9 Oct 2008

Blog software update: commenting system

Filed under: My software by Hari
Posted at 11:03 IST (last updated: 30 Oct 2008 @ 07:20 IST)
It is with great satisfaction that I announce the completion of the article display and commenting system for my blog software in development.

Here is a list of entry-specific features:
  • Separate draft and publish modes with separate drafts management section.
  • Optional parsing of smilies in posts as smilie images.
  • Pseudo-clean URL support for entries based on "stub" (e.g. entry.php/this-is-an-entry)
  • Ability to make an entry "featured" - that is have it displayed permanently in the sidebar. This can also double up as a "static page" feature.

Commenting is a key component of a blogging system and I've implemented these comment-specific features:
  • Optional anti-spam CAPTCHA to prevent spambots (which is highly recommended).
  • Ability to disable/close commenting on a per-article basis.
  • Ability to hide the list of comments on a per-article basis (while still allowing comment submission for that article).
  • Optional (global) moderation of individual comments.
  • HTML disallowed, but smilies parsed in comments.
Since comments are the lifeblood of a blog, I think I have approached it right. I might still need to implement a few more anti-spam measures, but that will come after intensive testing at a later stage.

Having crossed this milestone, the implementation of category-specific and date-based archives will be relatively smooth. :)

4 comment(s)

Leave a comment »
  1. I have an extremely stupid question. I know you're using Smarty for the templating, but what are using as a database extraction layer?

    Comment by RT Cunningham (visitor) on 10 Oct 2008 @ 18:47 IST #
  2. RT, I'm not using Smarty actually. I stopped using a templating system because I find that it actually impedes my coding and distracts from the program logic.

    For database, I'm using PDO with the SQLite 3 driver.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 10 Oct 2008 @ 21:00 IST #
  3. Ah, ok. I was going to mention some limitations to Smarty and I see you've already found them. I find it's much too rigid.

    I'm actually working on a MySQL database project and I'm looking for a good abstraction (not extraction, duh) layer. I don't like what I've found so far. I may have to write custom functions, which isn't pleasant either.

    Comment by RT Cunningham (visitor) on 10 Oct 2008 @ 21:11 IST #
  4. PDO seems to be a good option, as it is fully object oriented. But the downside is that PDO is only supported under PHP 5 and above.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 10 Oct 2008 @ 22:03 IST #

Leave a comment

First-time comments on this blog are moderated.
Your name*
Email ID*
(wont' be published)
Website
Your comments*
(No HTML allowed)		 :-) :-D :biggrin: :-P ;-) 8-) :-( :mad: |-| :oops: :-/ :-| :roll:
bold italic quote code
Code* captcha Enter the code you see in the image
* required fields