News Blog - For October 2008
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Trackback Release 0.7
The seventh release of BlogSvc includes support for Trackbacks. Also, this release contains the following new or improved features:
- Updated to latest MVC Beta
- A new theme: Hibiscus (see right)
- Auto-ping links upon create/update entry
- Trackback client and server support
- Pingback client and server support
- Search support added to both backend and frontend
- Search relevance ordering based on term hit count
- Updates to use RenderPartial instead of controls
- New recent comments display
- Additional sort support through repository
- New separate credential storage in Users.config
- New date/time support via timezone configuration
- New time ago jQuery feature shows relative time to user
- New support for storing entries in database
- Updated paging for both atom and web
- Bug fix to date/time storage
- Comment feeds at collection, workspace, and entire app level now supported
- Retrieve entries at multiple different levels
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New Theme Hibiscus
This theme has not yet been updated for Release 0.9.
Release 0.7 has a new theme called Hibiscus. You can see this theme applied to the latest release on our test server: http://atomsite.net. To save time, the theme is built on top of the default theme using an import.
@import url('../default/default.css');This theme consists of only a CSS stylesheet and eight new images. The rest of the theme is inherited from the default theme. The theme can be applied to either a single collection or a whole workspace by setting the theme property in the Service.config document.
<workspace svc:default="true" svc:theme="hibiscus">I created this theme for my wife Kristin. It is based on a clipart found at the open clip art library called Hibiscus Remixed. Kristin altered the colors and I created the CSS and other images.
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Trackback and Pingback Support
Trackback and pingback support is the top new feature of the next release. The support is unique in that it utilizes an MVC controller to receive trackbacks and pingbacks. I've also implemented auto-ping support for sending trackback and pingbacks to all the links in the content of an entry upon publish or update.
I believe that the Atom Threading Extension was built upon the notion of a trackback. This is why we are using the existing annotation support in BlogSvc for annotating an entry when a trackback or pingback occurs. Therefore, a trackback is just another atom entry with it's content source pointing back to the target location.
BlogSvc is unique in that it tries to extract information from the target location when it is not provided. This sometimes occurs with trackbacks and it is always the case with pingbacks.
The trackback and pingback support was built to verify the target location refers back to the entry. To further reduce potential spam, it also supports plugging in a spam blocking service.
Please let us know if you have any questions about the new trackback and pingback support.
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New Global Date and Time Support
With .Net 3.5 there is great new support for working with dates across time zones. Check out Dan Rigsby's blog for some great posts about the new classes.
Working with Dates and Times in .Net 3.5 Series:
Part 1: DateTime vs. DateTimeOffset in .Net
Part 2: TimeZone vs. TimeZoneInfo in .NetBlogSvc directly benefits from these enhancements in two ways:
- Configure all dates to show in preferred timezone
- Show time relative to the user (via jQuery)
Two new configuration settings allow you to control which timezone your website uses. The TimeZoneInfoId sets the timezone based on the timezones loaded on the server. The TimeZoneDisplay sets a shorthand value that can be shown next to the times on your site.
BlogSvc utilizes the <abbr> to allow a concise view of the date. By hovering over the date you can see an unambiguous view of the time. BlogSvc also uses the jQuery Time Ago plugin to show relative times that make sense to viewers.
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Test Trackback
This post is for testing trackbacks.
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MVC Release 0.6
The sixth release of BlogSvc includes the switch over to MVC preview 5. Along with this switch are the following new or improved features:
- Improvements to markup for clean CSS themes
- Fully dynamic theme support
- Fix: unapproved comments filtered
- New unapproved comment shows "need approval" message
- Password filtering from service doc
- Refactor away the global statics
- BlogSvc.net website is now separate project
- Simple personal blog included as default
- Fix: authentication for multiple authors/contributors
- Removed dependency on ManagedFusion URL rewriting
- New authors added upon entry update
- Side controls work across collection and entry pages
- AtomPubController is fully testable
- Better ajax support via jQuery and MVC
- Added subtitle extension to workspace
- Improved ratings control using jQuery plugin
- Simplified deployment structure
You can read about some of the benefits of switching to MVC in my previous post.
We will put together a roadmap for future releases of BlogSvc and we would really love to hear your feedback on this release what you'd like to see in future releases. Please leave a comment below and let us know what you think!
You can download this release from Codeplex.
