Products.SimpleBlog 3.0

What is SimpleBlog?

SimpleBlog is an easy to use Plone based weblog application. It has no fancy blogger-api/backlink stuff etc. It does support categories. Writing entries is done from inside Plone.

SimpleBlog comes with three new portal types: Blog, BlogFolder and BlogEntry:

• Blog: Folderish object that is the container for the BlogEntries and the front-page of the weblog.

• BlogEntry: Entry object inside the weblog.

• BlogFolder: Folder that can only exist inside the Blog container. The folder allows you to organize the BlogEntries in any way you like.

Getting started

After you have set the permissions correctly in ZMI (see install.txt) you can go to any folder that you have permissions for and add a Blog from any of the dropdown lists. You will be given a form where you can provide the necessary information to create a new Blog:

• Short Name, Title, Description will speak for

  themselves.

• BlogEntries to display defines how many items should be visible

  on the Blog’s front-page.

• Possible Categories is a list of categories that can be used

  inside BlogEntries (one category per line). More about categories later.

After you have created the Blog, you can adjust its Display settings from the Display menu in Plone. Currently there are 3 different display settings. Besides these settings, there is also a stylesheet in product’s skin that you can customize at will.

After you have created the Blog, you can start creating BlogEntries. Choose BlogEntry from the Add items list and fill in the form:

• Short Name, Title, Description, Body will speak for themselves. Note when you use the Upload a file field, be aware that it will replace the current content!!

• Cross-post in here you can pick another blog in the portal where this entry will also be shown.

• Always on top Controls if the Entry, when published is always shown first. This can be handy for announcements etc.

• Categories Select one or more categories from the list to classify the BlogEntry.

• Related items point to other content in your portal to indicate them as related.

• Allow Discussion on this item control whether people can comment on this entry.

After the BlogEntry is saved, it will be in the ‘draft’ workflow state and is only visible by the owner and the manager (by default). So, in order to make it appear on the Blog’s front-page, it must be set in the ‘published’ state. The Blog will search and display the BlogEntries that have this state (this state is defined in the simpleblog_tool in ZMI and in the configlet in Plone setup). When putting the BlogEntry in the published state, you can also choose to give it an effective date somewhere in the future. SimpleBlog uses the standard way of publishing content.

Inside the Blog you can create BlogFolders. These are a bit similar to the Blog itself in that it has roughly the same view but this time it only shows the Entries that are stored inside the BlogFolder (and subfolders). BlogFolders are there for your convenience, to organize or archive Entries in any way you want and to have additional categories (see below).

Categories

SimpleBlog can use categories to classify BlogEntries. When you edit and configure the Blog object, you can provide it with a list of categories that will present itself as a multi-selection list when you edit/create a BlogEntry. Next to that, BlogFolders can define additional categories. In BlogEntries created inside the BlogFolder, a selection can be made out of the categories defined in the Blog and, additionally, out of the ones defined by the BlogFolder(s) it sits in. All the categories will add up. This feature can be useful when the Blog is maintained by several authors. You can then incorporate some policy that certain Entries must be created in specific BlogFolders because of the additional categories. Categories you can later search for but you don’t want exposed to all the other authors.

Next to categories defined by the Blog object and the BlogFolders, you can also define a set of global categories. These categories are available to all the BlogEntries created in the portal. Defining these global categories can be done in ZMI in the simpleblog_tool or in the Plone setup.

BlogEntries can be searched for in the Catalog and in Topics using categories. Use the EntryCategory index.

The blog portlet

SimpleBlog comes with a fully configurable portlet than can show 4 different parts: recent entries, categories, a calendar widget and recent comments. You can use plone’s portlet manager to configure each portlet. SimpleBlog’s configlet in the Site Setup allows you to control how and if portlets are created in new Blogs that are added to the portal. Also note that the portlet can be used outside the context of a Blog. In that case it will aggregated entries from all Blogs inside the folder hierarchy from where the porlet is shown.

Configuring SimpleBlog

SimpleBlog allows you to control a few things in its behavior. Go to Site Setup in your plone instance.

Using SimpleBlog as your homepage in Plone

Inside the skin folder there is a template called simpleblog_standalone. First get rid of the current index_html in your portal root by deleting it or renaming it. Then create a new Page template in the root and call it index_html. Then copy/paste the code from simpleblog_standalone in there and adjust it at will. All this is done in ZMI.

Well, that’s all you have to know to set up SimpleBlog. Enjoy it.

3.0

• Initial egg release [jvloothuis]

3.0-beta1

• Register types with portal_diff. [wichert]

• Added a permission that controls the portlet rendering. Now you can control if anonymous users may see the portlet or not. [ender]

• Added an option that allows anonymous users to see the byline different from plone’s own setting for this because with blogposts you usually do want to show the byline while you may want to supress the byline for other content types. [ender]

• Removed old code for portlets etc [ender]

• Added a migration method to transform old portlets to new ones [ender]

• Updated configlet for the new portlet scheme [ender]

• Fixed various bugs with searches, always-on-top items and more [ender]

• remove dtml css stuff [ender]

• Use 3.0 viewlets in views [wichert, ender]

• Refactored the portlets into one configurable portlet using 3.0 technology. [ender]

• Uses GenericSetup [chengrenquan]

2006-02-13 Danny Bloemendaal

• Made SB work with 2.1

• Removed some formatting options because they belong in css now

• Made use of the Display menu for blogs and blog folders

• Separated the macros into different files for easier customization

• Several other minor fixes

• Added feature for cross-posting blog entries into other blogs in the portal which is easy for communities and intranets.

• SB now requires Plone 2.1

2005-02-02 Danny Bloemendaal

• Added preliminary blogger api support

• Added cross-posting feature

2004-17-09 Danny Bloemendaal

• Reinstated the link to the blog frontpage in the portlet

• Added dutch translations.

• Added new recent comments portlet. Thanks to Panjunyong.

• Fixed a problem with fetching categories which gave unicode problems.

• Added reST support.

• Added a computed field in a blog folder that shows the ‘inherited’ categories.

• Added icons for SimpleAlias

2004-7-29 panjunyong <panjy at zopechina.com>

• add basic i18n support to SimpleBlog.

• Chinese translations

• new recent comments portlet:

  here/portlet_simpleblog/macros/portletRecentComments_local

• speedup: don’t use getObject() when query catalog

• fix bug: local portlet invisible when view comments

• fix bug: category related url not quoted

• owner have AddBlogEntry permission by default

• fix problem with catalog