Lingua (An AJAX Blogging Engine)

[Alex Suraci]

For the lazy:

• The Demo
  
• The Site. Not much more to say than that; everything's there. Please read on though, for more information.
  

I've been working on a blogging engine for the past few years, on and off. Most of the development has taken place within the last 3 months, almost nonstop. It has progressed more than I can even remember.

digg it!

My inspiration came when I realized how big and bulky WordPress was, and I couldn't find a better blogging engine. So, I set off on my course to create one for myself, eventually deciding that I would share it and make it open-source when I was finished, or nearly finished. That time has finally come, I suppose.

You can recieve more information and download the latest subversion at the project's official website, right here. If you want to see a demo, you can access it directly from that website. There is no public release yet, but it shouldn't be too far off.

I'm posting here to just get the word out, and I'd really appreciate any sort of feedback, suggestions, etc. If you like it, please do not submit it to digg. My server is great, but not many servers could handle having a ton of hits at once (It's about 200 per second for digg). It would be a lot better off to just spread it via word of mouth, or any site other than digg. I'm not trying to sound arrogant, I just want to prevent it from happening, if it were to.

Thank you.

Edited May 9, 2007 by Alex Suraci

[keitheronie]

I think its a great start. It truly addresses the most current web design styles and technologies. It's ease of use and interface is what a user is looking for. Aside from the color-scheme (which just needs to brighten up a tad and needs some contrast between parts), I'm not sure what recommendations I would have. This is obviously the bare bones--and is still in the progress of being written--but my one recommendation would have to be to add a WYSIWYG editor. I know it would be difficult to do with the in-line editor for news posts, but I do believe it would be a nice feature that could obviously be turned on or off as the user prefers (and they are so easy to code yourself).

I'll definitely keep my eye on this with the possibility of using it in the future as its features grow.

[Alex Suraci]

  technoblinc said:

I think its a great start. It truly addresses the most current web design styles and technologies. It's ease of use and interface is what a user is looking for. Aside from the color-scheme (which just needs to brighten up a tad and needs some contrast between parts), I'm not sure what recommendations I would have. This is obviously the bare bones--and is still in the progress of being written--but my one recommendation would have to be to add a WYSIWYG editor. I know it would be difficult to do with the in-line editor for news posts, but I do believe it would be a nice feature that could obviously be turned on or off as the user prefers (and they are so easy to code yourself).

I'll definitely keep my eye on this with the possibility of using it in the future as its features grow.

The default theme is in the progress of being changed to look like the main site's look. That was the old style, I just haven't updated it yet. ;)

[Alex Suraci]

The digg submission has under 12 hours to get to the front page, or it gets the axe unfortunately. I'd really appreciate it if you guys spread it around to friends, if not just to get it to digg's frontpage. If not, I guess I'll just have to postpone it until a final release is out. :/

[keitheronie]

If you are able to, take a look at the Page that was created on the demo titled "I am editing." The user created a list in the page content, but it styled it like that lists for the menu. I don't know if that was intentional, but I know I wouldn't want that.

Another thought that came to mind--I'm not too sure about the Administration bar at the top. I think its a nice feature, to access maybe "quick" links for the adminstration portion, but I think an administration page would be much better. Just an idea.

[keitheronie]

Just another quick suggestion--maybe allowing new pages to be created but not added to the main menu? That way, a user can add a page without having it a main page. Also, so a user can add sub pages to main page.

[Jon 5]

Wow. You got quite a few diggs. I think when I first dugg it there were only 12 or so. Congrats.

[+Fulcrum Subscriber¹]

Oops: Theme Editor: "File is read-only; CHMOD to 777 in order to modify. ->

When I click it it collapses and there's no way to display it again.

Font: skyblue is bad choice on white bg, i'm on a CRT with very high color resolution and the font is hard to see.

Otherwise I like it a lot.

[Alex Suraci]

  DarkRyu said:

Oops: Theme Editor: "File is read-only; CHMOD to 777 in order to modify. ->

When I click it it collapses and there's no way to display it again.

Font: skyblue is bad choice on white bg, i'm on a CRT with very high color resolution and the font is hard to see.

Otherwise I like it a lot.

The theme editor is intentionally disabled for the public demo... I think it's quite obvious why.

The notices are meant to hide when you click them.

And lastly, I'm making a new default theme, so that will no longer be a problem. :)

[Rappy Veteran]

Just tested it out...I really like it :) will certainly keep coming back to see it =)

[Alex Suraci]

Massive upgrade recently, somewhat full changelog:

http://dev.linguaproject.net/index.cgi/changeset/11

Notably,

• Akismet spam protection
  
• New default theme
  
• Guest comments now have email and website fields
  
• New admin section for settings, theme switching, etc
  
• An awesome theme switcher
  
• Changing settings now take effect immediately
  

[JAbad28]

Look's great so far!! I might actually give it a go when it's completed. Been looking for a blog to use for a while and this might be it!! Keep it up!

