BLOG DESIGN SOLUTIONS
CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: THE “WEB LOG” THE “WEB LOG” BLOGGING 2004: YEAR OF THE BLOG BLOGGING OPTIONS READY MADE INSTALL YOUR OWN CODE YOUR OWN TECHNOLOGIES HOW DOES IT WORK? REALLY SIMPLE SYNDICATION (RSS) MAC OS X WINDOWS TECHNORATI TAGS FLICKR SUMMARY CHAPTER 2: CREATING A LOCAL TEST ENVIRONMENT FOR YOUR BLOG TAKING A QUICK LOOK UNDER THE HOOD WHAT YOU NEED TO BUILD A LOCAL TEST ENVIRONMENT HOW MUCH DOES IT ALL COST? WHY NOT USE AN ALL-IN-ONE PACKAGE? SETTING UP ON WINDOWS GETTING WINDOWS TO DISPLAY FILENAME EXTENSIONS INSTALLING APACHE ON WINDOWS DECIDING WHICH PORT TO RUN APACHE ON REMOVING AN EXISTING INSTALLATION OF APACHE 1 3 STARTING AND STOPPING APACHE ON WINDOWS CHANGING STARTUP PREFERENCES OR DISABLING APACHE SETTING UP PHP ON WINDOWS CONFIGURING APACHE TO WORK WITH PHP “CANNOT LOAD MYSQLI EXTENSION” ENABLING SUPPORT FOR CGI SCRIPTING ON WINDOWS INSTALLING MYSQL ON WINDOWS CHANGING THE DEFAULT TABLE TYPE ON WINDOWS ESSENTIALS STARTING AND STOPPING MYSQL MANUALLY ON WINDOWS USING THE MYSQL MONITOR ON WINDOWS SETTING UP ON MAC OS X USING APACHE ON MAC OS X WHERE TO LOCATE YOUR WEB FILES USING PHP ON MAC OS X ENABLING SUPPORT FOR CGI SCRIPTING ON MAC OS X DECIDING WHERE TO LOCATE CGI SCRIPTS SETTING THE CORRECT PERMISSIONS FOR CGI SCRIPTS SETTING UP MYSQL ON MAC OS X ADDING MYSQL TO YOUR PATH SECURING MYSQL ON MAC OS X USING MYSQL WITH PHPMYADMIN (WINDOWS AND MAC) SETTING UP YOUR BLOG DATABASE WITH PHPMYADMIN BACKING UP AND TRANSFERRING YOUR BLOG TO ANOTHER SERVER NOW THE FUN STARTS CHAPTER 3: MOVABLE TYPE MOVABLE WHAT? INSTALLING MOVABLE TYPE DOWNLOADING MOVABLE TYPE CONFIGURING AND INSTALLING MOVABLE TYPE WINDOWS PATHS ON LOCAL SERVERS INSTALLING ON A LOCAL SERVER INSTALLING ON A REMOTE SERVER RUNNING MOVABLE TYPE FOR THE FIRST TIME THE DESIGN PLANNING AND THE DESIGN BRIEF KICK-STARTING THE DESIGN PROCESS FINALLY, THE DESIGN! XHTML AND CSS CREATING THE MARKUP BASIC XHTML STRUCTURE LATEST POSTS BLOCK SECONDARY CONTENT BLOCK LAYOUT AND STYLING WHERE’S THE DROP SHADOW? MOVABLE TYPE TEMPLATES MAIN INDEX TEMPLATE MASTER ARCHIVE INDEX TEMPLATE CATEGORY AND DATE-BASED ARCHIVES CHAPTER 4: EXPRESSIONENGINE DESIGN BRIEF ABOUT THE TEMPLATE INSTALLING EXPRESSIONENGINE REQUIREMENTS HOW TO BUY A COPY TRIAL VERSION INSTALLING 1 RENAME THE SYSTEM FOLDER 2 PLACE THE FILES ON YOUR SERVER 3 SET FILE PERMISSIONS 4 CREATE THE DATABASE 5 INSTALL THE LOGICAL BLOCKS THEME 6 RUN THE INSTALLATION WIZARD 7 DEFINE SETTINGS AND USER ACCOUNT 8 CHOOSE THE APPROPRIATE TEMPLATE 9 YOU’RE ALL BUT DONE HOW DOES EXPRESSIONENGINE ACTUALLY WORK? TEMPLATES BLOGS, CUSTOM FIELDS, AND CATEGORIES EMBEDS STRUCTURING YOUR BLOG TURNING