Announcing EntropiaForum Blogs!!

711

Site Admin
Admin
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Posts
5,346

An exciting and powerful new feature has been added to EntropiaForum, allowing members to create personal blogs.

This new blogging application employs all the common features used on many of the most popular blog platforms, such as Wordpress, Blogger, etc.

Features:

  • Fast Start - EntropiaForum Blogs makes it simple for EntropiaForum members to create their own space within the community. Getting started is as simple as posting the first message (using the same familiar EF editor). There is no lengthy setup process - blog owners are free to personalise their blog at any time by defining a title and a description that will appear at the top of every blog post.
  • Fully Featured - EntropiaForum Blogs is a feature-rich blogging application, with support for fully formatted WYSIWYG posts, images, bb code, smilies, comments, trackbacks and pingbacks, draft posts and categories, as well as seamless integration with EntropiaForum.
  • Categories - Each member can create up to 12 customized blog categories, allowing for sorting of your blog entries (e.g. Hunting, Mining, Society, etc.). Each blog entry can then be associated with one (or up to four) of those categories.
  • Blog Home Page - Available via a single click from the navigation bar on every EntropiaForumn page, the blog home page aggregates activity from all member blogs into a single page – with information about the most recent and highest rated blog posts, recent comments, a featured blog post, full support for browsing posts by date and overall blogging statistics.
  • Syndication and Subscriptions - Site wide and per-blog RSS feeds allow syndication to external readers, and full support for forum subscriptions enables users to join their favorite blogs and receive regular email updates.
  • Profile Support - Member blogs are integrated with the EntropiaForum member profile system – profile information is displayed alongside blog posts, and existing profile pages are enhanced with information about blog activity.
  • Blog Control Panel - The Blog Control Panel empowers members to control every aspect of their blogs, from permission controls (who has access to view and comment on the blog), to full management of blog categories, draft posts, trackbacks/pingbacks and subscriptions. Blog owners also have the ability to moderate comments on their own blog.
  • Flexibility - Uncompleted drafts can be saved for later review, editing and completion. Entries can be scheduled for future publication. Published entries can be edited or deleted by the author.
  • Spam Control - Members have the ability to use an Akismet key to help prevent spam comments from appearing on their Blog. For more info visit Stop Comment Spam and Trackback Spam « Akismet


Notes:

A link to the EF Blogs has been added to the navigation bar at the top of every EntropiaForum page. (**Note** to make space for the new Blogs link, the Arcade link has been moved to the Quick Links menu in the navigation bar).

More info on using the EF Blogs features can be found in the Blog Faq

As the new EF Blogs software duplicates the purpose of the Diaries subforum, that section will be closed to new posts. Any members who have existing and active diaries are encouraged to transfer those diary entries over to the new EF Blogs area. If you need assistance with this process, please contact me via PM.

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/about-entropiaforum/37255-entropiaforum-rules.html apply to all content posted in blogs. Blog entries may not be used for the trading of EntropiaUniverse items; please use the Trading Forum for such announcements.

Please provide any feedback or feature requests in this thread. I will be adding several features soon, such as a module on the Forum Homepage, and other integration features.

Enjoy! :cool:
 
Cool, nice idea 711 :)
 
wow

Great ,,, Very exciting idea.. full marks:yay:

Moonfish
 
Greatly done 711!
 
This is QUITE cool ... thanks for your continued efforts to make this forum a really great experience with awesome features ... it's greatly appreciated.
 
Thats a really nice feature to have. Thanks!

I would like to know if the diary section will ever be completely removed? This is because as much as I would love to move my diary over. I have so many old posts that I'm not sure I want to go through such a long copy paste process.
 
Thats a really nice feature to have. Thanks!

I would like to know if the diary section will ever be completely removed? This is because as much as I would love to move my diary over. I have so many old posts that I'm not sure I want to go through such a long copy paste process.

The old Diaries subforum will remain on EF forever, however it is now closed to new posts. At some point in the next few weeks, I will move the subforum out of the EU Creative section, and over to the archive subforum, where closed or obsolete forums are placed.

