MT Blogroll 2.0

mt-blogroll_2.0.png

As the campaign has been successfully completed, here's MT Blogroll 2.0. Thanks to all those that donated to the campaign, the donors will get priority if bugs or problems are faced. If you feel like donating, the campaign is now over, but feel free to use the donate button on the sidebar.

There are some new features including the ability to quickly add a blogroll entry by just entering the URI and having MT-Blogroll gather all the other information. I've also added the ability to define the the names of the author's of the blogs and the target of the blog.

I think all the bugs from the previous version should've been fixed, if you experience a bug, drop me a note.

If you are already using MT Blogroll 2.0 do not run mt-br-load.cgi again. Since I haven't had the time to write an upgrade script, you'll need to run the following query on your database. If you are upgrading from 1.0 or are installing MT Blogroll 2.0 for the first time, you will need to run mt-br-load.cgi and follow the intructions from there on.

alter table mt_blogroll_links add column blogroll_links_blog_author text

This can be done in a tool like phpMyAdmin, sorry about the inconvenience. I've checked this installation over a lot for bugs but there may still be many there, I've really been rushed for time due to pressure from school so if you experience a bug do email me but bear with me if it isn't immediately fixed. I still haven't found the time to update the documentation for tags, for a quick list of tags just open up Blogroll.pl and you'll see them all there.

That's all I can think of right now so enjoy!

33 Comments

Lola said:
on Apr 14, 2005 10:34 PM | Reply

Okay . . . I've got a problem. I made the change to the database, replaced the files in my movabletype directory and chmoded these. When I go to my admin page, I can see "Edit My Blogroll", but when I click on it I get a 500 server error . . . ???

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 14, 2005 10:43 PM | Reply

I just realized that the most of the files were in the DOS format, I've converted them to UNIX and re-uploaded the zip. Try the new files and see if that fixes the problem. If not is there anything in your error log?

Lola Lee said:
on Apr 14, 2005 11:46 PM | Reply

Yeah, that took care of the problem. THanks!

James Bow said:
on Apr 15, 2005 6:55 PM | Reply

Congratulations on your successful drop-cash campaign. I'm looking forward to upgrading to the new 2.0. However, I hope you are able to put in an upgrade script if I'm to move from the beta to the full version. I don't have easy access to my MySQL database and I cannot run the SQL query you suggest. I'd be much more comfortable if I had an upgrade script available to do that for me.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 15, 2005 7:01 PM | Reply

I don't have the time to create an upgrade script unfortunately. If you don't have access to a back-end tool like PhpMyAdmin, you can use MTSQL to run the query!

James Bow said:
on Apr 15, 2005 7:30 PM | Reply

That seems to have done the trick. Thanks!

Neil T. said:
on Apr 15, 2005 9:51 PM | Reply

I'm getting this error every time I run ./tools/run-periodic-tasks (the script which publishes entries posted in the future):

Subroutine approve_comment redefined at lib/MT/App/CMS.pm line 1982.

It's a bit annoying because I have this as an hourly Cron job so I get an email every time I encounter this error. It only happens when MT Blogroll is installed. MT 3.15 with MT-Blacklist, SpamLookup and MT-Moderate, amongst many other things.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 15, 2005 9:54 PM | Reply

Hmm that's odd, second person to receive that. Anyways, you can always send the output of the cron to dev/null, add this to the end of the cron command > /dev/null 2>&1

If I'm right, that is just a warning so sending it to /dev/null will just prevent the error from being sent to you but not prevent the script from functioning.

jerm said:
on Apr 16, 2005 1:22 AM | Reply

I know it is on your list of things to do and that you are very busy with school (I am in exams right now as well) and that I am stating the obvious but an updated documentation for tags would be very much appreciated.

Zack said:
on Apr 16, 2005 8:37 AM | Reply

When I do "Reset Filters" in the Blogroll listing page, I get the following error:

