Well, I finally got my blog working!

[Grant Palin]

EDIT: the blog is at a new URL: http://blog.grantpalin.com/. Do not use the one given below. It is still there, but is no longer being updated, and will be removed soon.

Some of you may know of my expressed interest in writing a blogging system for my own use.

Well, I've spent time on it, and have a working version online.

The address is (drumroll please :D ):
http://www.grantpalin.com/Blog/index.php

You can leave comments for any of the current entries; go right ahead and test it! Try entering HTML - I've got a regular expression set up that replaces left angle brackets with it's HTML entity. So when the comment is displayed, the HTML is displayed, but not rendered.

I'm now working on the admin section of the site, where I can easily add new entries, edit or delete current entries, and edit or delete comments. I'm also thinking of doing a page to easily add new links for the side bar. Those are hard-coded right now, but I could add a table to my database for the website links and blog links and display those dynamically.

I've got the entry addition/editing/deletion part more or less done. I may upload it tonight and give access to it so you can give suggestions for improvements. But I'll of course want to set up some sort of user authentication so only I can access the admin part of the site. That's something I'm not sure yet how to do.

Some things I'm still planning to do:
1. Finish the admin section, of course.
2. Maybe add some sort of BB code functionality, similar to what we use here on CodingForums! Sounds like a good place to get more practice with regular expressions!
3. Maybe add a category system, where each entry has a category; I could display a list of the available categories on the sidebar.
4. An archive system for older entries. I'm not sure yet how I'll manage older entries...the sidebar could get filled up pretty fast!

Anyway, take a look, try the commenting facility, and let me know what you think!

[Nightfire]

Instead of using regex, why not use htmlentities()? Never been a fan of orange but I do like it on your site for some reason :) The menu on the right overlaps stuff in IE6

[oracleguy]

Looks pretty good... I noticed you don't allow HTML in comments, which is a good thing but maybe you should add quickcode (aka vB code) support on the comments, at least for links.

Also, maybe when someone fills in the comments, have a space for their URL too. And I didn't actually try so I dunno if you already have this feature in there but it should automatically, or be a choice using a checkbox to save a cookie with the user's info so they don't have to re-type it every time they want to leave a comment.

<edit>Also, under "blogs" you spelled skyzyx wrong. :)</edit>

[Grant Palin]

Instead of using regex, why not use htmlentities()?
Practice. ;)

Never been a fan of orange but I do like it on your site for some reason :)
I thought the white and orange went together well, but if I receive enough comments on the matter, well, all my styles are in my master style sheet! :D

The menu on the right overlaps stuff in IE6
That's because the menu div is floated right. I know, I know...the layout needs work.

Looks pretty good... I noticed you don't allow HTML in comments, which is a good thing but maybe you should add quickcode (aka vB code) support on the comments, at least for links.
I mentioned that above (first post), that it's something I'm planning to do...

Also, maybe when someone fills in the comments, have a space for their URL too.
That's a good idea! Done!

And I didn't actually try so I dunno if you already have this feature in there but it should automatically, or be a choice using a checkbox to save a cookie with the user's info so they don't have to re-type it every time they want to leave a comment.
That's something I hadn't thought of, but another good idea. But it's a little lower on the priority list. I want to tget the other features running first.

<edit>Also, under "blogs" you spelled skyzyx wrong. :)</edit>
Whoops! Fixed!

[oracleguy]

I like the orange and white, just maybe make the header a little more interesting. I'm no artist, so I can't tell you how but it just seems kinda of dull. Of course you did say the layout was still a work in-progress, so thats okay. You can spice it up once you get all the blog features going.

[Grant Palin]

That's what I was planning: get it to work first, then make it pretty.

I really just added those colors and formatting so the page wasn't so plain-looking, but it does need work.

I want to get more functionality done first. The way I figure it, if the logic layer is working fine, I can make whatever changes I like to the presentation layer! :D

[Grant Palin]

I do have a couple ideas for the look of the page, however. I was thinking I could create some sort of logo to go in the header, besides the header text. And maybe some sort of page background image...

[ronaldb66]

Grant,

First of all: nice job! What you have sofar seems to be working pretty well.
Two comments for now:



The usual order in which the entries are listed is descending (newest on top), which does appear to be sort of a convention these days. Of course you can use whatever seems most fitting.

After adding a comment, the redirect to the main page took too long for me to wait for it. Maybe it's my impatience, but it would be nice to both add the number of seconds one has to wait and a link back for if the redirect fails.

