EFx2Blogs Development Blog

Alright I had a chance to read around and read most of your guy's concerns. There is a few things I should point out though which also might make you want to go with the new community run blog hosting that Pixie has suggested here.

1.) First and foremost I want to send out my appreciation to Chica, Pixie, Styles and all those I might have missed who have been working to help the community. Thanks guys you did a wonderful job.

2.) Ok onto some technical things. I believe some people are misunderstanding some of the issues the site has. For example ..

- If the site is down and the server can't be reached there would be nothing myself or the CLs could have done with the same access I normally have. I don't have server access to get it rebooted or to fix whatever server issue their might be.

- When there is a weird server issue which is what I believed happened this last time there is nothing I or the CLs could have done to fix it with the access I normally have. This is why we could post and see the main page but could not access any subdomains. Something might have happened which effected the way the subdomains were working. The site was actually functioning correctly at the time code and database wise.

- Basically any server issue we experience wouldn't have been fixed even if the CLs had the same access I had.

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So the only real benefits gained by the access will be the ability to add to the site and fix any code issues. Even some database issues could be fixed with the access .. but beyond that not much can be done to fix problems that might arise.

90% of the issues we have had in the past with downtime have been server issues. The other 10% is usually something I did wrong in the code. :D

This is also one of the reasons I am in favor for a community run blog site on it's own server with full control. That way other people are in charge, especially ones you have faith in and if anything does come up you guys will have the ability to fix it right away.

Anyway my main point is even with me back or even if the CLs had the access I had then or now it wouldn't have made a difference because none of us would have been able to fix any of the server related issues.

So I think the best bet right now while it's being proposed is to go with something new that is run by the community. :)

Hey guys long time no see. I am glad to see the place is working again. I thought the last time would be the last.

I haven't really been around a lot because real life has pretty much taken me away (lot's of personal stuff). I know there is a group of people that would like to take over the reigns but I unfortunatly have bad news at this time.

I haven't had access to the server, ftp or anything else since the server move back in January. I haven't even been in contact with Martin since then either. I have the same exact access the CL's have and there is not much I can do at this time.

I only have access to the domain name which I renewed for another year back in March. I never had plans to dump it or anything like that. I would more then love to continue to work on it, but need to gain access first.

If you want my honest opinion your best bet would be to join or continue to use something like Vox until access can be gained again. I can't make any guarentees to server stability though even after access is gained and given out to those that want to help run things.

I also noticed some of you are currently working on creating your own blogging community which I think is very cool and might be your best bet in order to gain complete control over things.

Well just wanted to let you guys know that I am still alive.

btw I vote for www.globbin.com .. start a new fad known as globs ;)

As you most likely noticed the blogs had some recent downtime. Martin has just informed us that he has moved us to a new server because of traffic and performance issues that the previous server was experiencing. I know some people get upset about downtime but we should be grateful that he is willing to do this for us with nothing in return. Currently Martin is hosting us completely free and has been doing so for awhile now.

The reason it took so long is most likely because the DNS had to resolve and things needed to be setup on the new server.

One thing that did get fixed with the move is our forums which for some reason on the old server never seemed to work right all the time.

So be sure to head on over to the forums and have some fun.

Many thanks Martin! Much Love :)

Edit: Also forgot to mention .. if you are missing a post or two it's because of the server change. The posts were most likely posted after the backup was made. A backup of the site and database is used to put the site onto the new server .. so it only includes the posts made up to that point. That is why you may be missing some posts you made over the past few days. :)

Sorry I haven't been on much. It's been extremely busy at work and I have been working a lot of overtime so what little free time I had it was spent else where.

I haven't abandon you guys yet. :D

I also wanted to say thanks to LazyBoy who did a wonderful job on the new control panel. Looking very nice :D

Also many thanks to Chica, Pixie and the other CLs for holding down the fort. I should be back some time after the new year to work on the site again. Still have a few more busy weeks at work so will be working even more overtime.

I also upgraded LazyBoy's and photostyles' accounts on the forums to admin status and will give them access to the site later tonight when I get home from shopping. :)

Hope everyone has a great christmas and gets what they want .. and hopefully not too much coal this year. :D

Hey guys sorry I haven't been around much. I have been very busy with real life and haven't had much time to come online lately.