I have been investigating an easy way to import the diary threads into the new EF Blogs system, but it's a lot more difficult than expected. I fear that the only way to fully transfer those diary entries will be good old cut-and-paste :(

I have been very busy with the EFD Store upgrades, so I have not had much time to address the Diary => EF Blogs issue, unfortunately. I will give it another look tomorrow.
 
Wow, that's great news 711!
I still got to read it through since I'm at work, but there seems to be the basis for another wonderful development for our EF! :yay:

Just please work out the Diary->Blog import if possibile, as I'm really looking forward to it.
Plus, I'd like to keep the date of the posts, if doable.

Keep it up!
P. :smoke:
 
Blog Linking Tip

Members can easily and quickly link to their blogs using the following format:

Code:
www.entropiaforum.com/forums/blogs/[I]<membername>[/I]/

Replace <membername> with your forum user name. The URLs are not case sensitive.
***Note that if your forum username has a space, you need to use a dash.***

Example 1 (No Space in Username):
Username: JackFree
Code:
www.entropiaforum.com/forums/blogs/jackfree/
EntropiaForum - JackFree's Blog

Example 2 (Space in Username):
Username: Midori Fairlona
Code:
www.entropiaforum.com/forums/blogs/midori-fairlona/
EntropiaForum - Midori Fairlona

This linking tip is great for use on other websites you visit, or for creating linkbacks with other blogs.

Enjoy :cool:
 
alright so for a long time i thought about starting a diary here but never did ... diary girls or something just never got to it, i like the blog thing and have set one up for eron.

on another forum (not eu related) that has blogs they have a really cool little link to the avatars blog, it would be kinda cool to see that here so we know who is bloging

example:
2_544498.jpg


edit: the "1" next to "blog entries" is a hyperlink to the blog, i think its kinda hard to see in that pic but i tried
 
Eron²;1064883 said:
alright so for a long time i thought about starting a diary here but never did ... diary girls or something just never got to it, i like the blog thing and have set one up for eron.

on another forum (not eu related) that has blogs they have a really cool little link to the avatars blog, it would be kinda cool to see that here so we know who is bloging

example:
2_544498.jpg


edit: the "1" next to "blog entries" is a hyperlink to the blog, i think its kinda hard to see in that pic but i tried

That link with the number of blog entries is shown here on EF as well :wise:

Note that the row and link will only show if the user actually has made at least one blog entry.
 
That link with the number of blog entries is shown here on EF as well :wise:

Note that the row and link will only show if the user actually has made at least one blog entry.

was that added after my post as i didnt see if before but anyway thanks for pointing it 711
 
I may have a solution for importing existing diary threads into the new EF Blogs (fingers crossed). It may take some time to implement, but I am hopeful.

More details to come soon.
 
ah good to hear it.

Also as that other guy said. Being able to keep the dates would be good. For those of us who really care about our diaries its an important record of time gone by and experiences/thoughts about the game over our Entropian lifetimes.

It probably sounds insignificant but if you can do this it will be greatly appreciated I assure you.

Plus it would be a real shame to sideline so much great content :eek:
 
Last edited:
I may have a solution for importing existing diary threads into the new EF Blogs (fingers crossed). It may take some time to implement, but I am hopeful.

More details to come soon.
Great news, 711!
Thanks for trying, and take your time... we can wait ;D

Paolo (the other guy) :smoke:
 
okaaaaaaaaaaaay..... feedback on this now I have tried it:


- when writing entries you need to move the 'my pics' and 'smileys' boxes someplace else. If you don't give people a decent amount of horizontal space to write thing they will write shit or more likely not write at all cause its too hard to work with such a small space

- when viewing a blog entry, « Prev | Main | Next » needs to be shifted elsewhere (maybe opposite side to "Posted Today at 05:29 PM" ? or at the bottom). At the moment it is really unpleasing to the eye to see two "boxes" that are not aligned at the top.

