blogthon/README

Index:

 1) Installation
 1.1) Apache
 1.2) Lighttpd
 2) Entries
 3) Staticpages
 4) Comments
 5) Linklist


1) Installation
===============
The installation of Blogthon assumes that your httpd supports CGI and Python
is installed. If all this is given, you can download Blogthon in a directory
of your choice. After that you have to symlink 3 files into your www directory:

 * blogthon.cgi
 * styles
 * .htaccess (optional, but security relevant)

Then create 3 directories and 1 empty file:

 * entries/
 * static/
 * plugins/
 * linklist

If you don't want to disable comments, you have to change the permissions of
entries/ to 777.

Now copy the example configuration into your www directory, or to
../blogthonrc or ../.blogthonrc.

If all this is done, you can continue with setting up your httpd.


1.1) Apache
===========
To enable CGI you just have to run 'a2enmod cgi' as root. Now put something
like this in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default:

<Directory /this/is/where/your/www/root/is/>
    Options +ExecCGI
    AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
    DirectoryIndex blogthon.cgi
</Directory>

To finish the installation, reload Apache with
'/etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload' as root.


1.2) Lighttpd
=============
First you have to enable cgi support for lighttp by 
running 'lighty-enable-mod cgi' as root. Now create a new config 
in /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/ named 50-blogthon.conf or something similar
with this content:

$HTTP["host"] == "YourBlogURL" {
	cgi.assign = ( ".cgi" => "/usr/bin/python" )
	index-file.names  = ( "blogthon.cgi" )
}

Enable this config by runnung 'lighty-enable-mod blogthon' and restart lighttpd
with '/etc/init.d/lighttpd restart' as root.


2) Entries
==========
To start blogging you just have to open your favorite editor, write your entry
and save it under entries/. The filename should be like this:
 (entry title).(suffix)
The suffix can be set in your configuration file. Default is '.txt'.

While parsing an entry, blogthon places a <br /> behind each line, except for
lines with <ul>, <li>, <table>, etc... So you don't need to make your own
layout using <br /> tags. Aside from that you can certainly use <p> elements
and all other HTML tags.


3) Staticpages
==============
Staticpages are placed under static/ without a suffix. To sort them, you can
start the filename with a literal and -. So '01-Foo' will be placed before
'02-Bar'.

If you want to make a staticpage to be a link to an extern page, you just have
to place the following content in the first line:
extern_link: http://your/link.


4) Comments
===========
Comments are saved under entries/ like all entries, but with the suffix
'.comments'. The syntax in this file is like this:

-.Nickname
+.Date
.some text
.more text


5) Linklist
===========
To add a link to your linklist, just add a line to the linklist file:

http://some/link name of your link

Of course you can use empty lines to split different sorts of links.