3:53p.m. Typo Stripes Theme

Here is my (now very old) Stripes theme for Typo. Please feel free to download and use it, but please make sure you give me credit! Hope you like it! Download: [stripes.zip](/static/files/stripes.zip) (233 kb).

8:05a.m. CMS Woes

So, Rails is now at 1.1 Yay for rails! Except.

I haven’t been able to update Typo in months, and according to some messages in the Typo mailing list, Rails 1.1 breaks Typo.

I’m not sure what to do about any of this. I could figure out how to have Typo just run on it’s own version of rails, separate from my host’s version (they’re updating to rails 1.1 any day now). However, then I’m stuck there with my own version of rails and Typo, and may make it difficult to ever get passed that point.

Plus, I have this huge Abnormal Psychology test tomorrow. So I can’t really worry about weather or not my blog exists tomorrow.

What sucks is that I really like rails and Typo. I love Typo. The problem is, its just in too much flux, and its too difficult to keep it current. So I’m not totally sure what I’m going to do yet… for now, I’m going to attempt at freezing my version of rails as to prevent my blog from being totally broken until I can deal with starting with Typo fresh/attempting to update my version of Typo and rails/ or move to another CMS. There is no such thing as the perfect CMS. Not even close. So, we’ll see, we’ll see.

2:57a.m. Stress…

I’ve got to run to class, and then after class I must write an eight page paper for tomorrow (after that I must pick out classes for next semester and begin studying for a huge test on Monday).

I just wanted to mention that I submitted my Typo theme to the Typo Theme Contest. If you like my theme, please leave positive feedback or vote (if there is even voting?) thanks! :-)

9:05a.m. The Stripes Theme

So, late last night (early this morning) I released my Stripes Typo theme into the wild, which you can learn more about and download right here.

Basically it looks just like my site with a few exceptions: the header is customizable (for your blog’s title and subtitle), and looses the top menu and the bathtub sidebar image.

Photoshop CS2 is so slow for me that I now just hate using it. I think that when I have some free time I’m going to have to find my CS box and reinstall Photoshop CS just to keep my sanity.

I swear I have other things to talk about, I’m just way too tired to think, but too awake to take a nap. Oooh well.

4:44p.m. Mmm Procrastination

I should really be reading The Agony and the Ecstasy right now, but of course, I’m playing a bit with Typo instead.

The new Typo trunk lets you modify pretty much any app or component view of Typo in your theme. Here are some sample paths for reference:

• For any article views:

  /typo/themes/yourtheme/views/aticles/

• For any sidebar views:

  /typo/themes/yourtheme/views/plugins/sidebars/yoursidebar/

• For any separate layouts (for example, the Typo admin):

  /typo/themes/views/layouts/administration.rhtml

Man, is this helpful. Between this and the corrected database migrations, upgrading Typo is infinitely easier. I don’t have to constantly worry that any of my view modifications will screw up an upgrade.

Alright, now I better go back to reading so I can eventually get to bed.

3:57p.m. On and On and On

I am one step closer to knowing why some of the sidebars aren’t working: it may have something to do with the way my server is caching the files, or rather, not caching the files.

Does anyone know anything about why a rails install would prevent some files from caching? Or something in Typo that might prevent certain sidebars from caching?

I cracked and purchased the five dollar Backpack subscription. love all the integration with my mac, between Quicksilver, and iCal, I just went for the $5 discount they offered randomly. I really hope they give users the option to exclusively use Markdown. I think I could really get into it if they do.

I think I had other things to say, but I can’t remember. Gr. Tonight I didn’t do anything all that wonderful, just fiddled with the look of my desktop and fully integrated the exit’s admin section to Typo’s admin sections.

Which reminds me, I wish there was a plugin to add delimiters to selected text, as in TextMate. You know, select some text, type a parenthesis or a bracket, and have a pair of parentheses or brackets surround the selected text. Maybe it exits. Ever heard of one?

10:59a.m. A Few Typo Hacking Notes

It’s just starting to rain. I’m a bit nervous, but it should be ok. As promised, here are a few quick tips for hacking Typo.

• Keep A Local Copy of Typo

  Keep a local copy of Typo on your hard drive for all of your hacking and testing. Seems obvious but it’s just a good idea. You’re going to have ruby, rails, and a database installed on your server.

