There is a patch for Bloo version 1.10 that fixes a problem in the post category administration that is preventing the creation or editing of categories. When these operations are attempted, the web-page just times out.

You can download the patch here.

Once downloaded, do the following:

1. Upload the bloo.install.command.overlays.xml file to your blog's "install" directory
   
   
2. Upload the post.command.overlays.xml file to your blog's "core" subdirectory:
   
   
3. Once that's done, go to your administrative panel,
   a. select Lists and Settings  
   b. select Post categories  
   c. Click the "edit" link next to the General category  
   d. Edit it (if desired - but if not, still go through this process) and press Save
   

There is a patch for Bloo version 1.10 that is necessary if you are getting nasty errors when upgrading from Bloo version 1.00 to 1.10. Basically, the patch fixes a problem that occurs for webhosts that do not have gpc magic quotes turned on by default.

You'll know you have the error if you get something that looks like this when you run the upgrade program:

SQL Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near
''Page.sidebar'' at line 6:select o.overlay_id ,o.syntax from vl_overlay
o where o.syntax like '%Post.form.search%' and deleted_flag = 'N' and
o.name = 'Page.sidebar'

Installing the patch and re-running the upgrade will fix the problem. The patch is relatively small - just two files.

You can download the patch here.

Bloo version 1.10 is (finally) released! It includes some nice improvements over 1.00. You can download it here.

Below are the main features and fixes included in this release

• New and improved install and upgrade programs
• Title-based permalinks are now available. In other words, instead of your post permalink appearing as http://myblog/post_id=1, your permalink can look like http://myblog/posts/out-of-the-bloo-a-blog
• Beefed up security layers to protect against hacks.
  
• Searches now work for static pages as well as posts
• Improved the emails sent on comments and trackbacks
• Linefeed to BR tag replacements for posts and pages are now smarter. They won't add BR tags within TABLE, OL or UL tags
• General improvements in sidebar styles and organization
  
• Fixed a problem with the published date in the Comments RSS feed
• Fixed a problem with the Recent Comments link, which was preventing it from working
• Fixed a problem with the upgrade/install Ping that caused some blogs to hang on install
  

Click here for the detailed release notes.

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!

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.

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 . . .

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 . . .

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.
  

Bloo Beta has been released! You can download the new version at the SourceForge project page, here.

I highly recommend upgrading, as there is a lot of needed spam-fighting functionality in this release. After upgrading, depending on how much customization you've done on your overlays, you might get some red errors on the blog after the upgrade. Don't panic - it's probably that you're referencing a snapon or overlay that has been revised in name or done away with. Deactivate your customized overlays one by one and you'll find the problem.

Now, the new features:

• Tired of coding your own HTML? This release has two SnapOns (RichTextPostEditor and RichTextCommentEditor) that convert your post or comment composition window into a Rich Text control. Kinda nifty, although some browsers have problems with these controls. For the majority, it works great. You can enable these SnapOns in the Writing section of the SnapOn administration page.
• You can now disable Comments and Trackbacks globally for your blog, or turn them on and off on an individual post basis.
• There is now a Comments/Trackbacks Moderation page, for quickly blasting spam and troll comments to oblivion
• You can also mark individual comments and trackbacks as spam (or trolls) in the comments and trackbacks section of posts.
• There is now a RemoteBlackList spam control SnapOn - look in the Spamicide section of the Spam Administration page. This SnapOn will check each incoming comment or trackback against external lists of known spammers.
• Also, the LagTimeSpamChecker SnapOn has been created. It is useful for marking comments and trackbacks on old, dormant posts as suspected Spam.
• For long posts, you can now break them up into the intro and a longer section behind a "Read the rest of this entry" link. The QuickTags "More" button will do this for you.
• On Quicktags, they are now optional and are a SnapOn in the Writing section of the SnapOn administration page. Just activate to see the Quicktags buttons on post compose
• General Blog Settings are now available for modification in a single administration page, rather than the list you had before. Look in the General Blog Settings tab under Lists and Settings

Also fixed two bugs:

• I discovered that when editing an overlay for the first time, the editor was expanding all other overlays and SnapOns within the code of the overlay on edit. I realize that might not make sense, but - trust me - it's bad. Fixed now.
• The My Profile page was not displaying any data, making it pretty hard to edit your profile. This has been fixed.

Well, those were the biggies. There was also some tweaking done to the way the administrative sections look.

Watch me for the changes . . .

Finally . . .

I'm too tired to write much about it now - will update more tomorrow.

Watch me for the . . . .zzzzzzzzzzzz

This is a quick interim release that fixes a bug found in the Overlay editing section. It's fixed.

Alpha Build Nine has been released into the wild. This is the last alpha build - the next build of Bloo will be a beta release candidate. Woot!