THE SYSTEM OFF DEFINING TEMPLATE GROUP AND TEMPLATE EDITING TEMPLATES REDEFINE THE CATEGORIES DEFINE CUSTOM BLOG FIELDS SET THE MOOD SPECIFY GROUPS FOR YOUR BLOG DEFAULT BLOG AND PREFERENCES NICE WORK, SOLDIER TEMPLATE CUSTOMIZATION TEMPLATES YOU’LL NEED MORE PAGE ABOUT PAGE CONTACT PAGE UNDERSTANDING EE TAGS {MASTER_WEBLOG_NAME} {EXP:WEBLOG:ENTRIES} CONTENTS SHOWING DATA INSIDE THE {EXP:WEBLOG:ENTRIES} TAGS FIELD NAME VARIABLES SOME KEY {EXP:WEBLOG:ENTRIES} VARIABLES {DATE_HEADING} DATA VARIABLES CUSTOM ENTRY FIELD VARIABLES {CATEGORIES} CONDITIONALS PAGINATION PATH VARIABLES SMARTER CONDITIONALS SMARTER COMMENT TOTALS SORT OUT THE SIDEBAR SHOWING YOUR CATEGORY LIST USING ARTICLE TITLES AS HEADLINES MAKE IT EASIER WITH EMBEDDING EMBED THE MAIN NAVIGATION USE YOUR <HEAD>? A BIT ON THE SIDE ADD MORE SAMPLE ARTICLES FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS SORT THE MENU OUT SEGMENTS COMMENTS AND COMMENTS FORM CLEVER COMMENTS CREATE SOME OTHER USEFUL TEMPLATES CREATE THE CONTACT TEMPLATE CREATE THE ABOUT TEMPLATE CATCH YOUR BREATH STYLING USING CSS BEFORE YOU BEGIN WHERE IS THE CSS? ENSURING THAT YOUR CSS AFFECTS YOUR TEMPLATES UNDERSTANDING THE LAYOUT #WRAPPER SORTING OUT THE MASTHEAD AND NAVIGATION LOCATE THE LOGICAL BLOCKS IMAGES TWO CHOICES OF HEADER LAYOUT TABS YOU WANT MORE? #CONTENT INHERITANCE WHO OWNS WHAT? #SIDEBAR UNDERSTANDING THE SIDEBAR LINKS TICKED-OFF VISITED LINKS #ABOUT_SITE #BLOG STYLING COMMENTS #FOOTER OPTIONAL HOW DOES IT LOOK? STRENGTHENING YOUR EE BLOG PLUG-IN BABY QUERY CACHING IMAGE GALLERY MODULE SUPPORT READY FOR LAUNCH CHAPTER 5: WORDPRESS INSIDE THIS CHAPTER RULES OF ENGAGEMENT WORDPRESS SUPPORT UNDERSTANDING THE WORDPRESS CODEX DEALING WITH CODE SHARING MAINTENANCE INTRODUCING WORDPRESS DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING WORDPRESS MECHANICS OF WORDPRESS DISPLAYING YOUR BLOG POSTS ADVANTAGES OF PRETTY PERMALINKS THE LOOP DESIGNING WITH WORDPRESS CSS AND HTML TEMPLATE STRUCTURE FILE STRUCTURE TEMPLATE TAGS CONDITIONAL TAGS INCLUDE TAGS CONTENT TYPES IN WORDPRESS POSTS PAGES COMMENTS THEMES IN WORDPRESS 1 5 KUBRICK THE FILES STYLE CSS HEADER PHP FOOTER PHP SIDEBAR PHP SINGLE PHP PAGE PHP CONTENTS COMMENTS PHP COMMENTS-POPUP PHP SEARCHFORM PHP ARCHIVE PHP SEARCH PHP 404 PHP ARCHIVES PHP LINKS PHP TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CODE WORKING WITH TEMPLATE PAGES OTHER PAGE OPTIONS PAGE CONTENT PAGE SLUG PAGE PARENT PAGE ORDER VIEWING THE NEW PAGE EDITING THE PAGE CUSTOMIZING AN EXISTING TEMPLATE ADVANCED TEMPLATING IN WORDPRESS TEMPLATES, POSTS, PAGES, AND PLUG-INS SO LET’S GET INTO SOME CODE CJD COMMENT HEAT SRG CLEAN ARCHIVES USING THE PLUG-INS HIDDEN SPIFFINESS ABOUNDS