[Grant Palin]

First of all: nice job! What you have sofar seems to be working pretty well.
Thanks! :D


The usual order in which the entries are listed is descending (newest on top), which does appear to be sort of a convention these days. Of course you can use whatever seems most fitting.
I thought of that last night, actually. I changed the ordering on my own computer, but didn't get a chance to upload the change. I've done that now.


After adding a comment, the redirect to the main page took too long for me to wait for it. Maybe it's my impatience, but it would be nice to both add the number of seconds one has to wait and a link back for if the redirect fails.

Errr...ummm...heh heh. There's no redirect there! :o

I had done that last night too, and didn't get a chance to upload it either! I can't remember what I did offhand, so I can't do anything about that until I'm home tonight.

Well, I did get some work done on the system last night. I started working on the admin section. I've set up a very simple log-in system using cookies. It's kind of flaky so far. I have a page for adding blog entries (which only I will be able to do - visitors cannot), and one for managing the links in the sidebar. I've set up a database table for those links, and my local version (again, not yet uploaded) of the site gets the links from the database, so they're not hardcoded anymore. On the links management page, I can add links, edit links, and delete links.

From the work I've done on this so far, I'm starting to appreciate how easy it would be to add content to the site from any computer with internet access!

Ronald: was that you who left that comment on my site about the blog name? I'm lousy with making up names, but that title seemed to work!

[Grant Palin]

Time for an update!

I've finished the links and entry management pages. They are only accessible if the user is logged in. If someone tries to access those pages without logging, they are redirected to the login page.

If you go to my site now, you'll notice the Log In link at the bottom of the menu bar. After logging, that admin sections is populated with links to the admid pages (manage links, manage entries). The Log In link is replaced with a Log Out link.

Logging in is still managed with cookies. I'm hoping to give sessions a try tonight.

I've fixed the problem ronaldb66 mentioned earlier about the redirects. After entering a comment, the user is automatically redirected to the main page. I use redirects frequently in the admin section for after adding/editing/deleting links and entries, so the list seems to update automatically.

I'm planning to do like OracleGuy mentioned in a previous post, about using a cookie to store user data so the user doesn't have to enter their name/email/url each time. Again, hopefully I'll get that done tonight.

I've also implemented some basic BB Code like we have here on CodingForums. So far, I've set up conversions for the b, i, u, and code tags, just like we do here. I'll set up some more tonight.

Since the BB Code conversion seems simple enouigh, I'm going to try adding smilies too! I'll find some smilies first, then determine how the representative tags (again, like here on CF) will be entered. Like, which tag means which smiley. I know there was a thread on this subject about a week ago, but I'd like to try to figure it out myself first!

By the way, is anyone interested in testing my admin section for me? It seems pretty good to me, but another pair or two of eyes is always helpful! I'm not sure I want to post the username and password here and tell you all to just go nuts, so if anyone is interested in having a look, I could PM you the username and password so you can access the admin section.

[bradyj]

I like the orange and white -- and I think it would be cool if you play with darker and lighter shades of orange in elements (like a light orange background for the links and dark orange rollovers) -- but I agree the header could use some improvement:)

No RSS feeds? How am I gonna find you?

[Grant Palin]

I like the orange and white -- and I think it would be cool if you play with darker and lighter shades of orange in elements (like a light orange background for the links and dark orange rollovers) -- but I agree the header could use some improvement:)
What I had planned was to get all the functionality working first, then worry about the look. Like I mentioned before, because of my presentation being seperated from the data and the logic, I can change the look however I like! :D

That said, I had thought that I might try variations on the current colour scheme. Like you said, different shades of orange.

No RSS feeds? How am I gonna find you?
I've got no idea what RSS is. :o

Although I've seen that term around the web (and on blogs), I've never found out what it is...

[bradyj]

I link to about 60 different weblogs, and they have RSS that goes to my newsreader. The newsreader is a program that checks these sites that I link to for 'new comments' or posts or topics that you create. RSS is the way that they connect:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175271
http://www.kriyayoga.com/how_to/how_to_rss.html
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/intro/

I use NetNewsWire for the mac:
http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/

It will allow me to see your new info without going to your site, and you get all the joy of hits for that. I learned all this stuff about two months ago, so don't worry -- it's been out for a while I just didn't pay much attention to it.

http://www.webmonkey.com has a good tutorial I believe as well somewhere in there...

