Hi guys,
I'm starting a new blog, and since I've been using Ruby at my work
for 4 years, and since I want to grow familiar with rails, I've
decided to use typo. I've run a medium traffic, group blog using
wordpress before, and I actually designed the prototype theme my new
blog in wordpress, which I'm now in the process of converting to
typo. The wordpress/apache version is here: http://
www.mormonmentality.org u/p previewer. The typo/lighttpd version is
still a work in progress (I hope to have it mostly wrapped up this
weekend), and it is at http://beta.mormonmentality.org u/p betauser .
So far, I think typo is pretty slick. I'm interested in contributing,
and I see that the 4.0 release is nearing completion. I take it that
this means that the time is nearing on deciding new features for the
post-4.0 release. There are a couple of things that I intend to add
to my version in the next week or two:
1. introduce user privilege levels and user types. My blog is going
to be a large group blog, and I will need this sooner rather than
later. (This is the one gap between typo and wordpress that is an
absolute obstacle to long term deployment.)
I have a few things already in mind here. I can go into it in some
detail if you all are ready for a proposal.
2. ability to have a right sidebar and a left sidebar (most blogs, in
my opinion, have lines of text that are too long, and therefore too
hard on the eyes). I'll probably start out with a hack of some sort
and try to work it in more gracefully as I get a better handle on how
the sidebar works.)
3. separating out some parts of the contents table for article and
comment specific data. In my opinion, there seem to be too many
single use fields to justify a single table for the whole set.
A fourth item that I have already implemented is an increase in the
number of indices in the tables to make sure that common joins are
correctly optimized.
A fifth item that I have already implemented is a short_title field
for the contents table, along with a one line change to the
appropriate admin page.
The sql to change this is as follows:
alter table contents add column short_title varchar(60) default NULL
after title;
the changes to the admin page at app/views/admin/content/_form.rhtml
involve inserting the following 4 lines at line 8:
8 <p>
9 <label for="article_short_title">Short Title:</label><br />
10 <%= text_field 'article', 'short_title' %>
11 </p>
This allows for a short version of the title to be specified for
places where an abbreviation is appropriate. This is especially
advantageous for elements in the sidebar which may want a meaningful
abridgment of the name due to space constraints. Specifically, I have
a latest_comments plugin that uses it that has the following controller:
class Plugins::Sidebars::LatestCommentsController <
Sidebars::ComponentPlugin
setting :title, "Latest Comments", :label => "Title"
setting :count, 20, :label => "Number of Comments"
setting :show_comment_author, true, :label => "Show Comment
Author", :input_type => :checkbox
setting :show_article_title, true, :label => "Show Article
Title", :input_type => :checkbox
# not used yet
# setting :link_to_more, true, :label => "Link to More Comments
(requires comments page)", :input_type => :checkbox
def self.display_name
"Latest Comments"
end
def self.description
"Links to the latest comments"
end
def content
begin
@articles = Article.find( :all,
:select => "contents.*,
comments.author AS comment_author, comments.id AS comment_id",
:joins => 'LEFT JOIN contents AS
comments ON comments.article_id = contents.id',
:conditions => 'comments.type = "Comment"',
:order => "comments.created_at DESC",
:limit => @sb_config['count'])
rescue Exception => e
logger.info e
nil
end
end
end
(This is my first typo sidebar thing, so excuse any egregious errors
or omissions)
Then it has a default display that looks like this:
<h3><%=h title %></h3>
<% if @articles.empty? -%>
<ul id="latest_comments">
<li>No Comments</li>
</ul>
<% else %>
<ul id="latest_comments">
<li>Last: <%=
# I realize that this is a pretty cloogey way
# to do the date, but I'm not great with the
# rails date thingies yet
d = @articles.first.created_at
p = d.strftime("%p").downcase
i = d.strftime("%I").to_i.to_s
m = d.strftime("%M").to_i.to_s
t = d.strftime("%a, %b %e")
"#{t}, #{i}:#{m}#{p}" %></li>
<% @articles.each do | article |
title = ''
title << "#{article.comment_author}: " if
show_comment_author
linked_title = ''
if show_article_title
# this works for now, but it should be simplified using
# the coalesce function in the content method of the
# controller and offering an option in the
controller to
# use short_title
if article.short_title.to_s.empty?
linked_title << (article.title.to_s.empty? ?
'[no title]' : article.title)
else
linked_title << article.short_title.to_s
end
end
url = "#{article_url(article)}#comment-#
{article.comment_id}"
%>
<li><%= link_to(title, url) %></li>
<% end %>
</ul>
<% end -%>
I'm new to all of this and new to this community. What's the best way
to work out these kinds of additions?
-------------------------------------------------------
David King Landrith
(w) 617.227.4469x213
(h) 617.696.7133
One useless man is a disgrace, two
are called a law firm, and three or more
become a congress -- John Adams
-------------------------------------------------------
public key available upon request
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