fvb 1.0 /blog

A new year again, time does fly. Let it be a great year for all.

Set up automated publishing according the instructions in the NanoBlogger user manual. Didn't work, searched the mailing list for a solution. The set up in the user manual appears outdated, but there are a few suggestion to get the job done. Choose a simple to set up solution using sitecopy.

Install sitecopy, create a directory and a config file:

sudo apt-get -i sitecopy
mkdir ~/.sitecopy
chmod 700 ~/.sitecopy
touch ~/.sitecopyrc
chmod 600 ~/.sitecopyrc

Edit .sitecopyrc with your editor of choice:

site yoursite
server www.yourisp.org
protocol ftp
port 21
username johndoe
password ******
local /home/johndoe/docs/yoursite
remote public_html/www.yourisp.org/
exclude *~
exclude *.bak
exclude /blog/blog.conf
exclude /blog/tidy.log
exclude /blog/cache
exclude /blog/parts
exclude /blog/data
exclude /blog/templates
checkmoved

Initialize sitecopy:

sitecopy -i yoursite
sitecopy -f yoursite
sitecopy -s yoursite
sitecopy -u yoursite

Finally tell NanoBlogger to use sitecopy by editing blog.conf:

BLOG_PUBLISH_CMD="sitecopy -u yoursite" 

The basic syntax is: nb [-b blog_dir] [options]

How to ...

• create a new weblog (directory) = nb -b [blog_dir] -a
• create a new entry = nb -a
• create a new category = nb -c new -a
• create a new entry for a category = nb -c [cat_id] -a
• list current entries = nb -l [current|all]
• list categories = nb -l cat
• list entries by category = nb -c [cat_id] -l [current|all]
• edit an entry = nb -e [entry_id]
• move an entry to a category = nb -c [cat_id] -m [entry_id]
• delete an entry = nb -d [entry_id]
• delete a category = nb -c [cat_id] -d cat
• delete an entry from a category = nb -c [cat_id] -d [entry_id]
• force update of weblog = nb -u [current|all|main]

Comments and suggestions to the mailing list or submit a bug report to the project page on sourceforge.net.

NanoBlogger is a small weblog engine written in Bash for the command line. It uses common UNIX tools such as cat, grep, and sed to create static HTML content. It's free to use and modify under the GNU General Public License.

pros:

• highly configurable and extensible
• intuitive command line interface
• easy drafting, editing, and management of entries
• configurable amount of archiving by category, year, month, day and entry
• pagination
• permanent and navigational links
• templates and CSS style sheets for full control over layout
• placeholders for easy template manipulation
• support for multiple weblogs
• support for multiple tags (categories)
• support for both relative and absolute links
• support for date manipulation of entries
• Atom syndication (comes with 1.0 format)
• RSS syndication (comes with RSS 1.0 and 2.0 formats)
• plugins for calendar, recent entries, weblog status, etc.
• plugins for text formatting (e.g. line breaks translate toHTML)
• global (nb.conf) and per-weblog (blog.conf) configuration
• intelligent build system that only rebuilds what's necessary
• simple cache system for extra boost in speed
• independent from java-script and server-side scripting (e.g. PHP)
• independent from external database (stores data in flat-files)
• includes user manual
• multilingual support
• multi-platform portability (just add bash and the required commands)
• modular code base

cons:

• slow (written in bash)
• no comments (only available as add-on)
• comes with a user manual
• not easily upgradable