Blog/Simple version 0.01
========================

NAME
    Blog::Simple - Perl extension for the creation of a simple weblog
    (blogger) system.

SYNOPSIS
    use Blog::Simple;

    my $sbO = Blog::Simple->new(); $sbO->create_index(); #generally only
    needs to be called once

    my $content="<p>blah blah blah in XHTMthe p entry elsewhere in this
    document <p><b>Better</b> when done in XHTMthe p entry elsewhere in this
    document"; my $title = 'some title'; my $author = 'a.n. author'; my
    $email = 'anaouthor@somedomain.net'; my $smmry = 'blah blah';
    $sbO->add($title,$author,$email,$smmry,$content);

    $sbO->render_current('blog_test.xsl',3);
    $sbO->render_all('blog_test.xsl');

    $sbO->remove('08');

DESCRIPTION
    This module provides a simple mechanism for blogging, the reverse
    chronological diary-like systems so popular on the Internet today. It
    was intended to be simple, and just handles the basics of blogging:
    managing blog entries (adding, removing -- there probably should be a
    'modify,' but there isn't), generating the most recent *n* entries, and
    generating all of the entries in the 'blogbase'.

    Blog::Simple requires that the XML::XSL module be installed. Rather than
    try and do the rendering itself, it passes the XML that it generates to
    an XSL file that the user creates. So you will need to know XSLT to
    really find this module useful.

    Blog::Simple generates XML files and stores them in a blogbase and in a
    timestamped subfolder. The blogbase consists of a folder under the path
    you specify in your code called b_base and a file called bb.idx. If no
    path is given, then it uses the directory the calling Perl file is saved
    in. bb.idx contains a tab-delimited list of the path, datestamp, title,
    author, summary of each blog entry. The Blog::Simple generated XML files
    are stored underneath b_base in automatically generated timestamped
    folders.

    The XML entry for a blog is rendered as follows (this XML template is
    hardcoded in the "add()" method):

            <simple_blog>
        
                    <!-- title of blog -->
                    <title>$title</title>
                
                    <!-- who wrote it -->
                    <author>$author</author>
                
                    <!-- email -->
                    <email>$email</email>

                    <!-- timestamp - generated automatically -->
                    <ts>$ts</ts>
                
                    <!-- just text here - NO TABS -->
                    <summary>$smmry</summary>
                
                    <!-- put XHTML blog between these tags      -->
                    <!--   <img> tags must refer to same folder -->
                    <content>$content</content>
        
            </simple_blog>

    When you tell Blog::Simple to generate its output, you will need an XSL
    document. One I used for testing looks like:

            <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
        
                    <!-- this is the main template match -->
                    <xsl:template match="/">
                            <xsl:apply-templates select="simple_blog_wrap/simple_blog"/>              
                    </xsl:template>

                    <xsl:template match="simple_blog">
                            <xsl:apply-templates select="title"/>
                            <xsl:apply-templates select="ts"/>
                            <xsl:apply-templates select="content"/> 
                    </xsl:template>

                    <xsl:template match="title"><xsl:copy-of select="."/></xsl:template>

                    <xsl:template match="ts"><xsl:copy-of select="."/></xsl:template>

                    <xsl:template match="content"><xsl:copy-of select="."/></xsl:template>

            </xsl:stylesheet>

    That should get you started. An XSL stylesheet is required when you
    invoke the "render_current()" and "render_all()" methods. Blog::Simple
    wraps a root element around all the "<simple_blog></simple_blog>"
    elements it renders called "<simple_blog_wrap></simple_blog_wrap>". Keep
    this in mind when you are writing your XSL stylesheet.


INSTALLATION

To install this module type the following:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make test
   make install

DEPENDENCIES

This module requires these other modules and libraries:

  XML::XSL

COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Copyright (C) 2002 J. A. Robson

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.