First I wanted to address the slowness when making a comment. This has nothing to do with the server or our blogging script. The slowdown comes from Akismet which we use to filter for blog commenting spam. When someone makes a comment it contacts their database and cross references the comment title and content for known spam and filters it. I removed the Akismet functionality to test it out and the comments were added instantly so there is a slowdown when contacting their database which ends up slowing down the commenting. Lets give it a day and see if they fix it on their end before making any changes on our end. :)


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I know some people are still waiting for their posts to be restored and I will get to that tonight. :)

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Recently Periodically Demented made the suggestion of purchasing a server for our own use for EFx2Blogs rather then relying on Martin to host us. I do apologize to PD for not getting back to you sooner .. wasn't ignoring you in case you wondrered. :D

I do appreciate your enthusiasm and support but wanted to give some information before people started to get into this completely. I would have commented on PD's post but comments are opened but I think to only friends because I can't view them or make a comment so not sure what people have said so far.

Ok for the information .. The type of server we would need is a web hosting dedicated server which generally cost between $100 - $200 for the initial setup and first month. We won't actually own the server because it's more like rent where you pay once a month which depending on where you go and what kind of server specs you decide to get it can be anywhere from $70 - $200 a month.

Currently the monthly cost is the only thing that worries me because currently EFx2Blogs doesn't generate any revenue and the cost would have to come from me and I don't mind paying it but a bit worried that something could come up where I wouldn't be able to cover the cost and don't want to jeopardize things when things are so uncertain when it comes to cost especially when I am not exactly sitting comfortable with my own expenses.

I could do like what PD recommended and have a donation tally that shows the amount needed and the amount donated .. but instead of having for a one time server purchase .. have it for each month. Another option is to add back in the google ads which I would hate to do and don't really want to do. :/

As you can see with the past month of changes and additions I am more then willing to listen to suggestions so please give some if you have some suggestions. Getting our own server gives us a ton of freedom that we currently do not have but at the same time could be a risk .. maybe one worth taking. :)

I had planned on making people's extra pages content available so people could get their content back sometime within the next couple days before I started my next work cycle but because of some circumstances it has come a little sooner.

You can retrieve your extra pages content by putting in your username at the end of this URL. For example here is my extra pages stuff ..

http://www.efx2blogs.com/pagecontent...hp?u=keith

Remember to use your old EFx2.com username and not your new EFx2Blogs.com username in case you changed it.

As for the extra pages feature for your blogs .. as I mentioned it's not high on my priority list but is still planned for down the road.

Ok as promised here is the changes I mentioned in my previous post. Sorry for the wait I needed to wait until I had some time off from work.

Ok onto the changes ...

- Post Editor Options - You can now select the post editor you would like to use. The two options are the Classic EFx2Blogs Editor which is default or you can select the FCKeditor which is the one that comes with BlogHoster. To change this setting go to your settings are for the blog you want to change. Note: If you have multiple blogs you will need to change this setting for each blog you own.

- Comment Title Option Removal - You now have the option to remove the comment title form option. This only removes the option for the comment title when people leave comments on your posts. You will need to remove the actual variable for comment title in your designs to stop them from showing up. As mentioned this only removes the comment title entry area for the comment form. You can change this in the comment section of the main settings section of your control panel. It's at the very bottom of the comment setting section.

Enjoy :)

Edit: Almost forgot I fixed a few other things too.

- Alert Counts In The Control Panel - For some reason if they were double digit it only showed the first number .. for example if I had 10 alerts it only showed 1. Now it shows correctly.

- Comment Spam Link On Control Panel Index - The link there only worked before if you had your blog id in your cookie. So that made the link work sometimes and not work other times. I corrected the link to use the cookie setting like the other links there so the link works all the time. :)

Alright recently I added our old post editor back in because it was compatible with all browsers and it was the same post editor we used for years on EFx2.com so most people are familiar with it. I also made the change because the editor we were using is not compatible with Opera and Safari browsers. There have been a few people who preferred the post editor that came with BlogHoster (the core software we use for efx2blogs.com). So I will be adding in a setting option where you can pick the editor you want to use.