You can download the new release here at the Bloo Sourceforge Project Page. Here's what build 9 brings ya:

• Created the BloogrollPosts SnapOn. This is a nifty little addition that allows you to view posts written by people in your bloogroll from within your blog. It's somewhat similar to the LJ "friends posts" feature, except this works for any blog, not just other Bloo blogs. And you don't really have to be friends with the people :-) - it gets its content off of their published RSS feeds
• Fixed the BlooPostSpellChecker SnapOn. It quit working when Google switched it to use https
• Created a comments spell checker SnapOn
• Refactored the tabbed menu items, provided better inheritance
• Made the overlay editing window bigger
• Created the Scripturizer SnapOn, which converts any Bible reference in your posts to a link to the ESV Bible
• Created, against my better judgement, a Smilies SnapOn, useful for inserting cute little smilies in posts and comments.
• SnapOns are now categorized and are organized in the SnapOn maintenance section in different tabs, one per category
• Set overflow styles in the base CSS so that sidebars and content will stay put if some content gets too wide
• Cleaned up the RSS feed coming from Bloo and added more fields to it
• Did some cleanup and code refactoring to allow for running simple queries without having to call the SnapOnFactory
• Did some small overlay work on the BlooQuote overlay so that it now uses the additive feature
• Created an additive overlay for JavaScript additions
• Rearranged the Themes and Overlay tabs in the Look and Feel section
• Added "Save and Continue Editing" in the overlay editing section (because it's a pain to have to keep switching back and forth)
• Refactored and simplified (a bit) Overlay editing
• Reworked the XML2Array parser so that it reads RSS feeds correctly

Currently I'm in design on the thousand and one ideas I have for Bloo. In particular, hopefully the next release will include the BlooSnapOnServer, which will serve out SnapOns thus eliminating the need to make them part of official releases. This will be a SnapOn itself, so any Bloo blog can become a SnapOn server.

We may also see some of the faint beginnings of BlooM (Bloo Messaging), BlooAlliance, and BlooCommunity. But if I get to any of those in release candidate one it will be a miracle.

Watch me for the changes . . .

Well, finally. . . To be honest, it's been done for a week (and deployed to all the alpha blogs I control) but I basically took a week off from developing and am just now getting around to upload it.

The release notes are at the bottom of this post. This release included a ton of work on the overlay and themes administration. Overlay admin was cleaned up and made sturdier, if not more understandable. You can now preview a theme where it will remain your theme for an hour, but no one else will be able to see it (useful when creating a theme).

Um, the theme docs are still coming . . . I'm so bad.

I also added some rudimentary spam control and a spellchecker, based on googiespell. Cool.

Release Notes:

version 1.00.a.008


In this release the focus is, again, on themes. Virtual themes can now be created by the blog administrator, cascaded from, etc.

Below is a list of the bugs fixed and features added:


Features Added
--------------
1493965 Create additive overlays
1493963 Add Spam Fighting fields
1493962 Enable Extension Initialization SnapOns
1493961 Create the SimpleHumanCheck SnapON
1493960 Rework Theme administration
1493958 Create a spell-checker SnapOn
1493956 Re-work table-based overlay editing
1493953 Cannot edit overlays with textareas in them
1495309 Add a color-coded legend to the Themes list
1500086 Create the CSS.link.extension

Bug Fixes
---------
1493955 Problem with theme dropdown
1495318 Fix a bug in the CSS.extension overlay
1495319 Color coding of overlays is incorrect

If you have problems, email support@outofthebloo.com, and we'll see what we can do for you. Any feedback is very welcome.

You also might find it helpful to visit the Bloo development blog at devblog.outofthebloo.com.

This one took me awhile - lots of refactoring of the admin panels, now users can create their own themes, etc.

Of course, still a lot more work to do to get this to beta.

Here are the official release notes:

In this release the focus is, again, on themes. Virtual themes can now be created by the blog
administrator, cascaded from, etc.

Below is a list of the bugs fixed and features added:

Features Added
--------------
Feature: 1479055 - Converted the settings admin section to a tabbed-menu page
Feature: 1479057 - Changed the Extension nomenclature from "Extension" to "SnapOn"
Feature: 1470374 - Created the Page.banner overlay
Feature: 1479061 - Refactored the SnapOnForm to make it much more functional
Feature: 1479063 - Split the Page.main up into Page.banner, Page.content, Page.sidebar
Feature: 1479064 - Created Overlay "Favorites" to group the overlays most commonly edited
Feature: 1458744 - Created Virtual (user-created) themes
Feature: 1479065 - Broke the Post overlay up into Post.header, Post.content, Post.footer
Feature: 1479068 - Created two new themes: Jen's Flowers and Atari Retro
Feature: 1458748 - Created the ESV Daily Passage extension

Bug Fixes
---------
Bug: 1457516 - Trackback shows the wrong title
Bug: 1479053 - Fix the CSS for the tabbed menus
Bug: 1479059 - Limit width of dropdowns in the sidebar
Bug: 1479066 - Wrong theme descriptor vars
Bug: 1479062 - For XML read in, remove a blank line at the beginning


Watch me for the changes . . .

The sixth alpha build of Bloo has been released. There was nothing earthshattering in this release, but it was a lot of work (um, does that make sense? I'm punchy).

I knew I would have to redo all the base CSS before too many canned themes and cascaded themes were created, and before I opened up the ability for blog admins to create themes on the fly.

The themes in Bloo generally cascade off of one another (and most will cascade ultimately from the bloo_base theme, which is not a public theme. Guess it would help if I'd document that :-) - but, basically, this means that the base theme has to be very clean to avoid later chaos. I have cleaned it up a lot.

I also have introduced tabbed menus in the look and feel section, and have made the menus smarter (so they know and visually show when they have been selected, etc.)

In addition, the RSS feed, which was hosed, is now fixed.

Most of tha alpha blogs have been updated. There is a new issue with the Lintefiniel theme that I just discovered - heh, I guess I know one of the bugs to be fixed in release 7!

I'm punchy. Thank you all you alpha testers. Good night!

Oh, and watch me for the changes . . .