Hello, I just posted a beta of my first program for the Mambo community. Here is an excerpt from the homepage:

"Blogg-X is a cross platform (Mac OS X and Windows XP) blogging tool for websites based on the Mambo Open Source CMS. With it's built in WYSIWYG editor it allows rich content to be posted onto the front page of your Mambo site eliminating the need for the internet browser and being logged in. If you want to post content quickly and easily Blogg-X is for you. When combined with AkoComment 2.0 from Arthur Konze you have a complete, fast and simple front page blogging solution for Mambo."

You can find additional information at http://www.iobinary.com.

This looks very promising. I'll have a further look. When do expect to have a stable version ready?

BTW, nice job on your site. What template are you using? I know I've come across something like it before but can't seem to remember where. Thanks for the feedback and best of luck with your project.

Thanks for the kind comments.  I will be focusing on getting the category selections working and ability to remove saved sites, then polishing up the WYSIWYG editor a little more.  Basic problem, as of now, is getting more testers.  Luckily I have access to both Apple and Windows platforms here, but developer machines aren't always the best testing systems.  Sometimes it seems like everything works fine on the development systems but hit and miss on "normal" systems.  As people begin to use it hopefully I will get feedback on any problems and/or dislikes and I can get them ironed out.  The more feedback I get the faster it should become more stable and user friendly.

As for the site template it's called "Macphoria" and is available at www.mambodev.com.  It isn't a free template though.  The Blogg-X portion of the site, is normal HTML I created and placed into the site via a wrapper.

If anyone knows of any other sites that I should post information on regarding Blogg-X please let me know.  Besides this posting I have also listed it at www.mambers.com.

Thanks,

lordsiris

Quite interesting! Thank you for sharing with us.

As much as I've read you're making a remote database call (correct me if I'm wrong). I've two questions:

- Have you thought about making it using XML-RPC technology?
- Are you going to share the source code too? Maybe I'm asking too much but I believe that the time for connecting desktop and mambo has come and your software could be a great guide to achieve that and many other developers can benefit from this.

Cheers

lordsiris wrote:As for the site template it's called "Macphoria" and is available at www.mambodev.com.

Ah, of course...rhuk's handiwork!

atelier...Between using "unnamed CMS" and rhuk's template I was very quickly able to get a fully functional site up and running without the normal weeks of html coding.  I had played with Post-Nuke and PHP-Nuke over the years but it just didn't leave me feeling confident like my current setup.

danialt...The downloads (.exe and .dmg) files contain the full source code.  I bundled everything with an installer because I am using two external .jar files, one is the JDBC mySQL connector and the other for the theme support.  Basically was trying to save people from having to move files into the java extensions directory.  As for XML-RPC I looked around today at some general information, but didn't see anything that states to the fact that it can interact with the mySQL tables.  If you know of a site that speaks to that please let me know and I will explore it more.

The program is indeed making remote database calls via the mySQL JDBC connector.  Multiple queries are performed and when using the posting button in Blogg-X the connector is inserting data into the mos_content table and then captures that entries "id" so it can be inserted in the mos_content_frontpage table.

I am relatively new to Java programming (less than 6 months) so there are definately improvements that can be made on my code.  Unfortunately this project is something I work on in my free time, so sometimes I don't get to spend the amount of time coding that I would like.  But it's been a wonderful learning experience and will definately get better as I learn more.

Thanks,

lordsiris

Blogg-X 0.75 Beta has been posted at http://www.iobinary.com.

I have made a few changes but the most notable is the posting speed is now about 3x faster, categories are supported and sites can be removed.

Here are the contents of the changelog:

9 September 2005 | Blogg-X 0.75 Beta

FEATURE:  Removal of sites now possible. Complete change of way sites and settings are handled.
FEATURE:  Category selection now available.  Defaults to "Latest News" if no category selected.
FEATURE:  Added quick instructions for first time run.

CHANGE:  Modified "mos_content_frontpage" ordering to behave like Joomla.
CHANGE:  Modified SQL insert statement to find autoincrement id instead of string matching.
CHANGE:  Unlimited number of sites now supported.
CHANGE:  Icons/Logo updated.