[oracleguy]

Grant, if you wish... send me an email through the board (mainly so I'll remember :)) and I'll send you a PHP function I wrote to generate an RSS feed for your blog.

I figured out how write RSS feeds by reading some tutorials and looking at Skyzyx's feed. :)

[Grant Palin]

Funny, I was just wondering how I would set up a newsfeed! PM sent.

All the same, I'm going to do some reading on RSS tonight.

And is a newsreader a program I would have to download seperately? Or is it part of, say, an email program like Outlook?

[bradyj]

The newsreader is a seperate program -- Safari is building it into it's browser (Mozilla has it, or am I wrong?), but I'm not sure what the PC versions are. I just launch it and it checks for it automatically.

[Grant Palin]

The newsreader is a seperate program -- Safari is building it into it's browser (Mozilla has it, or am I wrong?), but I'm not sure what the PC versions are. I just launch it and it checks for it automatically.

You mean the program checks for new entries automatically?

So you tell the program what RSS feeds you're interested in, and it checks for anything new for you?

If that's right, it sounds like it would save a lot of time over going to all those seperate sites!

[bradyj]

You mean the program checks for new entries automatically?

So you tell the program what RSS feeds you're interested in, and it checks for anything new for you?

If that's right, it sounds like it would save a lot of time over going to all those seperate sites!

That's why I use it:) Read all my blogs and all the news sites I want very quickly.

[Grant Palin]

Right, I've had a look at those sites you linked to, and now I have a better understanding of RSS. Yet another new feature to add...

Some more updates.

You can now post urls, images, and colors, just like we do here on CF.
[ url=address ]title[ /url ]
[ url ]address[ /url ]
(spaces inside the url tags to prevent this site from rendering them)

address

text

:D :D

Regular expressions are so useful, as I'm finding out!

The name of the color given to the color tag, as far as I can tell, must be one of the named colors that you would use in HTML or CSS.

One issue I have with the color tags is nesting them; I can nest a color tag inside any other tag except another color tag. I'm not sure why this is happening, but I'll work on it some more. You can nest color tags inside the bold tag, or nest the bold tag inside the color tag. I imagine it should be the same for the other tags so far, but no other color tags!

I've also followed OracleGuy's suggestion about setting a cookie to remember visitor information; try submitting a comment on my site, and go to that entry's page again, and the form should be filled out with your personal info already! How convenient!

Finally, I tweaked some of the colors to make them look a little more consistent. Forexample, the h2 neart he top of each page used to have a thin, black, dashed bottom border. I've changed it to a thicker, solid border with a color that matches that of the foreground of the orange bar at the top. I've also changed the link colors so that they appear normally to be an orange-red color. When rolled over, they change to a lighter orange.

[Grant Palin]

Well, now I've added my blog site as a subdomain of my own domain...new subdomain (http://blog.grantpalin.com). I'll leave the other one in place for a while until everyone knows where the new one is located. Plus, all the work I do will now be on the subdomain site.

Another change I have made is added some textures as background images tot he page. I've got one texture for the header bar, which makes it look a little more interesting (this was the easy way, since I can't draw worth a damn), and one each to the overall page and menu as well. I'm thinking that the one for the menu may be unnecessary, and could remove it. The menu could then have a transparent background to allow ther page background to show through. I may also remove the 3D borders fromt he menu header bar, since they look a little weird against the texture for the header.

Perhaps some of the more graphically-aligned people on this site could give some advice on what to do...?

I'm thinking of moving the links out of the menu and onto a seperate page, which would make room on the menu for a category list and a list of previous months (so users can view entries from previous months).

Related to the previous item, I'm not sure yet how many entries to show on the main page... Perhaps it might be simplest to just show all the entries for the current month...?

Yet ANOTHER idea I've got is to allow editing of the master style sheet when logged in, without having to log in to the web host. Now that would be convenient!

Any new thoughts/opinions/suggestions?

[Grant Palin]

I've got a couple of related questions now.

1. When creating an RSS feed, is there a particular format it has to be in...I don't mean what language (I know it's done in XML). I mean, are there specific elements that have to be there, or can I use whichever elements I want, relevant to what I'm doing?

2. For those who have their own blogs, and use pictures or photos in entries, do you upload those manually, or use some sort of upload manager that's part of your blog? I'm thinking that writing an image upload manager may be another good idea for my system, and more practice for me! It would allow me to easily upload images if I wanted to, without having to log into my web host.