For those of you on version 1.00 that have installed Patch 2, please avoid creating new themes within the system (i.e, don't create table-based themes). A problem has been discovered that will cause the blog not to initialize if you create a new theme.

This has been fixed and the fix will be in the next release of the software (1.1) coming soon. In the meantime, if you run into a problem after creating an on-the-fly theme within Bloo, you can get back up and running by manually deleting the new theme from the snap_on table.

If you need help, leave a message here.

Again, this only affects you if you're on Bloo version 1.00 patch 2.

Bloo version 1.00 Patch 2 has been released to resolve some known security holes in Bloo. If you are a Bloo version 1.00 user, this patch is highly recommended (note: it is only for version 1.00). You can download the patch, in either zip or tgz format, here. Just click on bloo.v.1.00.patch02.zip or bloo.v.1.00.patch02.tgz.

(for more information on the already-released patch01, click here)

In other news, work on Bloo version 1.1 is movin' right along. Expect the new version to be released soon!

An error was found in the default Page.sidebar overlay that comes with version 1.00 of Bloo. The fix for this is trivial, and there is now a patch available (bloo.v.1.00.patch01) that will fix it, here.

Note: If you are an upgrader who has already customized Page.sidebar, most likely you already have a good View Recent Comments link in your sidebar, so you may not need the patch. For new installers, the patch is necessary; you can also just customize your sidebar and fix the View Recent Comments link manually (go to Look and Feel, Overlays, and find and edit Page.sidebar in the Custom category) rather than bothering to download and install the patch.

The problem was due to some quotes in the href for that link that were inadvertently left as html entities in the overlay.

Also in the patch a small problem with the Last Published Date in the Comments RSS feed is fixed.

This is the big one . . . the first full Production release of Bloo! You can download it here.

Here's what's new in this release:

• Commenters on the blog can now edit their most recent comment after posting it. This ability lasts for several minutes
• The Private post type was created, allowing posters to create posts that can only be read by logged in posters or administrators.
• The Popular Posts extension now can have a specified time-window wherein it measures comment activity (rather than always just measuring for the life of the post)
• The blog now includes a “Lost your password?” feature, to allow users who have forgotten their password to get a new one.
• Now posters can create static pages, which are like posts but don’t display a date stamp and can only be displayed by going to the static page’s permalink URL. In other words, static pages don’t roll along in the normal post stream. This feature is useful for creating more “timeless” pages, such as an “About Me” page.
• The Bloogroll can now recognize a constant set in an overlay that specifies which Bloogroll categories to display. The constant is bloogroll_category_list, and is set in an overlay (usually Page.sidebar) using this syntax: _=bloogroll_category_list=Category 1,Category 2=_, substituting, of course, the real categories you want to display for Category 1 and Category 2
• Created the Contact extension, which allows the blog to have “Contact Me” and “Contact Post Author” links which will display forms through which users can send email messages to the blog administrator(s) or a post author without knowing the recipient’s email address
• Added links for “Older Entries”, “Newer Entries” on the Post display page to allow for navigation to older and newer posts.
• The permalink for posts is now, by default, on the post title, rather than the post time.
• Created the "Favorite Posts" SnapOn, which allows the administrator to show a list of his/her favorite posts from the blog.
• Created a Comments RSS feed.
• Created versioning in the system, which Bloo uses to detect when an upgrade is needed.
• We now have a new Bloo logo!
• Created a Trackback Send form, for sending trackbacks to other blogs.
• Form navigation is now smoother as the first field on most forms is now in focus by default.
• Changed the display of the “Everyone” security role to the more appropriately named “Guest”
• Renamed the “snapons” directory to “core”, for clarity’s sake.
• Removed the Remote Blacklist Spamicide extension SnapOn from the core release. Never much liked how this one worked (too many false-positives)
• Fixed a security vulnerability in Comments editing
• Fixed a problem with Post categories that have apostrophes in them (they were blanking out when the post was re-edited).
• The Bloogroll category drop-down was getting confused when the Category ID was greater than 10. This is fixed.
• Fixed problems with the RSS feed that caused it not to validate in certain feed readers.
• Fixed alignment problems in the post form when their were no post form extension snapons (such as Quicktags) enabled.
• Fixed a problem in the Lag Time Spam Checker extension snapon that was causing it to fail when checking trackbacks.
• Numerous other internal fixes and improvements

You can read the detailed release notes here.

Forgive the silence recently. Much work has been in progress. The production release of Bloo 1.00 is nearly ready and will hopefully be released in the next two weeks or so.

Huzzah!