CONTEXT-SENSITIVE INFORMATION IS THE BEE’S KNEES LET’S WRITE SOME CODE, SHALL WE? NOW FOR THE PAYOFF—MAKING IT ALL WORK THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME AND THAT MATTERS TO ME WHY EXACTLY? HOW AM I DISPLAYING ALL THIS INFO IF I AM NOT HITTING THE DATABASE FOR IT? LET’S WRITE SOME CODE! AND THERE YOU HAVE IT A LETTER OPENER CHAPTER 6: TEXTPATTERN A BRIEF HISTORY THIS CHAPTER AND THE FUTURE OF TXP SUPPORTING THE CAUSE THE CREATIVE PROCESS INSTALLATION DOWNLOAD AND UNZIP THE CORE FILES THE HTACCESS FILE SET UP A DATABASE RUNNING THE SETUP WIZARD MYSQL SITE PATH SITE URL CREATING THE CONFIG PHP FILE FIRST LOGIN DID IT ALL WORK? KEY TXP AREAS ADMIN DIAGNOSTICS PREFERENCES PRESENTATION SECTIONS FORMS STYLE CONTENT QUESTION MARK BUTTONS DEFAULT DESIGN THE SITE NAME AND THE SITE SLOGAN IT’S YOUR BLOG WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR BLOG? DESIGNING YOUR BLOG INTEGRATING WITH TXP BUILT-IN CODE EDITING LIVE DESIGN THE DIV TAG MODIFYING THE PAGE TEMPLATE PREPARING THE IMAGE CREATING A COLOR SWATCH UPLOADING THE IMAGE SLICES ADDING THE IMAGE SLICES TO THE DESIGN MORE THOUGHTS ON SEMANTICS MAKING IT WORK ROGUE WHITE SPACE AND OTHER UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIOR A FIRST LOOK AT A BLOG POST A BRIEF LOOK AT TEXTILE ADDING SOME EXTRA CONTENT WHY A BROWSER WITH GOOD CSS SUPPORT IS IMPORTANT ALLOWING FOR CONTENT LENGTH THAT ROGUE WHITE SPACE TO-DO LIST MY SITE AND MY PITHY SLOGAN MOVE BROWSE AND SEARCH FORMS SORT OUT LINKS AT BOTTOM OF THE PAGE ADDING A LITTLE COLOR TO THE TEXT CSS SHORTCUTS PAGE NOT FOUND? MESSY PERMANENT LINK MODE MODIFY THE HTTPD CONF FILE CREATING AN ARCHIVE SECTION AND PAGE TEMPLATE PAGE TEMPLATE AND TXP FORMS ARCHIVE CODE A QUICK LOOK AT THE DEFAULT FORM CONTENTS THE FINAL JOB RESOURCES TEXTPATTERN FORUMS TEXTPATTERN RESOURCES TEXTBOOK TEXTGARDEN TXP MAGAZINE PLUG-INS CHAPTER 7: WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG ENGINE A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM THE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT PREPARING THE DATABASE CREATING YOUR TABLE BUILDING THE ADMINISTRATION SITE CREATING A SCREEN FOR ADDING A POST CREATING A SCREEN FOR UPDATING A POST CREATING A SCREEN FOR LISTING POSTS DELETING A POST FINISHING TOUCHES TART IT UP BUILDING THE BLOG CREATING THE HOMEPAGE PULLING IN THE POSTS AUTOMATICALLY FORMATTING POSTS HEADERS, FOOTERS, AND OTHER REUSABLE ELEMENTS CREATING A POST PAGE ADDING COMMENTS CREATING AN ARCHIVE MAKING YOUR BLOG SEARCHABLE CREATING AN RSS FEED MAKING IT LIVE MIGRATING YOUR DATABASE MIGRATING YOUR FILES THE FUTURE POST AND COMMENT PREVIEWS ADVANCED FORMATTING OF POSTS CATEGORIZING YOUR POSTS HAPPY BLOGGING