- Turning off comments doesn't seem to work. I tried this and could still comment :eek:

- Deleting comments leaves a rather messy looking "this comment was deleted" sorta thing. It looks like there could be an option for a "hard delete" as well as the available "soft delete" can we have this option please?

- If these are in any way meant to replace the diaries (they've been locked so I assume this to be so) we need to be able to make posts always display at the same width as before. This is especially important if there will be an "import diary" function soon as most of us formatted our entries to fit a certain width.

- re: width settings above. At the moment "view entry" is fine but "view blog" sticks an annoying extra avatar pic on the right hand side of each entry messing up the forum look if you have pictures (the stick out thing) which many of us will have assuming you can move the old diaries over.

- titles: Can we have an ability to edit the font of titles (subjects) please? My old diary always used standard text in bold. Since we now have to submit a heading for each entry can we at lease choose how that heading will look? ;)

- titles: looking more at this I think the "Posted Today" and "Updated Today" stuff could do with being in the darker grey bit at the end of the posts (where the word "comments" is) as it isn't as important as the title and impacts on the look of things.... hmmm thinking some more on this, maybe there should be a dark grey box at the top. Similar to the one on the left hand side avatar box but including the posted and updated lines and the rate this entry

- Rating entries: This is fine and all but can we have an ability to rate a blog overall? Individual ratings arn't much use when you want to get a general idea on what is good to read.

- viewing all blogs: we don't seem to have a way to do this like we could before. It was pretty usefull to be able to see who had updated, how long their diary was, how popular it was and how well rated in a glance as we used to be able to do with the old diary subforum. Am I missing something?

- Random featured blog: This needs to probably ditch the avatar embedding on the left side so that the blog entry can fill the full width so it can be viewed as intended

- on the same page the recent comments collection of pictures and text seemingly randomly positioned looks terribly messy

Think thats about all I can think of for now. Bet you love me ;) Sorry if it all sounds very negative. It isn't intentional. I just want to see the quality of things go up rather than sideways or even (hopefully not) down.

Wistrel
 
okaaaaaaaaaaaay..... feedback on this now I have tried it:


- Turning off comments doesn't seem to work. I tried this and could still comment :eek:

- Deleting comments leaves a rather messy looking "this comment was deleted" sorta thing. It looks like there could be an option for a "hard delete" as well as the available "soft delete" can we have this option please?

Think thats about all I can think of for now. Bet you love me ;) Sorry if it all sounds very negative. It isn't intentional. I just want to see the quality of things go up rather than sideways or even (hopefully not) down.

Wistrel

About those two, i went to your blog and the comment box is not available to me (and i guess to others), also i don't know if you have any deleted comment there or not, because at least from this side, i don't see anything else besides your entry. (disabling comments might be hiding them or they might just not appear to anyone else but the blog owner) :dunno:
 
okaaaaaaaaaaaay..... feedback on this now I have tried it:


- when writing entries you need to move the 'my pics' and 'smileys' boxes someplace else. If you don't give people a decent amount of horizontal space to write thing they will write shit or more likely not write at all cause its too hard to work with such a small space

I agree that the editor box is too small. The good news is that I am pretty sure there is a mod to move the smiley/pic boxes to the bottom, widening the text area.

- when viewing a blog entry, « Prev | Main | Next » needs to be shifted elsewhere (maybe opposite side to "Posted Today at 05:29 PM" ? or at the bottom). At the moment it is really unpleasing to the eye to see two "boxes" that are not aligned at the top.

Another good suggestion, this will be a simple edit.

- Turning off comments doesn't seem to work. I tried this and could still comment :eek:

When your blog comments are turned off, you can still leave comments, but other members cannot (nor can they view any comments you make).

There are 3 possible settings for comments in your Blog User CP:
  • Comments On - Comments posted by others are displayed immediately
  • Comments Moderate - You need to approve any comments before they become visible to other members
  • Comments Off -Other members cannot see any previous comments, nor can they leave new comments

- Deleting comments leaves a rather messy looking "this comment was deleted" sorta thing. It looks like there could be an option for a "hard delete" as well as the available "soft delete" can we have this option please?