I will also be adding a setting option to remove the comment titles. This will make it so the text input will no longer be viewable but you will still need to remove it from your design code.

Also just a heads up for those that might have missed it .. if you want your old posts restored then you need to reply to this post and leave the information I requested. I will then restore your posts when I get the chance. Currently I have restored posts for all the people that have replied so far.

http://dev.efx2blogs.com/1756/Blog+P...+Here.html

Also just to let everyone know I am right in the middle of my work week so I only come on for an hour or so a day .. so I won't be around much until Sunday. If you need any help you might want to try the Community Leaders .. you can find their blog here .. http://leaders.efx2blogs.com

If they can't help with your questions or requests then I will get to them as soon as I can.

Well I am finally getting around to picking up all the pieces after EFx2.com fell apart. I have spent more hours then I can count on getting things somewhat normal. It hasn't been easy but things are starting to feel like home.

I wanted to go over a few things. First I wanted to let everyone know I have separated my personal blog and my development stuff. Since we can do multiple blogs per user account I figured it would be best to create a development blog where I can post my development stuff and then I could keep my personal blog .. well personal. :)

Another thing I wanted to go over is the system we use. I know a lot of people want it to be like it was before and I can do that to a point but I have no plans on creating an exact copy of what we had before. So I wanted to clear a few things up with everyone so people can finally have some answers.

- Alerts - The alerts were always planned and the initial work is finished and the alerts are functional. I plan on doing some little extras to them but nothing major.

- Admin Menu/Recent Visitors/Custom Menus - These are planned but on hold because I want to test out making the menus widgets so we can easily control them. This also means a change to the design but should just a variable that needs to be added like before. Nothing has been written or tested for this yet but is next on my list. I can't promise this will work though .. if it ends up being to difficult we will have to stick to what we are using right now.

- Extra Pages - I know there is some who want the extra pages feature back and it will come back eventually but is not high on my list right now. I still have the content and will eventually make it viewable so people can get their content back for their own use .. but the actual extra pages feature will not be returning any time soon.

- Control Panel (Manager) - I have no plans in changing the way the control panel functions or looks so its best if people get used to it. I personally think it functions great and has a nice design layout that is easy to work with.

- Post Editor - I am not a big fan of the post editor .. even with all the nice features it comes with. It's nice to be able to post from it but I would rather have our old editor back which was simpler and easier to use. So I plan on replacing the existing one with the old one. Keep in mind only the post editor is being replaced .. not the rest of the post editing stuff.

- Gallery Stuff - I haven't even had a chance to get into the gallery stuff but from my initial experience with it I think it sucks. I know it's nice to have a built in gallery option but I was thinking of using a 3rd party script. I want to install Gallery 2 but waiting on Martin to make a change with the server so it can run but haven't heard back from him. Hopefully soon .. then we can use a real gallery without problems. :)

- Bug Fixes - I must say it was a little worrying at first when we went to this new system with all the bugs it had. I killed most of the bugs and haven't come across any major ones recently. If you do come across one please let me know.

- Comment Box On The Post Entry Page - I gave some instructions for this one in case some missed it. You can check out the post here. Basically these instructions tell you how you can have the comment form for adding new comments on the same page as your other comments - Default makes you go to a new page to create a new comment.

- Javascript - Javascript by default with BlogHoster is stripped from blog posts and designs. This doesn't mean that Javascript will never be used on EFx2Blogs but I have no plans on letting it be open to everyone for security reasons. I do plan on making some variables with setting options so we can add in some of the most common types. For example for lets say there is a Javascript code that a lot of people like. I will make the general variable for it and then create a settings page where you can enter in the needed information. Then you can go to your design and add in the variable. I don't mind working around the Javascript this way because then its controlled by me and I know exactly whats being used on our system.

