By florin on

I posted a similar question on the General Discussion forum first, but that's probably not the appropriate place for it.

I installed drupal-4.5.1 on my blog-only website:

http://florin.myip.org/blog/

As you can see, there's a "florin's blog" link appended after each blog preview. Moreover, if you click on any blog entry, there's another "florin's blog" link at the end, and another at the very beginning of the page.
These links are:
1. unnecessary, since it's a blog-only site with one user
2. confusing the visitors who are unfamiliar with Drupal

Especially #2 is annoying. For a non-techie visitor who is not familiar with Drupal (which are the majority of the visitors after all), it is not obvious which link must be clicked in order to get the full story. It would be best to provide a single link after each preview which will allow to read the full blog entry (that would be the "read more" link, of course).

This is not something i'm making up out of thin air. I sent the blog URL to several friends and then watched them browsing the site. Almost no one "got it" from the very beginning; it took them a while to figure out that they have to click on "read more" instead of "florin's blog". Some never figured it out (until told).

So then:
- it would be nice to provide a config flag, in future Drupal releases, to allow the user (or the admin, or whatever) to toggle that link on or off
- perhaps allow the user (or sysadmin) to customise the text of the "read more" link? it would be nice to be able to display, say, "read the whole story here" or something like that
- for the 4.5.1 release, which is the specific part of the code that generates the "$user's blog" link? i want to comment out that code, but i'm not sure where to begin

Thanks,

Comments

tangent’s picture

tangent commented

1. I agree. Having this be a configurable option would be nice for single contributor sites.

2. You could change the text by using the Administer > Localization area.

3. Look in modules/blog.module for the blog_link() function and comment out per the following. I've tested this on my site.

function blog_link($type, $node = 0, $main) {
  $links = array();

  if ($type == 'page' && user_access('access content')) {
    $links[] = l(t('blogs'), 'blog', array('title' => t('Read the latest blog entries.')));
  }

/*
  if ($type == 'node' && $node->type == 'blog') {
    if (arg(0) != 'blog' && arg(1) != $node->uid) {
      $links[] = l(t("%username's blog", array('%username' => $node->name)), "blog/$node->uid", array('title' => t("Read %username's latest blog entries.", array('%username' => $node->name))));
    }
  }
*/

  return $links;
}
tangent’s picture

tangent commented

I've gone a step further and created a patch which adds this setting. Hopefully it will be added.

http://drupal.org/node/15077

florin’s picture

florin commented

Woohoo, it works! :-) If you browse to my blog again, the annoying "florin's blog" link is gone.
The patch applied against 4.5.1 ok, albeit with some warnings:

$ patch -p0 < blog.link.patch
(Stripping trailing CRs from patch.)
patching file blog.module
patch unexpectedly ends in middle of line
Hunk #2 succeeded at 254 with fuzz 2 (offset -3 lines).

As for changing the "read more" string to something else, i had to enable the locale module first. But then it seems like it needs some mangling of the language set - in any case, i still can't seem to find an obvious way to do it.
But that's fine, i can live with it.

Thank you,

--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/

florin’s picture

florin commented

As for changing the "read more" string to something else, i had to enable the locale module first. But then it seems like it needs some mangling of the language set - in any case, i still can't seem to find an obvious way to do it.

Ok, i figured out a "brute force" approach to it:

--- node.module.old     2005-01-03 16:24:14.436591952 -0800
+++ node.module 2005-01-03 16:24:37.294444891 -0800
@@ -616,7 +616,7 @@
     }

     if ($main == 1 && $node->teaser && $node->readmore) {
-      $links[] = l(t('read more'), "node/$node->nid", array('title' => t('Read the rest of this posting.'), 'class' => 'read-more'));
+      $links[] = l(t('read the entire article here'), "node/$node->nid", array('title' => t('Read the rest of this posting.'), 'class' => 'read-more'));
     }
   }

Not pretty, but it works.
Thanks again,

--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Bèr Kessels commented

I wholeheartedly agree with your points that those links are confusing.
But for a personal weblog one should never use blog.module. That modulke is meant for community blogging, noet personal blogging.
If you feel like it, please add a small page containing this information to the handbooks?

