package.

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Posted by defunct defunct on
Sounds fine!
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Posted by Lars Pind on
Sounds good to me.

Weblogger, perhaps?

It's really not important.

/Lars