^(almost) murphy.de

History

I began writing the application that runs this blog on 2008-01-13, shortly after exploring Camping, _why’s extremely small web framework (which has only 4KB of code). I was amazed how easy it is to create a web application with it.

blokk is derived from the original blog.rb example.

Try it yourself! It’s really fun to work with Camping – but only if you know Ruby.

The name derives simply from my initials, KK.

The Golden Rule of blokk

Somehow, I decided to keep blokk at 318 lines of code (that’s without empty lines and comments).
318 is one of my favourite numbers (the other being 308).

Download

• blokk – the application that you see running.
• blokk in color – highlighted with CodeRay.
• feed – a 17-LOC library to simplify RSS feed generation (build on top of Ruby’s rss lib.)
• validate_size – counts the lines of code for blokk.rb. Returns 318.

Development & Support

We have a Redmine project for blokk running on code.licenser.net.

Features

blokk 0.998 includes the following features:

• Read and write simple articles with title and body.
• To edit and delete posts, you have to login. Username and password are set while migrating.
• Everybody can add comments (currently plain text only).
• Cookies are only used when you try to login (I hate it when pages send me cookies for no reason.)
• Posts and comments remember their creating time and are ordered chronologically.
• Posts have tags and can be viewed by selecting a tag from the menu bar.
• Posts have a nickname for clean and prett URLs.
• Textile is used for the posts.
• Comments are protected from spambots with a bit of JavaScript.
• Comments can also be deleted by the admin.
• Of course, it has a CSS template.
• It looks nice in elinks, too!
• The site is valid XHTML. I also indented the output (Markaby’s default output looks horrible!)
• Errors that prevent a comment or post from being saved are pointed out with red labels.
• Post previews (excerpts)
• RSS feeds for
  • posts: only for a specific tag or for all tags
  • comments
• Pretty URLs (e.g. the path to this post is just /blokk) using nicknames
• Access keys for keyboard lovers
• Source code highlighting using CodeRay

Changelog

• [0.94] It is possible to split a post into excerpt and full content. In the index, only the excerpt is shown.
• [0.95] You can link to an article with a really short URL now: /<nickname>.
• [0.96] Access keys added, and nicknames can include dashes now.
• [0.97] Comment size is checked to be < 3000 chars.
• [0.97] RSS feeds! Really :)
• [0.97] Page titles when reading a post (makes bookmarking nicer.)
• [0.98] Fixed: Comments are wrapped to fit into the box
• [0.98] Fixed: Nicknames can include Unicode characters.
• [0.98] New: Show all articles with /all.
• [0.99] New: Automatic tag setting when creating a new article.
• [0.99] New: A logo in the header.
• [0.99] Fixed: E access key only available in single-post view.
• [0.991] Layout: The whole title is one single link.
• [0.991] RSS feed link links to current tag.
• [0.991] RSS feed is served with correct Content-Type.
• [0.991] RSS feed converts Textile to HTML.
• [0.991] RSS feed has an image now.
• [0.992] Fixed login.
• [0.993] Fixed login, again.
• [0.994] Highlighting using coderay/for_redcloth.
• [0.995] Xmas-style, added a link to old style as an alternate stylesheet.
• [0.996] Using XHTML 1.0 Transitional now.
• [0.996] Fixed tag bug (tag “me” also matched “anime”, see ticket #93)
• [0.996] Code cleanup; using new ActiveRecord::Base methods #all and #first.
• [0.997] Comment feed (under /rss/comments)
• [0.997] Fixed: The current tag is used for new and the post feed URL.
• [0.997] Fixed: “Read / Lesen” now works as supposed to.
• [0.998] Slogan (below the header), configurable via slogan.txt.

Planned features

• Textile for comments (I couldn’t make it safe yet. The internet is a creepy place. Maybe with RedCloth 4?)
  • Preview for comments: Textile will make it necessary.

Features not planned

• Language detection: Would be really nice. Most people seem to be annoyed by automatic language selection.
• Search: Just use Google.
• AJAX: Although I like it very much, I want to keep this simple, also for visitors that have a slow connection or no eyes or whatever.
• Preview for posts: From my experience, I find most errors after publishing an article anyway. If you ever see such an under-construction post, remember: This is Web 2.0 beta.
• Some kind of pagination and/or archive – I found out I don’t need it! Everything I tag “Index” will be on the front page. Just tag older messages like “2008-01” or “old” to make an archive.