BUGFIX:  Correct movement between "Title" and "Content" now working via the Tab key.

I haven't received much feedback yet, so if you are using the program and having any problems or just have some great ideas for improvements please drop a line here, in the forum at iobinary.com or via email at adminiobinary.com (replacing with @).

Thanks and enjoy,

lordsiris

Since just few documentation for XMLRPC is available, I try to write some piece of code to help beginners with examples of java XMLRPC clients

I can upload the docbook source if needed.

http://appietto.free.fr/mambo/XML_RPC_Mambo.html



Also including below beta source code to add basic HTTP authentification in xmlrpc.server.php (it uses new user mambot to retrieve user infos)

Code: Select all

<?php

/**

* @version $Id: xmlrpc.server.php,v 1.6 2005/07/11 01:16:19 johanjanssens Exp $

* @package Mambo

* @copyright (C) 2000 - 2005 Miro International Pty Ltd

* @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU/GPL

* Mambo is Free Software

*/

/** Set flag that this is a parent file */

define( "_VALID_MOS", 1 );

// crank up mambo

require_once( 'configuration.php' );

if (!$mosConfig_xmlrpc_server) {

die( 'XML-RPC server not enabled.' );

}

require_once( $mosConfig_absolute_path . '/includes/mambo.php' );



$mainframe = new mosMainFrame( $database, '' );

$mainframe->initSession();

/**

* CUSTOM HANDLER FOR METHOD NOT FOUND

*/

function domXmlRpcFault( &$server, $methodName, &$params ) {

// error code according to http://xmlrpc-epi.sourceforge.net/specs/rfc.fault_codes.php

$server->serverError = -32601;

$server->serverErrorString = 'I don\'t know about ' . $methodName;

return $server->raiseFault();

} //faultExample

function domXmlRpcAuthError( &$server) {

    $server->serverError = 0;

$server->serverErrorString = 'Incorrect username or password';

$server->respond($server->raiseFault());

}



// Includes the required class file for the XML-RPC Server

require_once( $mosConfig_absolute_path . '/includes/domit/dom_xmlrpc_server.php' );

require_once( DOM_XMLRPC_INCLUDE_PATH . 'dom_xmlrpc_fault.php' );

$_LANG = mosFactory::getLanguage();

$_LANG->debug( $mosConfig_debug );

$xmlrpcServer =& new dom_xmlrpc_server();

$xmlrpcServer->setMethodNotFoundHandler( 'domXmlRpcFault' );





// authenticate xmlrpc client

// using basic auth method

// fore more information see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2617.txt

if (!isset($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'])) {

header('WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="'.$mosConfig_sitename.' Realm"');

header('HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized');

exit;

}

if(!$mainframe->login($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'],$_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'])){

domXmlRpcAuthError($xmlrpcServer);               

    exit();

}



/** get the information about the current user from the sessions table */

$GLOBALS['my'] =& $mainframe->getUser();

// load all available remote calls

$_MAMBOTS->loadBotGroup( 'xmlrpc' );

$allCalls = $_MAMBOTS->trigger( 'onGetWebServices' );

// add all calls to the connector object

foreach ($allCalls as $calls) {

    foreach ($calls as $call) {

     $xmlrpcServer->addMethod( new dom_xmlrpc_method( $call ) );

}

}

// pass individual arguments to the called method

$xmlrpcServer->tokenizeParams( true );

// process the call

$xmlrpcServer->receive();

?>

Also I found 2 bugs in DOM XML-RPC for PHP :

in file php_http_client_generic.php

Code: Select all

/**

* Sends data through the client connection

* @param string The message to be sent

* @return string The http response

*/

function &send($message) {

$conn =& $this->connection;

if ($conn->isOpen()) {

//build header info

$request = $this->requestMethod . ' ' . $this->requestPath . ' ' . $this->protocol .

