Bloo - Object Oriented Blog Software / News: Recent posts

Bloo version 1.22 has been released. For the detailed release notes, go to the release notes page, here: http://outofthebloo.com/pages/bloo-release-notes

Bloo version 1.20 has been released. For the detailed release notes, go to the release notes page, here: http://outofthebloo.com/pages/bloo-release-notes

Bloo version 1.10 has been released. For the detailed release notes, go to the release notes page, here: http://outofthebloo.com/pages/bloo-release-notes

Below are the main features and fixes included 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

The second production release candidate of Bloo, version 1.00, has been released.

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.... read more

The BlooQuote patch is now deployed for Bloo.v.1.00rc1.

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.

The first production release candidate of Bloo, version 1.00, has been released.

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.... read more