I will investigate the various options possible with regard to blog owners managing comments after being posted (this is only an issue id Comments is set to On, obviously). If it is indeed possible for blog owners to 'hard delete' comments from their blog entries, I wouldn't have a problem enabling it; after all your blog is your space on EF, so you should have as much control as is practical.

- If these are in any way meant to replace the diaries (they've been locked so I assume this to be so) we need to be able to make posts always display at the same width as before. This is especially important if there will be an "import diary" function soon as most of us formatted our entries to fit a certain width.

- re: width settings above. At the moment "view entry" is fine but "view blog" sticks an annoying extra avatar pic on the right hand side of each entry messing up the forum look if you have pictures (the stick out thing) which many of us will have assuming you can move the old diaries over.

Yes I have seen this. This will take a bit longer to address, as it will require a major modification of one of the forum templates that can be used exclusively for the Blog area. In the meanwhile, I will investigate some page reorganizations to alleviate the table stretching.


- titles: Can we have an ability to edit the font of titles (subjects) please? My old diary always used standard text in bold. Since we now have to submit a heading for each entry can we at lease choose how that heading will look? ;)

- titles: looking more at this I think the "Posted Today" and "Updated Today" stuff could do with being in the darker grey bit at the end of the posts (where the word "comments" is) as it isn't as important as the title and impacts on the look of things.... hmmm thinking some more on this, maybe there should be a dark grey box at the top. Similar to the one on the left hand side avatar box but including the posted and updated lines and the rate this entry

The Blog add-on is a fairly new official addition (less than 2 months old) to vBulletin, the software that powers EF, but custom mods like you describe are already emerging. vBulletin has a very large and active community of developers and designers constantly publishing nice modifcations, so I will have an eye out for those that will work well on EF. Actually, I have already seen a mod that allows even more user-level customizations than you describe. I will take a closer look at that one soon.

- Rating entries: This is fine and all but can we have an ability to rate a blog overall? Individual ratings arn't much use when you want to get a general idea on what is good to read.

I don't think rating of entire blogs is possible in the base blog software. However it is quite possible that a mod will be made to do this (or might even already exist). I'll keep the idea in mind.

- viewing all blogs: we don't seem to have a way to do this like we could before. It was pretty usefull to be able to see who had updated, how long their diary was, how popular it was and how well rated in a glance as we used to be able to do with the old diary subforum. Am I missing something?

The EF blog system has a very powerful subscription feature that works just like subscribing to a thread in the forum. You can subscribe to an entire blog, or an individual entry (to keep up with comment discussions and edits). When you create the subscription, you can set whether you want email notifications (just like for threads) of updates. These subscriptions and notification settings are managed through your Blog User CP.

The 'subscribe to this blog' link is in the left side column menu when viewing another member's blog. The 'subscribe to this blog entry' link is at the bottom right-hand corner of every blog entry.

In addition there is the trackback/refback system, by which you can automatically be notified whenever another blogger links to your blog; note that this trackback system includes any blog or website on the internet (not just on EF) that supports the trackback system (most blog platforms do). I will be putting together a comprehensive guide to using this powerful system; for now you can read a quick overview in the Blog FAQ

I also posted a (somewhat technical) overview of the linkback architecture in response to another member who was quite confused about the new trackback system in use on the forum (an independent system to the one used in the Blogs, but very similar). https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/about-entropiaforum/89393-linkbacks-what-they.html

- Random featured blog: This needs to probably ditch the avatar embedding on the left side so that the blog entry can fill the full width so it can be viewed as intended

- on the same page the recent comments collection of pictures and text seemingly randomly positioned looks terribly messy

All of these layout issues will be addressed and customized. Right now everything is pretty much the default install. You can rest assured that I will be continually making adjustments and improvements to the Blog platform over the next few weeks. However, my first priority right now is working on the Diary=> Blog importer, as well as the massive maintenance/upgrades of the EFD system.