     '/' . $this->protocolVersion . CRLF;

$request .= $this->headers->toString() . CRLF;

$request .= $message;



//init variables

$response = $headers = $body = '';

$readState = HTTP_READ_STATE_BEGIN;

$this->fireEvent('onRequest', $request);



//send request

$connResource =& $conn->connection;

fputs ($connResource, $request);

//read response

$this->response->message ='';

$this->response->headers = '';

while (!feof($connResource)) {

    $data = fgets($connResource, 4096);

    $this->fireEvent('onRead', $data);



    switch ($readState) {

     case HTTP_READ_STATE_BEGIN:

     $this->response->statusLine = $data;

     $readState = HTTP_READ_STATE_HEADERS;

     break;



     case HTTP_READ_STATE_HEADERS:

     if (trim($data) == '') { //end of headers is signalled by a blank line

     $readState = HTTP_READ_STATE_BODY;

     }

     else {

     if ($this->responseHeadersAsObject) {

        $this->response->setUnformattedHeader($data);

     }

     else {

        $this->response->headers .= $data;

     }

     }

     break;



     case HTTP_READ_STATE_BODY:

     $this->response->message .= $data;

     break;

    }

}



$this->normalizeResponseIfChunked();



$headerString = is_object($this->response->headers) ?

     $this->response->headers->toString() : $this->response->headers;



$this->fireEvent('onResponseHeaders', $headerString);

$this->fireEvent('onResponseBody', $this->response->message);



$this->fireEvent('onResponse', $this->response->headers . $this->response->message);



return $this->response;

}

else {

HTTPExceptions::raiseException(HTTP_SOCKET_CONNECTION_ERR, ('HTTP Transport Error - Unable to establish connection to host ' .

     $conn->host));

}

} //send

and in file php_http_client_generic.php

Code: Select all

/**

* Specifies a user name and password for basic authentication

* @param string The user name

* @param string The password

*/

function setAuthorization($user, $password) {

     $encodedChallengeResponse = 'Basic ' . base64_encode($user . ':' . $password);

     $this->setHeader('Authorization', $encodedChallengeResponse);

} //setAuthorization

} //php_http_request

bigb...
  This is very helpful, I had started playing with XMLRPC a few days ago in an attempt to figure it out for use in Blogg-X.  Over the next few days I will be reviewing your information very closely.  Only been using Java for a little while now and it's pretty daunting to throw PHP and XMLRPC stuff into the mix, luckily I seem to have a good learning curve for this kind of stuff.  Thanks again...

lordsiris

awesome tool lordsiris!  You said you were just learning Java (6 months) are you in a university somewhere?  I am going back to school in march to learn java or asp.net. I haven't decided just yet, but it looks like it'll be java. its alot more flexible. 

I would of love to help you develop this.

MystaMax...  Thanks for the comments.  Actually I just took an online distance education 300 level Java class which I finished in May.  The class took about everything I had to finish since it had been years since I had done any type of programming.  Since then I have just been playing with some of the java classes and trying to work out the rest by myself.  It's been fun though.

ALSO...

Version 0.76 Beta has been released. I fixed the "incomplete" error message when having trouble dealing with the loading of the categories and added the ability to specify the "Database Prefix" for the Joomla! tables.

The installer will also now uninstall the previous version before installing this version, but your settings file will be retained. You must specify the "Database Prefix" in the settings if you want to reload the categories. The default for Mambo 4.5.x is: "mos_" and the default for Joomla! is: "jos_".

As always everything is located at www.iobinary.com.  I still need to update the screen shots, I will try to get that completed tonight.

lordsiris

great desktop utility for joomla. will blogg-x support linux platform?

teng...  Thanks.

I hadn't thought about releasing it for linux but since you mentioned it I went ahead and created an .rpm file for you.  I did very little testing with this as I only had a Ubuntu live disk laying around which I believe is actually debian based, but I was able to convert the .rpm file into whatever the debian equivilent is and get it installed and working.  I believe to install it you use the following command:

rpm --install Blogg-X_linux_0_76.rpm

It should then be installed into the /usr/bin/Blogg-X directory.

