sfSimpleBlog plugin
The sfSimpleBlogPlugin adds standard weblog features to an existing website:
It is not aimed at replacing full-featured blog packages, but offers a lightweight alternative for when you build a website that has to contain a blog section. It is voluntarily simple and limited (that's why it doesn't come with a BBCode parser, a search engine, a media asset library, or a user management module). However, it is very easy to configure and adapt, so it should fulfill most basic blog requirements.
This plugin can only provide one blog per project.
Contents
This plugin contains one schema with three new Propel classes:
sfSimpleBlogPostsfSimpleBlogCommentsfSimpleBlogTag
It also contains three modules that you can activate in whatever application you need them:
sfSimpleBlog: Blog front-endsfSimpleBlogPostAdmin: Backend for managing postssfSimpleBlogCommentAdmin: Backend for managing comments
The plugin is fully i18n and is bundled with English and French versions. Additional translations are easy to implement.
Installation
Tip: If you just want to test the plugin, a sandbox already packaged with the right plug-ins and configured correctly is available for download in this page. Click here to download the sandbox.
The prerequisites for using the sfSimpleBlog plugin are:
The symfony version must be at least r3703 (trunk version for now)
As the plugin doesn't contain a user management module, the project where you install it must have a table managing authors, or users (whatever the name), and the related Propel class must have a __toString() method. Both these conditions are satisfied by the sfGuardPlugin, so installing this plugin is a good choice.
If you want to use RSS feeds, the sfFeed2Plugin must be installed.
If you want to use rich text editing, the TinyMCE JavaScript editor must be installed in your project
To install the plugin for a symfony project, the usual process is to use the symfony command line:
$ php symfony plugin-install http://plugins.symfony-project.com/sfFeed2Plugin
Alternatively, if you don't have PEAR installed, you can download the latest package attached to this plugin's wiki page and extract it under your project's plugins/ directory. You will also have to copy the contents of the myproject/plugins/sfSimpleBlogPlugin/web/ directory into a myproject/web/sfSimpleBlogPlugin/ directory.
Clear the cache to enable the autoloading to find the new classes:
$ php symfony cc
Copy the sample configuration file from myproject/plugins/sfSimpleBlogPlugin/config/sfSimpleBlog.yml.sample into yout project's (not application!) config/ folder. Rename it to myproject/config/sfSimpleBlog.yml. If you want to specify the name of the existing user table and class, edit this file (see next section about the plugin configuration).
Rebuild the model and generate the SQL code for the three new tables:
$ php symfony propel-build-model
$ php symfony propel-build-sql
Use the generated SQL file in myproject/data/sql/plugins.sfSimpleBlogPlugin.lib.model.schema.sql to build the new tables in your project's database.
$ mysql -uroot mydb < data/sql/plugins.sfSimpleBlogPlugin.lib.model.schema.sql
Enable the three new modules in your applications, via the settings.yml file.
// in myproject/apps/frontend/config/settings.yml
all:
.settings:
enabled_modules: [sfSimpleBlog, sfSimpleBlogPostAdmin, sfSimpleBlogCommentAdmin](default,)
Start using the plugin by browsing to the frontend module's default page:
http://myproject/frontend_dev.php/sfSimpleBlog
Configuration
The sfSimpleBlog.yml file
The plugin is highly configurable and should be easy to integrate to an existing project. Here is the default plugin configuration, taken from myproject/plugins/sfSimpleBlogPlugin/config/sfSimpleBlog.yml.sample:
schema:
connection: propel # database connection you want to use (related to the databases.yml configuration)
user_table: sf_guard_user # user table name
user_id: id # primary key of the user table
user_class: sfGuardUser # name of the Propel object for users
post_table: sf_blog_post # post table name
comment_table: sf_blog_comment # comment table name
tag_table: sf_blog_tag # tag table name
blog:
title: How is life on earth?
tagline: You'd better start to live before it's too late
author: John Doe
email: john.doe@howislifeonearth.com # Used only for alerts on comments
sidebar: [recent_posts, tags, feeds, blogroll, meta](custom,)
custom : |
<h2>About the author</h2>
<p>My name is John Doe and I'm a freelance freelancer. I do things when I have time,
and the rest of the time, I write things here.</p>
blogroll:
* { title: how is life on earth?, url: 'http://www.howislifeonearth.com' }
* { title: google, url: 'http://www.google.com' }
use_bundled_layout: true # if true, the three modules will use sfSimpleBlog/templates/layout.php for layout; if false, they will use the layout settings from the view.yml
use_ajax: true # enable posting of comments in Ajax
use_feeds: true # enable feeds (require sfFeed2Plugin)
use_rich_text: false # enable tinyMCE
post:
max_per_page: 5 # number of posts displayed in a list of posts
recent: 5 # number of posts to display in the recent sidebar widget
comment:
automoderation: on # triggers the automoderation of comments. Possible values are:
# on: comments are not published until a moderator accepts them
# first_post: the first comment of a user must be accepted, subsequent posts are accepted automatically
# off: comments are automatically accepted and published
mail_alert: on # send an email to the blog owner when a comment is posted.
# Possible values are:
# on: send an email for every posted comment
# moderated: send an email for every automoderated comment
feed:
count: 5 # number of posts appearing in the RSS feed
The sidebar array controls which widgets, and in which order, appear in the sidebar of the blog frontend. The existing widgets are:
custom: insertion of custom HTML code taken from the blog_custom parameter
recent_posts: list of recent posts
tags: list of tags
feeds: links to the RSS and Atom feeds
blogroll: list of blogs
meta: not much for now (link to administration modules, but the link works only if the modules are in the same application)
Note: After modifying the schema settings, you must rebuild your model.
Security, view configuration, custom templates, etc.
Just like for every other plugin module, the sfSimpleBlog, sfSimpleBlogPostAdmin, and sfSimpleBlogCommentAdmin modules can be partly overridden by your applications.
For instance, if you want to restrict access to the sfSimpleBlogCommentAdmin module to users with an editor credential, create a sfSimpleBlogCommentAdmin directory in your application module/ folder, and create in a config/security.yml with the following content:
// in myproject/apps/backend/modules/sfSimpleBlogCommentAdmin/config/security.yml
all:
is_secure: on
credentials: [editor]
Alternatively, if you want the sfSimpleBlog module to use some special templates for presentation, you can create templates and partials with the same name as the plugin's ones in this kind of tree structure:
myproject/apps/frontend/modules/sfSimpleBlog/
templates/
_add_comment.php
_blogroll.php
_comment.php
_comment_list.php
_feed.php
_meta.php
_post.php
_post_short.php
_recentPosts.php
_sidebar.php
_tagList.php
addCommentAjax.php
feedSuccess.php
indexSuccess.php
sendMailOnCommentSuccess.php
showByTagSuccess.php
showSuccess.php
TODO
- Unit tests
- Add hooks to allow extension by other plugins
- Trackbacks
Changelog
2007-04-10 | 0.8.2 Beta
- francois: Added email alert on comment
- francois: Added blogroll in the sidebar
- francois: Added ability to have more than one custom sidebar element
2007-04-06 | 0.8.1 Beta
- francois: removed
lib/model/om/ and lib/model/map from package
- gordon: Added German translations
- Michael.Nolan: fixed incorrect validation message in
addComment.yml
2007-04-03 | 0.8.0 Beta
- francois: Initial release
Francois Zaninotto 