The new Themes blog is available! This is a space where Bloo themes can be demoed and downloaded. Some new themes are coming soon.

The theme blog is here: http://www.outofthebloo.com/themeblog/

There is a new patch available for release candidate 2. It's a relatively straightforward one - it fixes a security vulnerability in the comments SnapOn and also fixes a bug in category selection while posting: any category with an apostrophe in it was getting cleared when a post was edited.

You can get download the patch here.

Bloo now has a project site on Freshmeat.net. I waited this long to set one up there because I wanted to wait for a production version. Now that we're at release candidate two, the time seems right.

Also, got a comment on the Bloo site yesterday: Bloo has been featured on LinuxLinks.com.

Cool . . .

The second production release candidate of Bloo, version 1.00, has been released. You can download it here.

Below are the features and bug fixes included in this release:

Features

• Multiple Category Tags. Now a post can be filed under multiple categories. This one was long overdue . . .
• Modified the post changes protector extension to handle changes to the post category.
• Redesigned the layout of the post admin and post display. In particular, made changes to accommodate multiple categories
• IP Blacklist - yet another Spam fighting SnapOn for Bloo. This one allows you to blacklist certain IPs so they can't leave comments or send trackbacks
• Multiple comment protection. In the past, people who were too quick on the Submit button might see their comment hit twice. This has been fixed.
• Reworked the ThemeSelector so that the admin can select which themes he/she wants to be in the rotation. This is important because in the past, all themes showed up, even "Bloo Base", which isn't a very presentable theme.
• Added capturing of the create and modify user id to the comments and post tables. Now we can see who did what.
• Made some general improvements to the phoo base foundation classes
• Date formats are now configurable by the admin. Now the admin can set the date format for the post date, post time, and comment time display. In addition, moved Post, Comment date formats and display settings to the Look and Feel section. Just seemed more natural.

Bugs Fixed

• An ampersand in a post title screws up the RSS feed. This has been fixed.
• When comments are sent to moderation, the user is not notified. Instead, they are just told “Thank you for your comment”. This has been resolved
• Those with “Everyone” status don’t have any real access to the admin panel. Fixed. Now they see a minimal administration panel, which basically just gives them the ability to edit their profile
• Error messages on login are very plain. Made 'em look nicer
• Simple Human Check display doesn’t start on its own line. Now it does.
• CommentFloodQuery was not working. This has been fixed.
• Upon upgrade or install, SnapOn and Theme lists were not shown in alpha order. They are now.
• First quote in Bloo Quote was not being selected as current upon entry of that quote into the system. Fixed.

You can view the detailed release notes here.

Watch me for the changes . . .

The BlooQuote patch is now deployed to Sourceforge. You can down load it by clicking here and selecting the bloo.v.1.00rc1.patches.zip or tgz file.

This fixes a pesky problem in Bloo release candidate 1 in which the Bloo quote of the day no longer advanced. In addition, administration of the BlooQuote snapon is improved so that you can now select the quote you want to make the current quote.

Work is continuing on release candidate 2.

Watch me for the changes . . .

You'll notice that my Jack Handy quotes now roll forward nicely.

I'll be releasing that fix out on SourceForge in a patch file soon.

A bug was discovered in the BlooQuote snapon that basically freezes it at the first quote - in other words, doesn't roll forward through the daily quotes - when you upgrade to release candidate 1.

There's a patch coming out for that. I'm going to test it here first.

Also - multiple category tags are coming! Been working on the interface . . .

I just upgraded this blog to release candidate 1. Note the timezone designator in the post timestamp. Cool . . .

The first production release candidate of Bloo, version 1.00, has been released. You can download it here.

While it certainly doesn't represent as large a leap forward as the Beta 2 release, this first production release candidate contains some nice features, with more coming (and hopefully quickly) on release candidate 2.

New features in this release:

• TimeZone Processing - Awww yeah! I've never been a fan of the "enter the number of hours between you and GMT" form of blog timestamping. First of all, that doesn't work well with daylight savings time, and plus it just seems kind of stick-and-rock. Now, when installing or upgrading a Bloo blog, you can actually pick your timezone, and let Bloo handle the rest - it will adjust time displays for daylight savings time, etc., and you don't have to pay attention to whatever your current offset to Greenwich is. There are new date formats also that will display the timezone for you in the post timestamp. Also, all internal times are now stored in GMT. I like platonic ideals - rather than storing internal times in database tables using the server time or other such fickle measure, Bloo stores everything in GMT. If you change your timestamp on your blog, all timestamps on all posts, comments, etc, will adjust.
• Got rid of one of the SnapOn packages in Bloo - the Lists package. This was used on a lot of behind the scenes stuff but was basically superfluous. Removing it also allowed us to remove the list_types table.
• Performed other cleanups on the settings table.
• Added new Settings menus, split up the General settings into more manageable pieces, such as Blog Profile, Discussion Settings, Time Zone settings, and Post and Comment Display Settings. You can now also adjust the number of posts to display on the main page, the number of comments to show in recent commentary, and the formats to use for date and timestamps.

