Wheatblog Online Documentation
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Wheatblog App .06b -- README.txt
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The Development Team ::
James Martin, project admin + developer
wheat@wheatdesign.com
http://www.wheatdesign.com/
Peter Jay Salzman, developer
p@dirac.org
http://dirac.org/
Joshua Estell, chopped liver
jbestell@hinkybox.com
http://www.hinkybox.com
The Project Homepage ::
http://wheatblog.sourceforge.net
Description ::
Wheatblog App is blogware: it's a web-based content management system for
maintaining online blogs, journals, and news pages. It allows comments
and can generate RSS feeds. Wheatblog App is database driven. It is powered
by PHP and is compatible with a variety of database servers, including
MySQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL.
Requirements ::
Wheatblog App requires a webserver running PHP and one of the
following database servers: MySQL, SQLite, or PostgreSQL.
License ::
Wheatblog App is free as in freedom and free as in free beer. It is released
under the GNU Public License (GPL). You can read about the license at
http://www.gnu.org. A copy is included in with the distribution.
Features ::
* simple installation and use
* all pages are dynamically created
* posts can have titles, but these are not required
* posts can be assigned to categories and viewed by category
* all posts have permalinks
* all posts can have comments
* posts can be marked to show or to hide
* all post dates are arbitrary (not based on timestamp)
* generates RSS (.91) feeds of your recent posts
* number of recent posts on your front page can be set in the prefs
* it's open source, so you can hack it to suit your needs
Version History ::
.01b -- 02/2001 -- Initial release
.02b -- 04/2004 -- Complete rewrite
.03b -- 04/25/2004 -- RSS improvements + added 'by title' archive view
.05b -- 03/11/2005 -- Major improvements (see CHANGELOG.txt for details)
.06b -- ??/??/2005 -- Major improvements
ChangeLog ::
See CHANGELOG.txt for a history of changes and known issues
History of the Project ::
See HISTORY.txt for background on this project
Installation ::
Wheatblog App requires two directories on your site: one for the part of the
app that is publically accessible, and one inside of that for the admin
interface. For example sake, we'll assume your blog lives here:
http://www.example.com/wheatblog/
And, we'll assume the admin interface lives here:
http://www.example.com/wheatblog/admin/
Add these locations and your database user/password information to the
settings.php file and upload everything to your server.
Change permissions on rss.xml to 777 so that your webserver can write to the
file.
Note on Uprading from .03b::
There have been no changes to the database structure, so you can use .05b with
your existing posts w/o making any changes to your database tables. There have
been code changes to almost every file in the project. So, if your install has
many customizations, you may want to examine the code closely before trying
impliment it in whole or in part. The CSS file has remained largely unchanged.
If you are using your own CSS file, you will only need to add the following
declaration:
.wheatblog_textarea_002 {
color: black;
background-color: #A8A8A8;
width: 99%;
height: 32px;
font-size: 12px;
font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, sans-serif;
}
Security ::
Wheatblog App provides no extra security for the admin layer. Please password
protect your admin directory. If you use Apache as your web server,
you'll do this via an .htaccess file in the admin directory. You can read up
on how to do that elsewhere. Most web hosting companies provide a web-based
GUI that makes it really easy.
Setting up the Database ::
Wheatblog App requires three database tables: one for posts, one for comments,
and one for categories. You can set their names (and lots of other info) in
settings.php. The SQL for creating the database tables is in the
wheatblog.sql file. Most hosts provide a web-based GUI for setting up
databases and running SQL code to create tables (phpMyAdmin is often provided
and makes this process very easy).
RSS ::
Your RSS file is called rss.xml. It's located in your blog directory. The
PHP file for creating it is in the same place and is called rss.php. Calling
rss.php will update the rss.xml file. You'll need to set file permissions on
the rss.xml file so that your web server can modify it. Be careful when
posting to use '&' for '&' and such so that your XML will be well-formed.
We'll add input validation for these sorts of things in future versions.
Some simple tweaks ::
Besides the values in settings.php, all the layout is controlled
by the includes/header.inc.php, includes/footer.inc.php, and the CSS file.
Take a look at these and modify them if you'd like to get away from the
default template.
Thanks ::
Steven Jarvis, for the RSS code (RSSify 0.1) used in the rss.php file.
Everyone who donated money or code to the project or who uses it on a site.
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Wheatblog App .06b -- README.txt (end)
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