- Main EFx2Blogs Page - I just did update the EFx2Blogs mainpage and gave it the same look as the old EFx2.com site. I updated it will all the new stuff and you can always see the latest posts from the community leaders and my dev blog on the right hand side menu as well as the newest members. The login box there works and will change once you are logged in. When logged in you can see your private message count as well as the alert counts. In the login box it will now show your username and a link to your control panel and a logout link. You will also see all the blogs you have access to which link back to those blogs as well as links to add new entries for those blogs. A lot of areas are still not finished though. I did add a page with the shoutbox really big which we can use for a live chat. :)

- Comment Spam - Akismet the Spam script I implemented into our blogging script is working great for me. I am getting a few spam comments everyday and it hasn't missed one yet. Nice to have a spam catcher so we can keep our comment sections clean. :)

- Multiple Designs and Design Sharing - This was something that wasn't exactly needed right away but was one of the few things that set us apart from the rest. So it was something I really wanted to focus on and got it done pretty quickly. There is still a lot I want to do with the sharing section but right now its fully functional and people are already sharing so be sure to check it out. :)

- Shoutbox - I have no plans on adding a shoutbox script. Some of the reasons for not adding a shoutbox is that it will cut down on resources, one less thing I need to do and I like the 3rd party shoutbox from Shoutmix. Using Shoutmix's shoutbox is great especially since it keeps your information in a cookie so your info is automatically added for all Shoutmix shoutboxes you come across. For example all the people who use a Shoutmix shoutbox on EFx2Blogs my info is already there and ready to go .. so all I have to do is add my message. It also comes with some nice styling features so you can easily match it to your design .. and the best of all .. you can use it on your other blogs. So if you have a blogspot account you can have your shoutbox on both blogs. :)

- All The Extras - All the extras like custom smilies and stuff are a ways away. I have no immediate plans for them but will keep them in mind when looking for stuff to add. Same goes for all the other things people might want.

Well thats about it for now. I just want people to understand that this is a new system and some things may never be like they were before and thats just something we will have to deal with. I am doing the best I can to get some of the functionality back and have already accomplished so much. :)

Ok just finished up the comment and tracking alerts feature. You can find links for comment and tracking alerts in your manager up in the right hand corner next to post alerts.

When making a comment just like the old system you can click on the box to stay unsubscribed to that post .. or you can even click the subscribe button listed to subscribe to the comments without having to leave a comment.

Nothing else to say about it .. pretty much functions like before. :)

I know many people hate having the comment box on the separate page .. including me. So I have modified the script so we can now have the comment box on the same page as your blog entry.

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Blah it kept messing up my HTML stuff .. so I put it in an external page.

You can read the instructions here

Ok I finished up the design sharing to go along with the multiple design feature I added earlier. There is still a few features left for the design sharing but they are just little extras that can wait.

Ok so when you go to your design section for your blog you will see the new design manager and now there is a new link in the options area to the far right of the designs called "Edit Info". Click this link and from here you can change the design name, design preview image, add design info/description, type, category, make public for sharing and update the date on it.

- Design Name - Pretty self explanatory

- Design Preview Image - You can add an optional design preview image which comes in handy for the community shared designs. Something like a thumbnail of the design or even just a part of the design if you want something stylish. Recommended image size is listed on there.

- Design Notes/Description - You can use this text area to enter a description or to leave some notes about the design.

- Design Type - Only 3 main types listed which are 3 column, 2 column and 1 column. If it's something else just leave it as default. If you have some suggestions for more types let me know.

- Design Category - I listed a ton of different categories your design might fit under. Mainly just theme and color type categories. If you have suggestions for more categories let me know.

- Public Design - This option is to make it public so other people can install your design on their blog. If you want to keep it only for yourself then keep it as no (which is default).

- Update Date - The designs are listed by dates and you can use this option to inform people that your design has been updated. Please only use this option if you make changes to your design after it's already public. If people abuse it I will have to remove it .. and I don't want to because it can be very useful.

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If you make your design public or you want to install a public design you can view them by clicking on the "Install Community Made Design" link. You can sort the different designs by name, date, type and category.

Soon I will add in some different areas so we can view designs by designer, type and category.

You can preview the design by either clicking the preview image or the preview link. Click the install link to add it to your design list. Remember to enable the design you want to use after you install it. Also keep in mind you can only edit the html for designs after you enable them.

Ok the initial work on being able to have multiple designs has started. :)

Currently you can save as many designs as you want for each of your blogs. When you pick a new design from the default designs they get saved to your list of designs. Like before you will need to enable the design you wish to use. I edited the design preview script so you can preview designs you do not have enabled.

