After running my own PHP scripted weblog system for three years I finally upgraded to a better system. It was a great way to learn PHP and mySQL, I hand coded every single feature I had, from weblog posting to RSS feed generator.
Since Ruby on Rails started getting popular I was interested in it. But I never really sat down to write my own app. Then Garrett Murray released Simplelog. I downloaded the first version but never did much with it. But now with version 2 Simplelog is my weblog system of choice.
Once you get the hang of how Rails work and with good documenting from your host deploying is easy. Although if you get errors when running rake it can get frustrating.
Tip: If you get an sql error socket error when running rake install try removing
socket: /tmp/mysql.sock
from database.yml and let your host server appoint one automatically.
The fact that rails runs outside public_html makes it easy to create your website completely and when it’s fully done just link the app to root and your website is online. The negative side is that if you run your rails app on root(e.g. http://yoursite.com) you lose everything you have in pubic_html, so make back-ups before starting with rails on your host.
If like me you still use other PHP scripts like Mint you’ll have to install it in the rails app public folder. Once your app is linked to root your public folder replaces public_html. So any other files, images, etc that don’t use rails go in public. Remember to modify your htaccess. file so that rails ignore the none rails folders.
Example:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/norails.*
RewriteRule .* - [L]
Once Simplelog is installed you can start creating your own theme. The best way is to use the standard theme as example as to how the code is done. There is documenting available on the wiki and help in the forum. To figure out which tags to use take a look in the simplelog/app/helpers/ folder as not all of them is listed on the wiki. For this you will need basic understanding of Ruby on Rails.
If you have good Ruby on Rails knowledge you can customize a lot of Simplelog but it will become a hassle when you have to upgrade to a newer version. But I like Simplelog because it is simple, I don’t have the need to modify things to much. But new helpers to do different things are always welcome.
To conclude, writing this post is a nice experience with the live preview function and Firefox new spell check. I don’t have to do it in a text editor anymore and then paste it to publish. You can focus fully on writing without having to bother with countless details. Remember to update your feed!