Loading template 'list_entry.tmpl' failed: HTML::Template->new() : Cannot open included file /homedir/mt/plugins/Blogroll/tmpl/list_entry.tmpl : file not found. at /homedir/usr/local/share/perl/5.6.1/HTML/Template.pm line 1580
    HTML::Template::_init_template('HTML::Template=HASH(0x8b9f6a0)') called at /homedir/usr/local/share/perl/5.6.1/HTML/Template.pm line 1177
    HTML::Template::_init('HTML::Template=HASH(0x8b9f6a0)') called at /homedir/usr/local/share/perl/5.6.1/HTML/Template.pm line 1071
    HTML::Template::new('HTML::Template', 'filename', '/homedir/mt/plugins/Blogroll/tmpl/list_entry....', 'path', 'ARRAY(0x8f6b604)', 'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', ...) called at /homedir/usr/local/share/perl/5.6.1/HTML/Template.pm line 1121
    HTML::Template::new_file('HTML::Template', '/homedir/mt/plugins/Blogroll/tmpl/list_entry....', 'path', 'ARRAY(0x8f6b604)', 'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', 1) called at ../../lib/MT/App.pm line 414
    eval {...} called at ../../lib/MT/App.pm line 413
    MT::App::load_tmpl('Blogroll::Blogroll=HASH(0x811c90c)', 'list_entry.tmpl') called at ../../lib/MT/App.pm line 467
    MT::App::build_page('Blogroll::Blogroll=HASH(0x811c90c)', 'list_entry.tmpl', 'HASH(0x8446d28)') called at ../../lib/MT/App/CMS.pm line 247
    MT::App::CMS::build_page('Blogroll::Blogroll=HASH(0x811c90c)', 'list_entry.tmpl', 'HASH(0x8446d28)') called at ../../lib/MT/App/CMS.pm line 2515
    MT::App::CMS::list_entries('Blogroll::Blogroll=HASH(0x811c90c)') called at ../../lib/MT/App.pm line 355
    eval {...} called at ../../lib/MT/App.pm line 304
    MT::App::run('Blogroll::Blogroll=HASH(0x811c90c)') called at mt-blogroll.cgi line 42
    main::BEGIN() called at mt-blogroll.cgi line 43
    eval {...} called at mt-blogroll.cgi line 43


Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/perl5/File/Spec/Unix.pm line 78.

It seems that Blogroll/tmpl/list_entry.tmpl does not exist.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 16, 2005 4:06 PM | Reply

Was my silly mistake, can be easily corrected:

Replace

<input type="button" value="<MTTRANS phrase="Reset Filter">" onclick="window.location='<TMPLVAR NAME=SCRIPTURL>?mode=listentries&blogid=<TMPLVAR NAME=BLOGID>&<TMPLIF NAME=ISPOWEREDIT>ispoweredit=1</TMPL_IF>'" />

with

<input type="button" value="<MT_TRANS phrase="Reset Filter">" onclick="window.location='<TMPL_VAR NAME=SCRIPT_URL>?__mode=view&blog_id=<TMPL_VAR NAME=BLOG_ID>'" />

in list.tmpl

Thanks for the report, if there'll be a future version I'll roll it into that.

Lola Lee said:
on Apr 16, 2005 5:05 PM | Reply

There's a really strange bug such that some of the blog links are not organized alphabetically. I have over 50 blog links. When I edit in Blogroll and select "100 entries", the links are organized alphabetically. But when I go to my blog (click on my name), the last 11 blog links after "Year of the Afghan" are out of order.

I tried to paste in the code that I'm using to display the blogroll using the pre tag but it didn't work - how do I do that, or should I send it to you via email?

salguod said:
on Apr 16, 2005 8:41 PM | Reply

I'm looking forward to upgrading from 1.0. Do I just follow the same instructions from the beta to upgrade?

Lola Lee, I think you blogroll issue is that some of your entries start with an upper case letter, some lower. I've seen situations where some computers will order lists like that. I bet if you changed those few to upper thay'd appear in the correct spot in the list.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 16, 2005 9:11 PM | Reply

Hi salguod

I should've put that in the entry, doh! If you are upgrading from 1.0, follow the instructions on the beta post (ie start by running mt-br-load.cgi and follow the instructions)

Also you were spot on with debugging Lola's problem, we resolved it through email, thanks! :)

Buzz said:
on Apr 17, 2005 7:29 AM | Reply

Hello:

Blogroll looks good...but I could not find instructions on how to install it.

Any suggestions?

Thanx,

--R.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 17, 2005 7:32 AM | Reply

Hi Buzz

I've updated the entry to give a little more help in terms of installation

If you are upgrading from 1.0 or are installing MT Blogroll 2.0 for the first time, you will need to run mt-br-load.cgi and follow the intructions from there on.

Buzz said:
on Apr 17, 2005 9:53 AM | Reply

Hello Arvind:

Thanx for the response.

I have uploaded the Blogroll folder in my plugins directory. My perl files all have .pl extensions so I renamed mt-br-load with that extension. But when I run it it gives me this error:
CGI Error The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.