EVERYONE PLEASE READ! - This is very important. If you do not want to lose your existing design you need to do the following. Go to your blog manager, select the blog you have the design on. Now click the design tab link and then you will see a message about not having any designs in your list.

You must click the Edit and Save link from the 2 listed. Now enter a design name and save it .. this will save your existing design to your list of designs.

Note: I do not have a backup feature added yet so be sure to make backups of your designs when making changes

Note: Because we are using the existing designing feature you can only edit enabled designs. So if you do a lot of designing be sure to setup an alt blog that you don't mind having enabled designs you are working on.

Note: Design sharing hasn't been added yet but will be soon. For now just share the html text if you want to share designs.

Note: If you want to add another design to your list .. go to "Choose A New Design" and select one of the default ones and it will add a new design to your list. Then you can go and edit the name and HTML in order to add more of your own custom designs.

Hrm someone messaged me and said they couldn't get YouTube's videos to work .. so here is how you do it.

When you want to add a YouTube video you need to click the "Source" button and then cut and paste the YouTube video code. Keep in mind when making a post with the Source option enabled you will need to add in your own br codes if you need extra line breaks. When you click on the source button again to get back to the post editor you should see your video within your post editor. :)

Example .. here is a YouTube video embedded into this post ..



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I'm in currently working right now and have for the past few days so I haven't had much time to get stuff done. Also my browser's homepage is EFx2Blogs so whenever someone uses this computer it will most likely show me online even though I am not always here. :P

I will get back to helping everyone soon when I get some free time. :)

Ok the "Post Alert Feature" is done. The alert feature doesn't have all the stuff the old one had but pretty much the same. I just did the basics to get it up and functional so we could have alerts again.

When you go into your manager up in the right hand corner (opposite your large username) you will see a link for Post Alerts. Eventually when I get to it there will also be comment alerts, and tracking alerts linked up there too. If you have 0 alerts it gives no number. It will only show a number if you have more then 1 unread alert.

Ok so click the alert button and now you will see your alerts. Click the title of the alert to read it .. and for right now only the mass delete option is available for deletion. Which is actually better because you can read all your alerts and then just click the top check box to select them all .. and then delete them all in one go.

There is also a link here that will take you to the subscription manager. From there you can add and delete subscriptions.

Note: We no longer subscribe to users .. we subscribe to blogs because of the multiple blog feature. So when adding a new blog subscription you need to enter the blog name NOT THE USER NAME. You can find the blog name by looking at the blogs URL for example my blog name is keith .. http://keith.efx2blogs.com <-- Note the bold underline text there in the URL.

I also added something I did for ReStyle here .. the AutoSuggest feature we had before. So when adding a new subscription you just need to enter in a few of the starting letters of the blog name and it will suggest blog names from the database. Once you see the one you want click on the name and it will be added for you. Now just click the add subscription button to subscribe to it.

You can delete subscriptions as well. :)

When making posts I added the alert code the same way as the old .. so if you make a private post it will not send out an alert .. if you make a friends only posts it should only send out an alert to your friends who are subscribed to you .. and the other two options will send out the alert to all those subscribed to you. It would be nice if someone can verify the friends alerts if you can. :)

Just remember with the friends alerts .. it's not enough just being friends .. you need to be subscribed to that blog. I know on the old system people could never figure that out. The alerts have nothing to do with friends .. it will only send to people who have subscriptions!

Chica has sent me two new designs to use as default designs. Both of these are based on the binder design. One is a 3 column fluid design and the other is a 2 column fluid design. Both of these are great base designs to help you get started on making something custom for yourself.

I will be giving access to some of our people so they can add some more default skins. So be sure to check the Community Leaders Blog for future updates on default designs.

Ok if you would like to use any of these default designs go your template area in your control panel and select the default designs link and the two new ones are listed at the bottom. You can't miss them. :P

Note: If you select to use a new default design you will lose any custom work you have already done on your current design. A design saving and sharing feature is something I am planning for the future. :)

I am about half way done with the blog post alerts. So far you can subscribe to my blog using the link at the right and when making new posts it sends out an alert.