And if this solved you problem, would you be so kind to report back that it helped? This will help others whom are looking for the same solution.

[Ber | Drupal Services webschuur.com]

florin’s picture

florin commented

I wholeheartedly agree with your points that those links are confusing.
But for a personal weblog one should never use blog.module. That modulke is meant for community blogging, noet personal blogging.

Ah, ok.
So, then, which module is for personal blogging? (if any)

--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/

Prometheus6’s picture

Prometheus6 commented

Just use stories.

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

You really can learn something new every day about Drupal!

silverwing

www.landofmidnight.com
www.projectpby.com

tangent’s picture

tangent commented

I must be confused because I thought a blog was a blog regardless if it is on a community site or an individual site. On a community site it makes sense to access a list of blogs by a particular contributor but, again, on a Drupal site that has only one contributor (whether you want to call it a "blog" or not) it is not necessary and can even be bad.

As for using stories, I thought they were intended for articles or lengthier content.

If the blog module is not for blogging then I would recommend some new terminology because the admin is not the only person who will be/is confused by all the "blog" links.

Prometheus6’s picture

Prometheus6 commented

The point is, for a single user Drupal can do the blog thing without the blog module and the attendant extra link. If you want community blogging you MUST use the blog module.

That said, in 4.5 you can't post stories using BlogAPI and I use a desktop blogging tool so I do use the blog module. I just hacked the link out.

tangent’s picture

tangent commented

I think you just refuted your own argument. A blog is more than just a bunch of stories.

Prometheus6’s picture

Prometheus6 commented

I think we're slipping into semantics.

tangent’s picture

tangent commented

Semantics has nothing to do with this.

Blog content has needs which are distinct from story content (whatever that may be). A blog node should be submittable using one of the submission protocols like you use. Blogs also have trackbacks associated with them while stories have no such feature. I'm not even a hardcore blogger so there are likely many other requirements of which I am unaware.

Of course if the story module supported all these requirements then perhaps you would be correct.

Prometheus6’s picture

Prometheus6 commented

Okay.

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Bèr Kessels commented

That is not true. A blog can be perfectly managed by stories only.

[Ber | Drupal Services webschuur.com]

florin’s picture

florin commented

If i blog via the stories module, will "ping" work the same?

--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/

chrismessina’s picture

chrismessina commented

Will using a tool like MarsEdit work via XML-RPC if the story module is used in place of the blog module? And do stories really support all of the blog features like trackbacks and comments?

I've actually never used stories, and think that we shouldn't be bending user expectations to fit around Drupal terminology. As was said, a blog is a blog; a story is not, even though it may be used like one. If a story is more like a blog post for an individual, it should be renamed "personal blog" and "blog entry" should become "community blog".

--Chris

--
User Advocate for CivicSpace Labs

Boris Mann’s picture

Boris Mann commented

It's actually the other way around. Read How do I create a group blog?. But story is definitely NOT personal blog -- it can be used for many different purposes. On Bryght, we use it for press releases, and don't show the author, while we all have separate "blogs" that we post to. On our support site, we use it for best practices and general announcements.

Basically, a story has all authors who have permission to post to it mixed together (a group blog, one feed).

Blog posts can be viewed all together (the /blog page and /blog/feed), but can also be viewed as individual blogs (/blog/1, /blog/2, etc.).

I continue to hate the term blog, since people just come up with different definitions and/or get into holy wars about what is "blogging" vs. just easily editing/updating content.

And yes, MarsEdit will work -- James' latest patch to the blogAPI lets you post to all the node types that you have permission for (well, the text ones at least, IIRC - book, page, story, and blog).

Trackbacks, comments, etc. are all configured in the default workflow settings, and can be applied (or not) on a per node type basis -- admin/node/configure/defaults.