pulling in a blog

[iowamf]

I thought it would be easy to use SMF as a mutli-user blog - but it just doesn't seem to be the case.

Thus, I have been looking at bringing a blog to SMF and have looked at nearly all of them at opensourcecms.com.

WP is the big-dog - but that is not multi-user.

Yes, there is work on a multi-user WP - but multi-user is better "designed in" than "bolted on" afterwards - I think the muwordpress.org folks have their hands full.

I posted a msg at SMF about bridging LifeType (was pLog) with SMF - maybe that will get some hits.

LifeType/pLog has some advantages in that it was a multi-user blog out of the box and it doesn't have much else (which is a good thing).

Sure, one can bridge SMF&Joomla to get blogs - but that is like bring a bazooka to a knife fight if all you want is blogging. Frankly, I think the blog functionality in LifeType/pLog is superior to Joomla/Mambo anyway.

Eventually, I'm sure SMF/TP could bring native support for blogging with built-in tools - but why reinvent the wheel ... isn't that the point of GPL?

Thoughts?

PS -

I downloaded LifeType's beta 1.1 and they have reference code to hook into phpBB's user database as a "reference design". You can take a look at their dev tree if you have "svn" on a *nix box with: svn checkout http://devel.lifetype.net/svn/plog/plog/trunk ... they also use TinyMCE that I know Bloc is working to bring into future versions of TP.

[Moocat]

I think SMF could easily install a blog feature... it would be in the options while creating a board: amongst the "reply only", "read only", "no polls", options. the board would have some special icon to indicate that it's a blog, and threads would be created like blogs. on the index of that board, the threads are alphabetically organized instead of by last post. You click "new blog" instead of "new thread" and it creates your blog with your username in the title followed by a title you specify for the blog. then simply organize all posts by newest post at the top. i think smf could manage integrating that sort of blogging feature easily. i'm just surprised that no one has made a mod that does this.

[iowamf]

You are preaching to the choir Moocat - I stated the same opinion as yours in my first sentence.

If you do a search for "blog mod" at SMF you get a billion requests and nothing much more than "use SSI" ... although a couple of years ago "spaceman-spiff" attempted one that no one picked up.

If it was simple as "use SSI" - why are there 1000's of requests over a 2+ year period and not one single mod?

PS - I think you mean "chronological" sort instead of "alphabetical" - you are on the right track (and board chronosort cannot be done without hacking SMF sort algorithms - which I have a fix for - but it is a ugly hack).

I think SMF could easily install a blog feature... it would be in the options while creating a board: amongst the "reply only", "read only", "no polls", options. the board would have some special icon to indicate that it's a blog, and threads would be created like blogs. on the index of that board, the threads are alphabetically organized instead of by last post. You click "new blog" instead of "new thread" and it creates your blog with your username in the title followed by a title you specify for the blog. then simply organize all posts by newest post at the top. i think smf could manage integrating that sort of blogging feature easily. i'm just surprised that no one has made a mod that does this.

[bloc]

If the articles of TP have comments system, more friendly links, user-categories, BBC code type, auto-linking of other articles, permissions, search and selectable sorting..would that help in making TP act like a blog?

Currently all these are planned, some already implemented.

[iowamf]

Those features all sound great Bloc - but I bet it will be a lot of work?

I was just wondering if anyone has seriously looked at integrating a full featured GPL'ed multi-user blogging system ... those things aren't trivial.

Perhaps an integrated blog function would be better off integrated into SMF than built into your portal?

Actually, I'm working on some changes to a theme to just make some boards "look like a blog" ... sort of a "poor mans blog".   

Now that I'm starting to understand "themes" better - I'm thinking it could be done there.  I used to think "themes" was just the "look" - wow was I wrong - lots of potential for unique functionality there.

[waremock]

I like what they did here. http://www.christianforums.com/blogs It would be nice to have something similar.

[Crip]

I like what they did here. http://www.christianforums.com/blogs It would be nice to have something similar.

That's a very nice site, I took the time to join.

[waremock]

That's a very nice site, I took the time to join.

Yeah just like you liked mine.