I will be following your project, hope it goes well!

[Alex Suraci]

  technoblinc said:

Just another quick suggestion--maybe allowing new pages to be created but not added to the main menu? That way, a user can add a page without having it a main page. Also, so a user can add sub pages to main page.

I just did the page creation hiding from the list. I don't know about sub-pages though, maybe I could just implement a smart linking feature.

[Rappy Veteran]

  Alex Suraci said:

Massive upgrade recently, somewhat full changelog:

http://dev.linguaproject.net/index.cgi/changeset/11

Notably,

• Akismet spam protection
  
• New default theme
  
• Guest comments now have email and website fields
  
• New admin section for settings, theme switching, etc
  
• An awesome theme switcher
  
• Changing settings now take effect immediately
  

Some good changes there...I can see this being very popular when its released :)

[+mrbester MVC]

  Alex Suraci said:

I don't really rely on the validator these days anymore, because most of the time it's complete rubbish.

That's patent bollocks and you know it. Or, if you don't, you should.

Apart from that, very nice ;)

[acido00]

FANTASTIC :)

[Alex Suraci]

New version out, complete with tumblelogging and a new theme:

http://dev.linguaproject.net/index.cgi/changeset/14

[tao muon]

Quick question, not an insult or anything...

but why "lingua" as opposed to "lengua"?

[Tech Star]

I think that you should get TinyMCE's WYSIWYG editor in there. :)

[Alex Suraci]

  tao muon said:

Quick question, not an insult or anything...

but why "lingua" as opposed to "lengua"?

I'm not even sure what lengua means, but Lingua is Latin for "tongue," and it also means "language" in various other..languages.

  Tech Star said:

I think that you should get TinyMCE's WYSIWYG editor in there. :)

To be honest I've always hated WYSIWYG editors. Plus, that would negate the purpose of having MarkDown integrated.

[tao muon]

  Alex Suraci said:

I'm not even sure what lengua means, but Lingua is Latin for "tongue," and it also means "language" in various other..languages.

Lengua is 'language' and 'tongue' in Spanish. Idioma also means 'language' in Spanish, and also means 'idiom' (in English) which basically means a particular way, style or manner of speaking.

[keitheronie]

  Tech Star said:

I think that you should get TinyMCE's WYSIWYG editor in there. :)

TincMCE is very bulky and buggy, in my opinion. It may be easy to integrate into a previously scripted website, but its troubles are not worth it.

  Alex Suraci said:

To be honest I've always hated WYSIWYG editors. Plus, that would negate the purpose of having MarkDown integrated.

While hating WYSIWYG editors is your personal opinion, I do think they are the popular thing at the moment in the blogging world. You don't have to download and use a previously made one like TinyMCE -- you can very easily create your own. If you're at all interested I'd be happy to send you one I scripted. It's extremely lightweight and considering the majority of your site uses AJAX, I'm sure it'd be easy to work into the current coding you have.

Just a few thoughts.

[Sartoris]

  technoblinc said:

TincMCE is very bulky and buggy, in my opinion. It may be easy to integrate into a previously scripted website, but its troubles are not worth it.

While hating WYSIWYG editors is your personal opinion, I do think they are the popular thing at the moment in the blogging world. You don't have to download and use a previously made one like TinyMCE -- you can very easily create your own. If you're at all interested I'd be happy to send you one I scripted. It's extremely lightweight and considering the majority of your site uses AJAX, I'm sure it'd be easy to work into the current coding you have.

Just a few thoughts.

He is using MarkDown. It isn't a WYSIWYG editor, but makes it easy to add simple formating.

[Alex Suraci]

Beta 1 is out now, here is a link to the digg. :) Digg leads to the feature list.

[keitheronie]

Another suggestion I have is possibly shortening the list of tags on the main page? Sometimes the list can run extremely long if your tags vary greatly between entries (as some bloggers would limit their tags for organization purposes). Maybe code the page to maybe pick 10 tags at random? Or maybe the most used 10? Or maybe even allow the administrator to select tags to display? And then of course, have a link to a full list.

Just a little suggestion to keep the main page from being too crowded.

[Trix.Neo]

i went to the site, and clicked on blog.... the theme looked really broken on my 19" Content far left <-, catagories far right -> and about 600px of white space imbetween? <-->

im considering offering blog space to members in my CS:S League, would you be interested in providing your system as a potential candidate? could get you alot of exposure? PM me if your interested.

Neo