To run Blogg-X type the following into a terminal:

./usr/bin/Blogg-X/bin/Blogg-X

Hopefully that will get you started, again I was able to get it installed and to load the site categories, and even created a test post.  The file can be found in the download section of www.iobinary.com.

I will look into getting the GUI installer working in the future, but I am working on another aspect of the program at the moment.

Enjoy...

lordsiris

lordsiris: Very nice work!! I've been looking for something like this for awhile.

Feature request:

1. I'd like the option to turn off the HTML editor. I'm not running it on my site so when I made my test post the HTML was all jacked up.

2. An Intro Text window as well as a Main Text window would be a great addition.

Very nice work though, I'll keep testing. It looks very professional.

I run my personal Blog on Xoops 2.2.0 ONLY because I can use w.bloggar to post to it without opening the browser at the workplace and navigating to the administrator area, etc. Also, I post to an alternative Xaraya and a blogger site as well using the same client. This posting 'at once' is fantastic that I need not visit each and every site.

(The bloggar interaction is with XML RPC)

For long I had wished Mambo had an API like movable type or blogger so that many can create local windows/linux/mac clients with native GUI which can be fired up to post to the sites in a jify.

So I am very excited about this tool which enables me to now deploy Joomla on my next project. I can't thank you enough Lord Siris, however, KUDOS for your thought and subsequent work!!

All men get ideas in the shower, only a few who step out of it ever work on them!

Webweever...glad you like the program!!  Now as far as the HTML editor after all my work to figure out how to getting it working you want it turned off?  Just kidding, I understand!!  It initially was only plain text but I wanted HTML so I just kept at it until I figured it out.  Anyway the next version will include support for turning off the HTML editor.  I will also include support for the intro text and main text as well.  I would like to have a selection that expands the interface if the user wants to use the main text box, but we will see how that turns out.  The only reason for this is that I was trying to keep the program interface as small as possible and still be usefull, in other words I don't want to just recreate the Joomla! create news item in Java.

Jayam...The original idea for the program came from a friend that was using a Blogspot account and an Apple OS X widget to post content.  I had been using Mambo for a few months and thought how nice it would be to have something similar for Mambo.  Spent alot of time looking around without finding anything, so I figured I had just finished a Java programming class and could attempt to make one myself.  I didn't want to just create and Apple widget because I didn't want it constrained to only running on the Apple platform, so Java was the perfect path with the least amount of hassle.  As far as moving your sites to Joomla! and using Blogg-X just be sure the webhost supports "remote database connections" at least until I figure out XML-RPC and get it converted over to that.

If anyone else has any other suggestions let me know.  I am currently also looking at adding in multilingual support and could use some help with translations if anyone is up to it.

Thanks and enjoy...

lordsiris

lordsiris wrote:Webweever...glad you like the program!!  Now as far as the HTML editor after all my work to figure out how to getting it working you want it turned off?  Just kidding, I understand!!  It initially was only plain text but I wanted HTML so I just kept at it until I figured it out.  Anyway the next version will include support for turning off the HTML editor.  I will also include support for the intro text and main text as well.  I would like to have a selection that expands the interface if the user wants to use the main text box, but we will see how that turns out.  The only reason for this is that I was trying to keep the program interface as small as possible and still be usefull, in other words I don't want to just recreate the Joomla! create news item in Java.

A couple other thoughts I had lordsiris:

1. It would be nice to have a couple checkboxes, one for publish (if I remember correctly my test post was in the DB but I had to go in the CP and publish), and another for frontpage to place the post on the frontpage.

2. The option to input multiple items in Blogg-x without publishing, then hit a button to upload everything to the DB. This would be great for mobile Laptop users, type your blog in the airport and upload when you get somewhere that has an internet connection.

just some thoughts.

Hello I just noticed this Glad I found it too bad it does not support XML-RPC yet. Its an excellent software though.

Maybe you can help out here
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,11925.0.html

All posts come from the "Administrator" account?   When will you cancel this limitation?

How about support of coding Windows-1251 in the following version?