Dec 14
Early Adopting “Structured Blogging”
Structured Blogging
Year: 2005
Author: StructuredBlogging.org
Platform: Other
Category: Publishing
Publisher: StructuredBlogging.org
Price: Free
With all the buzz that’s starting to happen, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring and try out the Structured Blogging plugin for Wordpress 1.5. This post is using the format for a software review, and for the ultimate in irony I opted to review the SB plugin itself.
Installation: Installation was very easy, just like any other WP plugin. Drop the files into the Wordpress installation, and then activate the plugin via the Plugins panel.
Usage: Once the plugin is activated, choosing the “Write” option in Wordpress now gives you 7 options in addition to Write Post and Write Page:
- Review
- Event
- List
- Audio
- Video
- People Showcase
- Group Showcase
- other microcontent
For this review I selected (surprise!) Review, and it brings up a very customized view of the normal Post editing page (screenshot). You can see from the screenshot how I filled out the new meta data that surrounds this particular type of structured post.
You’ll also note some interesting things in the screenshot that made this post a little more unique than your normal Wordpress activity:
- You can choose to upload an image right from the post interface. This is something coming in Wordpress 2.0, but is sorely missed by current 1.5 users. I haven’t yet figured out how to link to the image but give me a few
Update Looks like my upload settings in the SB Options were botched. If you accidentally get a bad upload (wrong directory, etc.), you’re going to have to go into the database to fix it, as I don’t see a way to easily remove it from the post. Now, even though I did that (fixed it in MySQL), anytime I edit the post I get the old data back. Hrrm…Urgently needs fixing guys! - The normal Wordpress shortcut tag links are missing above the main text area. This is not a deal killer, but it does make pounding out the post a bit more annoying than usual. Not sure if any WYSIWYG plugins would be handled here.
- Extra options. Not visible in the screenshot is the option to use the Outputthis.org services, as well as a Tags area for giving specific content tags to the post.
- It breaks my ShowOnFrontPage plugin (or vice versa). With my plugin enabled, the post won’t show on the front page. This obviously stinks, but I’m not sure if it’s their fault or mine! I’ll have to look it at some point in the future.
- I don’t see any way to do Trackbacks within the post..
All in all, pretty impressive, and a great way to start capturing some of this information. I firmly believe that we need to set content free, and in order to do that it has to have some self defining properties. This initiative will probably been as a landmark event in the area of aggregation of new types of microcontent. (You can quote me on that!)
P.S. Is there anything more you’d like to know that I can add to this initial sneak peek review?
Tags: structured blogging structured+blogging microcontent microformats
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December 14th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
Hi,
Thanks for the review - it’s great to see people talking about Structured Blogging! (4 out of 5 stars ain’t bad either - thanks!
I’ll respond to some of your bug reports here, and I’ve made a note to keep checking this page, so if you leave a comment here, I should get it.
* image upload problems *
Can you give me more info about the upload problem? I take it that you uploaded an image and the wrong pathname got stored, then you changed the post content in MySQL to make the post look right, but when you edit the post you still get the incorrect path?
If you fix the upload settings in the SB options and re-upload the image, this should fix the problem. If not, let me know.
The data used to fill out the editing form when you edit an existing post actually comes from the ’structuredblogging_xml’ meta key in the wp_postmeta table. If you want to check the image path and have it look right when you edit the post in Wordpress, you’ll have to edit the content in wp_postmeta . (Or just re-upload the image.)
* non-WYSIWYG editor *
Putting the WYSIWYG editor in is on the to-do list… that should make it into a future version of the plugin.
* ShowOnFrontPage plugin *
I’ve made a note to test this out - will get back to you on this.
* trackbacks *
Oops… we’ll fix this.
December 14th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
Philip,
*image upload problems *
That’s what happened exactly. I completely spaced out on _postmeta (shows how long ago I wrote *my* plugin!). Reuploading a different image didn’t fix it, and in fact caused a different error. I’ll check the DB and see what I can do. On a similar note, you should probably be able to include multiple images, with optional links to the full image. Version 1.5 maybe
*WYSIWYG*
Looking forward to it!
*trackbacks*
[sheepishly notes that my own blog doesn't list trackback URL's either...need to fix that!]
*ShowOnFrontPage*
It may have to do with how I set the initial meta on the post, but I’ll have to go back and read how I did it in the first place. I probably should change the plugin from a per-post to a per-category basis anyway in the future.
December 14th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
[...] Richard Goodwin - “All in all, pretty impressive, and a great way to start capturing some of this information. I firmly believe that we need to set content free, and in order to do that it has to have some self defining properties. This initiative will probably been as a landmark event in the area of aggregation of new types of microcontent. (You can quote me on that!) [...]