Using Blosxom to Create a Weblog on Darkwing
By Mary Harrsch
Network & Information Systems Manager, College of
Education
Blosxom is a Perl-based dynamic HTML web log application. The
basic installation requires setting up the following folders in your darkwing
account:
/public_html/cgi-bin
/public_html/blosxom
/public_html/blosxom/pollxn_templates
/username/data/blosxom/plugins /username/data/blosxom/plugins/formatlib
/username/data/blosxom/plugins/state
/username/data/blosxom/plugins/state/noblox
/username/data/blosxom/plugins/state/queries
/username/data/blosxom/plugins/quotes
Set all folders to 755 access rights
Place all the files in blosxomzip in the the /public_html/blosxom directory.
Place all files in pollxnzip in the /public_html/blosxom/pollxn_templates directory.
Place all files in cgizip in the /public_html/cgi-bin directory.
Place all files in pluginszip in the /username/data/blosxom/plugins directory.
Place all files in quoteszip in the /username/data/blosxom/plugins/quotes directory.
Place the article file in the /username/data/blosxom/plugins/formatlib directory.
All other directories are needed to hold temporary data.
Now edit the following files as indicated.
Open the file /public_html/blosxom/submissionform.html and edit the following line:
<form method="POST" action="http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~username/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi?-format=article"> - Replace the username with the correct name.
Open the file /public_html/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi and edit the following lines:
# What's this blog's title?
$blog_title = "Weblog Title"; - Change the words "Weblog Title" to
appropriate title.
# What's this blog's description (for outgoing RSS feed)? $blog_description = "My Thoughts"; - Change the words "My Thoughts" to an appropriate Heading
# Where are this blog's entries kept?
$datadir = "/home/username/public_html/blosxom"; - Replace
home with your individual home directory number (Example: home4)
and username with your correct Darkwing username. You can determine
your home directory number by connecting to Darkwing with the SSH client
and looking at the path above the right window (remote location)
# How many entries should I show on the home page?
$num_entries = 40; - Change this number if you wish.
# --- Plugins (Optional) -----
# Where are my plugins kept?
$plugin_dir = "/home/username/data/blosxom/plugins"; - Replace home with
your individual home directory number (Example: home4) and username with
your correct Darkwing username.
Open the file /public_html/cgi-bin/pollxn.cgi and edit the following lines:
# File system path to your main blog docs folder?
# For example, take this URL: http://myserver/tv/simpsons/homer # On my system
'/tv/simpsons/homer' is under /www/blog/docs
# (i.e., /www/blog/docs/tv/simpsons/homer)
# So my $datadir is: /www/blog/docs
$datadir = "/home/username/public_html/blosxom/"; - Replace home with
your individual home directory number (Example: home4) and username with
your correct Darkwing username.
# File system path to Pollxn's templates folder?
# Example: /www/blog/pollxn_templates
$pollxntemplatefolder = "/home/username/public_html/blosxom/pollxn_templates";
- Replace home with your individual home directory number
(Example: home4) and username with your correct Darkwing username.
# Your email address?
$myemail='username@uoregon.edu'; - Replace username with your darkwing name.
# Title of blog?
$blogtitle="My Web Log"; - Replace with your blog title.
# Maximum comments shown per page? - Adjust as desired.
$maxperpage=0; # 0=Show All
# Require visitors to enter their names? Email addresses? - Adjust as desired (I recommend setting these items to 1.
$reqname=0; # 0=No, 1=Yes
$reqemail=0;
Open /public_html/cgi-bin/pollxnarchive.cgi and edit the following lines:
# What top-level folder should I begin searching for Pollxn files? # (i.e., file system path to your blog's 'docs' folder) # Example: /var/apache/htdocs/blog/docs $datadir = "/home/username/public_html/blosxom"; - Replace home with your individual home directory number (Example: home4) and username with your correct Darkwing username.
# Which log file should I use?
$logfile = "/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin/pollxnarchive.log";
- Replace home with your individual home directory number
(Example: home4) and username with your correct Darkwing username.
Open the file /username/data/blosxom/plugins/randomtext and edit the line: $textpath='/home/username/data/blosxom/plugins/quotes'; - Replace home with your individual home directory number (Example: home4) and username with your correct Darkwing username.
Open the file /username/data/blosxom/plugins/rss10 and edit the line:
# What is your full name?
$creator = 'My Name'; - Replace 'My Name' with your name.
# What is your email address?
$email = 'username@uoregon.edu'; - Replace with your email address.
Lastly, open /public_html/blosxom/head.html and edit the line:
myname@uoregon.edu to your e-mail address.
Open the file /public_html/blosxom/autolinks and edit the line:
homepage=http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Eusername/ - Replace username with your Darkwing username.
If you want to add some additional sites to the existing list follow the format: Link Word (or phrase)=URL. Example:
COE=http://education.uoregon.edu
Prepare two text items with a .txt extension (IMPORTANT!) and place them in /public_html/blosxom. (Example: My_first_blog_entry.txt)
To see your resulting blog go to http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~username/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi
My blog has been customized. However, the template files provided include the calendar, the search feature, the random quotes, the list of bulleted headlines, comments, paragraph blocking, autolinking, and a web-based submission form with a configured format file. The format file formats all blog entries (linking URLs and mailtos, etc.) and enters them into the correct directory automatically from a web browser. These features are all driven by the included plugin files.
Open http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~username/submissionform.html . Fill out the form and click Submit. Now view your blog and you should see a new entry. You probably would want to password protect this file to prevent anyone else from posting to your web log with it.
Blosxom automatically generates an RSS feed. Using the above installation, your RSS feed would be:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~username/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/index.rss
Additional plugins can be downloaded from: http://www.blosxom.com.
You can submit RSS feeds for syndication to http://www.syndic8.com .
I have included the output_utf8 plugin to properly format the feed for most common characters. However, the use of unusual spacing such as three periods and a space or a dash preceded or followed by more than one space will cause Blosxom to create an invalid RSS feed.You can check the validity of your RSS feed at http://www.feedvalidator.org/