Random Bytes...by Ross Rader

Re: Fiddling Part I

Ross — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 14:48:29 -0400

David Akin has been fiddling with Blogware and has penned a decent entry detailing his observations and best of all, problems, with the tool so far.

Changing to a custom URL is pretty straightforward with Blogware (even if I haven't written that part of the documentation yet ;). Simply go to the Settings tab in your control panel and change the "Blog URL" to whatever hostname you iwsh. Note that this will a) have the effect of forcing all inbound links to your blog to break - which isn't an issue this early into the blog's lifespan (unless you count this post). And b) that you must have a DNS server that can serve records for the URL that you've set up. If you are using a blogware.com subdomain, we take care of this for you. If you want to use something custom at a domain name that you own (like blog.davidakin.com) you must create a CNAME that points blog.davidakin.com to users.blogware.com (wherein we take care of the rest). If you don't create a CNAME on the DNS server that is authoritative for davidakin.com, then your blog will no longer resolve.

As far as the demonic behavior of the help files goes, I believe that a quick Javascript exorcism this morning has solved the problem. We've lost the dynamic tree control, but stand to gain a lot of nice new Mac using friends.

Lastly, auto-excerpts can indeed be changed to suit the publisher's preference. We default it to twenty words, but if this is too few or too many, you can modify the default from the main Settings tab. Scroll down to near the bottom - there's a text entry box labelled "Excerpt Word Size". Changing this value will change the number of words (not characters as the page incorrectly notes - we'll fix that!) generated when Blogware generates excerpts on your behalf.

Some new stuff, and more bad spelling

Ross — Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:57:57 -0400

Courtesy of the masterful Paul Sisson, we've got a few new stylesheets to play with. If you want to change the look and feel of your Blogware, simply follow these quick instructions:

***Note, you must be using the default templates in order for these instructions to work. If you are not using the default template, send me an email and I will send you some further instructions.

Log in to your Blogware Control Panel
Click on "Look and Feel"
Click on "Templates"
Look down the list of Component Templates until you come to the one labelled "Style". Click "Edit"
From the list of Style Options, select either "Autumn", "Sunset" or "newdefault".
Click the "Select Style" button at the bottom of the list.
Click the View Blog tab in the top left of your screen.

That's it - you should now be sporting some funky new colors and a slightly different way of looking at things. Best of all, everything is compatible with the Layout Manager which means you can easily manage the look and feel of your Blog.

File Structure on Blogware?

Ross — Wed, 06 Aug 2003 20:26:58 -0400

Brett asks, "What's the filesystem on Blogware?"

Strictly speaking, there is no file system. Blogware is an application run entirely from a database. Every word, picture and HTML file that makes it into your Blogware account is stored in a database until some one asks for it. And when they do, we retrieve, format it according to the templates that you've set and then sent it out via HTTP.

So what's the blog extension in the URL all about? Its an artifact of how we pull things out of the database. You'll notice that sometimes it is displayed, and sometimes its not - and even if it isn't, the system still assumes that its there.

In each case, the term "blog" will come before the applicable category and filename - ie http://yourblog.blogware.com/blog/mystuff/photos/birthday.html.

Make sense?

Bookmarklets

Ross — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 08:23:25 -0400

I've got something very exciting to tell you Blogware'ers about.

Bookmarklets.

"What is a bookmarklet?" do I hear you ask?

Well, in the Blogware context, they are little hotlinks that you can drag to your browser tool bar where they will sit until you need them.

"Why would I need them?"

Patience, dear reader.

Have you ever want to save a website address to your blogroll or list of favorites on your Blogware for all of *your* readers to see and use?

Have you even been reading a nifty article and the Register, CNN or Doc Searls weblog and think to yourself "This is bullshit, I should really post a rebuttal to my Blogware." (or int he case of Doc Searls, "this is spot on, I should post a link to my Blogware.")

Well, bookmarklets make it easy to accomplish both of these tasks. We've created two for you to use - one that adds the link of the current website to any blogroll or favorites list that you select and the other that pulls up a window that allows you to post a link to the page that you are currently browsing along with your editorial directly to your blog.

Using them is simple. PV4 users can simply log in to their Blogware administration control panel, and select the "Bookmarklets" sub-tab from the main window. Once the new page has loaded, you should be looking at a control panel page that includes two links; one labelled "Post to 'name of your blog'" and the other "Add Favorite". To add them to your browser, simply click on the link you wish to add and instead of releasing your mouse button, hold it down and "drag" the link to the "Links" menu in Internet Explorer and release the mouse button. If it works, a security warning should pop up and let you know that this may not be a safe link to add (you can ignore this, it is perfectly safe ;). Once you select "Okay" to ignore the security warning, you should have a link in your Links menu that says "Post to 'name of your blog'" or, if you selected the other link , one that says "Add Favorites".

You can experiment with both of these buttons once you've installed them - they work exactly like the functions found elsewhere in Blogware - think of them as "Blogware to go" and you'll be just fine.

One last note: this is very fresh code. I've noticed a few minor bugs already - like the HTML editor doesn't work as designed with the "Post" bookmarketl. No worry, we're on the case and should have this ironed out reallllll quick.

Leave your comments or drop me a note if you have any questions.

PV3 Sneek-peek

Ross — Tue, 10 Jun 2003 01:30:46 -0400

PV3 features are slowly but surely being added to the live codebase. This evening basic invitations, notify on post, notify ...