Most of these changes, other than the addition of timezone processing, were just nice and necessary improvements. Much more is coming in release candidate 2.

Watch me for the changes . . .

Patches for the Bloo Beta 2 release have been deployed. Here's some detail on what's been fixed:

Patch
ct_code_001 - This fixes a problem with the ct_code spam filter that caused it to think all comments made to posts with long names were spam

rss_001 - This fixes some formatting problems with the Bloo RSS feed

style_001 - This fixes a problem with the styling of links in the sidebar.

These are all minor fixes, but still good to have. No more patches are expected for the Beta 2 version. Download the patches from the link above (they all come in one file) and view the readme.txt files for install instructions.

Now, to get to work in earnest on version 1.0!

Watch me for the changes . . .

After testing Bloo beta for a couple of weeks, the "feature" that wins the dumbest idea prize is making ALL sidebar links block style. That wasn't very smart - it affects too many other things. D'oh . . .

Patches will be forthcoming on that, plus there's a fix for the CTCode spam SnapOn and some RSS fixes coming.

Bloo Beta 2 has been released! You can download it here.

Here are the highlights:

• Refactored the loading of SnapOns, and unified their format. Now everything in Bloo follows a common SnapOn format, whether for core SnapOns, extension SnapOns, or theme SnapOns.
• Optimized the loading of SnapOns so that the system only loads the resources it needs, rather than loading everything
• Implemented the CTCode extension SnapOn. This is a spam checker that is quite effective against both trackback and comment spam, and that doesn't require the commenter to answer questions, type kaptchas, etc.
• Improved the administrative interface
• Created the Bloo Wiki SnapOn, which gives a blog certain Wiki-ish features (such as allowing the author to enclose post titles in [[ ]] brackets, which converts the entry into a link to that post title. Note: this SnapOn is not part of the core release. It will be deployed eventually on the main bloo documentation site (http://outofthebloo.com) soon.
• Created the ThemeDownload SnapOn, which allows the administrator to place Theme Download links on the blog which will contain the zipped code for the current theme. Note: this SnapOn is not part of the core release. It will be deployed eventually on the main bloo documentation site (http://outofthebloo.com) soon.
• Created "pend" type overlays, which will autmatically append or prepend themselves to specified overlays. Very handy for extending the Bloo interface.
• Improved the Comments interface
• Added Theme Screenshots to the administrative interface for Themes
• Improved the Theme administration panel
• Implemented Session messages, to provide a common facility for displaying information and warnings.
• Cleaned up and upgraded the Quicktags buttons, and added Quicktags to the comments form (optional)
• Added extension SnapOns that protect the user from losing unsaved changes to posts or comments if an errant back or close button is pressed.
• Added better security checks to prevent the unauthorized loading of a SnapOn.
• Added new themes: Lush, Jill, Quentin, Monochrome.
  
• Now administrators can associate a blog logo image to their blog.
• Theme Credits now can appear at the bottom of the main page
• Fixed general problems with the RSS interface
• Fixed the problem with Smilies not displaying properly in edited posts and comments.
• Fixed the problem with the PopularPosts extension SnapOn that had it counting removed spam comments in the total comments count.
• And performed a lot more behind the scenes enhancements and fixes.
  

Tonight I upgraded this blog to Beta version 2, which is nearly there, short of a few tweaks still needed.

Feels good. . .

I'll post the official release notes in a few days.

Watch me for the changes . . .

Beta 2 is very, very close. It represents a complete rearchitecting of Bloo, and I'm glad this is happening now, early in the game, versus later.

Also, i've posted on the Bloo Logo over at the Thinklings. Feel free to pipe in if you have an opinion on the new logo I've come up with (it's also shown below):

Progress is being made on the 2nd Beta Build of Bloo. This release will really concentrate on the efficiency of class loading in Bloo, and the class loading module has been completely re-written.

Some other enhancements include (planned) better organization of the code, perhaps some better spam checking, etc. This will be an important release as it sets up the architecture for the full production 1.0 release, which will happen soon (I hope!)

Watch me for the changes . . .