Think thats about all I can think of for now. Bet you love me ;) Sorry if it all sounds very negative. It isn't intentional. I just want to see the quality of things go up rather than sideways or even (hopefully not) down.

Wistrel


I very much appreciate the feedback, Wistrel. Posts like yours will help me target the high priority issues that need to be addressed to make the new blog system as appealing to our members as possible.

In good spirit though, I will give you a bit of ribbing ;)

In your blog you posted:

Wistrel's First Blog Entry said:
Still, I find myself now in the awkward situation where, to complain about blogs in a blog is an exercise of sheer hypocrasy... or stupidity

which quite ironically follows this opinion:

Wistrel's First Blog Entry said:
but somehow the idea of a blog just seems like an insult to the written word to me. A nasty subculture of trash, poorly written, spelled and without thought to readership or quality!


:silly2:
 
- viewing all blogs: we don't seem to have a way to do this like we could before. It was pretty usefull to be able to see who had updated, how long their diary was, how popular it was and how well rated in a glance as we used to be able to do with the old diary subforum. Am I missing something?

Wistrel

After reading 711's reply i noticed that i was also wondering about what you refer on this question.

But in a quick re-check of the blogs section i found that there is this page:
EntropiaForum - Blogs

It seems like it can only be reached by clicking the link composed of the total blogs number (which atm is 22), on the Blog Statistics box.
 
After reading 711's reply i noticed that i was also wondering about what you refer on this question.

But in a quick re-check of the blogs section i found that there is this page:
EntropiaForum - Blogs

It seems like it can only be reached by clicking the link composed of the total blogs number (which atm is 22), on the Blog Statistics box.

I can add a link in the Quick Links menu in the navbar, or anywhere else we decide would be suitable.
 
nice, stupid me was almost starting a thread to ask the difference between a blog and diary :duh:
luckely I stubled upon this will searching :D
 
Blog & Rep???

I the diary section, it was possible to +rep people that contributed with their posts. Now, I can't find the +rep button in the blog section. Is this something that is forgotten to be added, impossible to implement, or specially done for some reason? :confused:
 
I personaly never saw a rep button in the blog section :) maybe it will be implanted in the future
 
Before I got reps from people when they liked my diary posts. Now they can actually write it in the replies - and personally I prefer that :) It is much funnier and personal that you can comment on each diary post!
 
Before I got reps from people when they liked my diary posts. Now they can actually write it in the replies - and personally I prefer that :) It is much funnier and personal that you can comment on each diary post!

Yes, thats a real improvement, but I still like to be able to +rep some good posts, just because they are soo good they should be rewarded :)
 
Not exactly on topic but I don't wanna open a new one just for this.

I'd like to see the number of views for each blog entry. (or is that already hidden somewhere and I just didn't find it yet?)
 
Not exactly on topic but I don't wanna open a new one just for this.

I'd like to see the number of views for each blog entry. (or is that already hidden somewhere and I just didn't find it yet?)

I would not mind that either. Also I wouldnt mind being able to see who is actually watching it - like the posts ... :D
 
Not exactly on topic but I don't wanna open a new one just for this.

I'd like to see the number of views for each blog entry. (or is that already hidden somewhere and I just didn't find it yet?)

I would not mind that either. Also I wouldnt mind being able to see who is actually watching it - like the posts ... :D

Indeed, we lost all that functionality we got from the original diary.
 
The Blog rep thread has been merged with the original EF Blogs thread. Many of the questions and feature requests are answered in this original thread.

Many of the features requested, such as blog views, will be added to the EF blogs section. As for reputation, there is a rating tool for blogs, as well as a comment system. Other tools will be added as they become available.

Please read post #19 in this thread, especially this part where many of these issues have been addressed:

The Blog add-on is a fairly new official addition (less than 2 months old) to vBulletin, the software that powers EF, but custom mods like you describe are already emerging. vBulletin has a very large and active community of developers and designers constantly publishing nice modifcations, so I will have an eye out for those that will work well on EF. Actually, I have already seen a mod that allows even more user-level customizations than you describe. I will take a closer look at that one soon.
 
Back
Top