Two question:

1) Which other .cgi files do I need to rename to .pl files?

2) Where do I upload the other items from the zipped file (images folder, php folder and the mt-blogroll-styles file)...?

Thank you in advance.

--R.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 17, 2005 9:58 AM | Reply

Hi Buzz

Are you working on a Windows machine? At this stage MT-Blogroll doesn't work on a Windows machine until 3.16 is released so sit tight, 3.16 is going to be released on Monday so I'm guessing it'll work then!

Buzz said:
on Apr 17, 2005 10:08 AM | Reply

Hello again Arvind:

Understood.

Yes, I am on Windows Server 2003 and MT 3.15.

Even with MT 3.16, could you please answer my above two questions?

Much obliged.

--R.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 17, 2005 1:37 PM | Reply

I don't have 3.16 but from what I gather that problem shouldn't occur.

Kristine said:
on Apr 18, 2005 7:50 AM | Reply

I'm glad I was able to help, even if it was just a teeny bit!

I'm using the new version now, it looks and works great, woo! :) Thanks again!

Eighen Indemnis said:
on Apr 19, 2005 6:40 AM | Reply

This is an excellent idea, and I'd love to be able to use it, but I'm a having a slight problem. Under MT1.6, the plug-in doesn't load, and the activities log provides this error:

Plugin error: plugins/Blogroll/Blogroll.pl Can't locate loadable object for module DateTime in @INC (@INC contains: ./plugins/Blogroll/lib ./extlib ./lib /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/i386-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/i386-linux /usr/l

Has anyone else had this problem, and what can be done to correct it? I know my provider installed the DateTime plugin, and I know MT1.6 no longer uses it, but that shouldn't mean it simply stops working...

Carla said:
on Apr 19, 2005 7:15 AM | Reply

I'm having the same problem as Eighen after upgrading to MT 3.16. Any ideas of what can be done to correct this?

Thanks!

salguod said:
on Apr 19, 2005 9:35 AM | Reply

Arvind,

I noticed that after upgrading to 2.0 my blogroll sorts like Lola Lee's above. It did not in 1.0, they were all in one alphabetic list. Could there be a change in MT Blogroll from 1.0 to 2.0 that caused this?

James Bow said:
on Apr 19, 2005 10:30 AM | Reply

Further confirmation that MT 3.16 appears to break this plugin.

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 19, 2005 10:41 AM | Reply

Thanks all for the bug reports on 3.16, I need to upgrade and debug this error as best I can. Salguod that happens due to upper and lower case letters. I'll fix this issue in the next version I hope to have out tonight.

James Bow said:
on Apr 19, 2005 11:05 AM | Reply

If it helps, my Activity Log error is as follows:

/homepages/41/d95675168/htdocs/jamesbow/cgi-bin/plugins/Blogroll/Blogroll.pl Can't locate loadable object for module DateTime in @INC (@INC contains: ./plugins/Blogroll/lib plugins/Blacklist/lib /homepages/41/d95675168/htdocs/jamesbow/cgi-bi

Yurij Rumiantsev said:
on Apr 19, 2005 1:23 PM | Reply

Arvind,

If i don't use SQL to run my blog, i can't use blogroll?

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Apr 19, 2005 1:40 PM | Reply

At the moment MT Blogroll supports mysql and berkeley db

blunted said:
on Apr 26, 2005 2:17 AM | Reply

Well, I uploaded all the files, I'm able to access mt-blogroll.cgi without any problems, but I cannot get the roll to show up on my site. I am really looking forward to using it, too.

I am using the example listed in the README file to display the roll, but it doesn't seem to work for me.

Jenny said:
on May 5, 2005 6:59 AM | Reply

hello. i was reading this and it seems a lot of people are having problems with it. i would love to use it, but i don't want to cause problems on my server... maybe when you come out w/a more stable version i'll try it out. but great idea anyway.

tim said:
on Jun 22, 2005 8:13 AM | Reply

As with every other plugin I find that looks cool and does things I want to do, it doesn't run on Windows. I get the usual "CGI Error The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers." problem. My site is running MT 3.1x on Windows Server 2003 with Perl 5.8, BerkeleyDB back end (because MsSql isn't supported, and MySql cannot go on this box). Any chance of working this one out?

Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Jun 22, 2005 3:07 PM | Reply

Hi Tim,

I would've been able to reply to your question sooner had you posted to the forums, none-the-less, people have experienced odd issues with using Berkeley DB and MT Blogroll, you can use MT Blogroll on Windows machines by downloading the newer versions.

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