  If you’re on Mac OSX Tiger, this really isn’t all that complicated, except you have to watch out for one thing: Ruby/MySQL. There’s a thousand different articles on how to make it properly work with Tiger, but after a couple hours of trial and error, this article is the only one that actually worked. If you’re sick of all that, just use Locomotive and install MySQL.

• Keeping Track of Changes

  SVK is a good idea for keeping track of changes you’ve made of Typo, but I must confess I don’t know all that much about it. I have my local copy through SVK, but that doesn’t mean I actually know what I’m doing with it. My advice is before ever upgrading your copy of Typo, back up everything. If you’re going to be doing a good deal of hacking, I’d advise you to be on the trunk of typo, that way you can use SVN update or SVK up/smerge/ whatever it is. Oh, and for SVK, make sure you read this.

• Rsync

  Rsync is probably the biggest help in hacking Typo. Once you’ve changed all those files on your local copy of Typo, its all working wonderfully and you want upload it all to your server, if you can, please use rsync. Unless you patiently keep a list of all the changed files, and want to spend an hour uploading, please use this. Especially of you’re on OS X. Most likely you have SSH access if you have rails hosting. When I use the rsync command, I put

  exclude="database.yml"

  in there so that my database.yml won’t get changed, that way I don’t have to worry about restarting the server. It makes uploading take three minutes instead of sixty.

• Adding Your Theme to Other Parts of Typo

  I love Typo for many reasons, but this is a big one. If you have created another section to your installation of Typo, assuming it contains a controller.rb file, you can easily give it your site’s theme. Stick

  layout :theme_layout

  right under the first line in your controller.rb file. Give your new section a new helper.rb, and make sure to put this in it:

  def page_title
        if @page_title
        @page_title
        else
        configvalue("blogname") || "Typo"
        end
        end

  Or else you’re going to be getting errors. Makes adding new sections to your site a breeze.

I’ve got more notes coming, but this is a start. Basically run your own copy of Typo, make sure to back up before you upgrade, use rsync to upload to your server, and now you finally know what helper files are really for if you didn’t know before (I know didn’t). Happy Typo hacking! :D

2:45p.m. Eureka!

Look at that! My “Add a Link App” is up and running! Yay! I managed to totally implement the exit app into Typo, including Typo’s admin section (although that last part was a bit of a cheat). I also got a random link sidebar working too! Man I’m excited. I added a few links while watching Grey’s Anatomy tonight, go look! I will add more tomorrow.

I am so incredibly tired right now. I must sleep. I will write more about the app and working with Typo tomorrow… that is if things don’t go crazy with the weather tomorrow night. There’s a storm coming. Oh great, more rain… this time with wind! Yes. It’s coming.

Technorati Tags: rails, typo

2:56a.m. Some Bad Some Good

The Bad

My Epson Stylus CX5400 is totally broken. I did some research online last night, which told me that its either a broken hose or a clogging of some kind. I’m pretty sure both involve taking apart the unit, which I can’t really do, or at least not properly. I don’t really think its worth spending the money on either.

I’ve got an old HP printer that still worked a few months ago upstairs. I’m going to try to see if it’s still got all the cables (just the power and USB) and try to install it instead. As far as I know, the scanner part still works, its just the printer.

This printer probably only a little over a year old. It sucks incredibly. From what I read, this has happened to many people.

The Good

My “Add a Link” app totally works! I also got a little extra sidebar component to work too… at least on my local copy of Typo. Have to wait for my host to wake up (they’re in Australia) so I can restart my server when I fiddle with my database.

I’ve been learning quite a bit about Typo, I’m taking some notes of little pointers to remember when adding your own stuff to Typo (mostly very silly stuff) which I’ll post on here soon.

Now I’m working on a separate movies section. Is about half-way done. Everything will be kept in a separate database table (just like the Links app mentioned above). I’m going to attempt to make each movie entry have its own comments too, cool Typo AJAX comments, but I think I have to go work on the printer situation before I get to that.

Technorati Tags: typo

2:20p.m. The Joy of The Trunk

My goodness that was frustrating.

I spent my evening watching the extremely frustrating Yankee game and trying to get the Typo trunk working. It was a big mess with databases and migrations and who knows what else. I think that as long as this doesn’t screw up too much in the near future, I won’t be upgrading Typo again for a while. At least it works now, though.

Tomorrow I’ll start going to work on trying to learn more about typo macro filters. Now its time to re-watch Grey’s Anatomy on my computer and go to bed.

Technorati Tags: typo, rails