The only thing left to do is the alert management stuff for blog post alerts. Once that is done I will tackle the comment alerts.

If you want to add the subscribe link to your designs all you need to do is add the variable  .. <%Subscribelink%> .. This will make the link show. It will show "Subscribe" for registered members, "Unsubscribe" for already subscribed members and "Register Today!" for guests. Sorry at this time you can't change the wording but maybe something for down the road once things settle down.

Note: The "Subscribe" link is actually a form element so you might want to add this to your CSS ..

form { display:inline; }

That will make it so the link doesn't drop down a line and will make it look more like your other links. :)

Ok I fixed the issues with the main page. Some people might have seen a bunch of post from the same person from time to time. This was because of the post restore. It wasn't people posting their blog posts back.

The main page was changed the other day to order by blog post ID because there was a member who was making blog post(s) with future dates so they always stayed at the top of the blog post list on the main page.

So anyways I changed it back to "order by date" in the sql query and created a variable that checks the time right now (when you load the page) and then added a WHERE statement to only show posts where the date was equal or less then the current time.

This fixed the issue with people posting future dates on their posts and messing up the main page .. and allows the ability to still use the future dates for our own blogs. :)

So now it shows the actual newest blog posts from the community rather then someone's archived posts. :)

Luckily most of the code for the blog post restore was already written from when I did it with Wordpress MU .. so just needed to make the changes so it works with BlogHoster.

Alright this was mentioned before with the last restore ...

- All posts are added without categories, comments and permissions. All posts will be default open to the public. This is a batch process so everything is done in one shot and I can't pick and chose what posts you want or what posts you want to have certain permissions on. That will be your job once your posts have been restored.

Remember it's first come first served .. so please be calm and wait for your turn to get your posts restored. I will only restore posts for people that reply to this post so please don't PM or send me an e-mail to have your posts restored. I want a single place to look for who needs post restore. Thanks :)

http://keith.efx2blogs.com/archive/ All my posts have been restored :)

This is important .. please follow these instructions otherwise your posts will not be restored.

When making a comment for post restore make sure to post the following ..
- Your old EFx2Blogs Username
- Your new Username
- URL of the blog you want the posts to be on (not the title .. I need the actual address)

Also Please make sure you are actually registered before asking for post restore .. last time a bunch of people asked for post restore and they didn't even have a blog on the new site. :P

Yeah yeah I know most people might not care but it's probably the most important feature we needed along with true comment control.

The BlogHoster script came with NO comment management so I had to write my own comment management for this system. Now we have full control over our comments as well as the Akismet Spam Filter which I coded into BlogHoster and added all the functionality to my new Comment Management. Took most of the day but at least it's done now. :D

I liked the spam filter when we used Wordpress MU and that was easy to add because it was a plugin .. unfortunately with our new system it has to be coded in and worked into the existing commenting system. Turned out a lot easier then I thought it would be and gave me a good feel of how the system functions and the coding style used.

Alright time for some instructions. When you go to your blog management you will see a new link by the name of your blogs. Most will say "0 spam" but if you do have some comments that were filtered by Akismet then it will list the amount of comments you currently have that are spam.

You can either click that link or click on the new top link I added called "Comments" .. this will bring up the comment management stuff. The first sub menu is "view comments" which brings up a page that looks and acts like your entry management.

If you have a comment that is obvious spam then click the "Mark As Spam" link and this will report it to Akismet and will move the comment to your spam section.

PLEASE DO NOT MARK COMMENTS SPAM IF THEY ARE COMMENTS YOU JUST DON'T LIKE FROM OTHER MEMBERS. Just delete them instead ...

Ok If you do get some comments in your spam area please double check once in awhile. You might get some comments that are actually legit comments. Just click the Approve Comment link to move it to your regular comments and it will also inform Akismet that its a legit comment (which Akismet tracks behavior for better filtering).

I know some people might not think this is very important but trust me .. there is nothing worse then getting your blog spammed to hell and no easy way to manage it. Even EFx2Blogs never had comment managing which I always wanted to get to but never had the time. This also allows us to use the commenting system without the need of image verification stuff .. which I hate and is always a pain for people. :)