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Weblog Description

Introduction

Weblog (abbreviated as "Blog") is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal or corporate website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles or other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Generally speaking (though there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

  • A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
  • An archive of older articles.
  • A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
  • A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a "blogroll".
  • One or more "feeds" like RSS, Atom or RDF files.

Description

Many blogging software programs are considered a specific type of Content Management System. They provide the features required to create and maintain a blog, and can make publishing on the Internet as simple as writing an article, giving it a title, and organizing it under (one or more) categories. While some CMS programs offer vast and sophisticated features, a basic blogging tool provides an interface where you can work in an easy and, to some degree, intuitive manner while it handles the logistics involved in making your composition presentable and publicly available. In other words, you get to focus on what you want to write, and the blogging tool takes care of the rest of the site management.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The entries and the comments of the visitors on the entries are made available through an RSS-feed.

Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to other pages easier — specifically permalinks, blogrolls and TrackBacks. This, together with weblog search engines enabled bloggers to track the threads that connected them to others with similar interests.

How to implement a Weblog within GX WebManager

  1. Prior to WebManager 9, GX provided a Weblog by combining the Media Repository with a Discussion Model. Articles could be displayed in reverse chronological order and visitors could leave a message underneath each article, thus (visually) simulating a Weblog. Shortcomings of this solution consists of the absence of Trackback / Ping, RSS-feed of the entries / comments, using the Discussion Module to moderate the discussion, and Weblog-authors need access to the Media Repository to add content.
  2. Within the Launching Customer project, GX developed a new Weblog WCB, based on the description provided by WPG. The Weblog-WCB (v 1.0) uses Webusers (within a specific webusergroup) as the authors for the Blog. The authors have access to the writers page (restricted access), where they can add/edit entries, and add/edit user comments. The entries are supported with keywords (currently not the Media Repository keywords!) and Trackback.
  3. Some improvements still to be developed:
  • Inserting Images in an Entry (currently it is text only).
  • Further integration of the Weblog with GX WebManager (e.g. providing a list of media-items based on the keywords of a post).

FAQ

Q: Is the Weblog WCB suitable for creating a new 'web-log.nl' (a community for hundreds/thousands of weblogs)?

A: No. The GX Weblog WCB is developed to implement a limited amount of Weblogs (max 20 as an indication). Adminitrators need to configure a weblog for each new author.

Q: What the heck is a "Trackback" ?

A: A Trackback is one of three types of Linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. More functional: person 'A' wants to write an entry on his Weblog 'Blog A' which relates to an existing entry of person 'B' at 'Blog B'. With trackback, 'A' can post an entry at his own weblog and by entering the trackback-URL of entry 'B' at location 'Blog B', his entry 'A' will be posted as a comment on entry 'B' at 'Blog B'. Users who read through the comments at entry 'B' will see that one comment is continued at 'Blog A'...

Documentation, Slides & Templates

See also

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