Having a closer look at ruby based blogging platforms like serious and toto, I missed some functionality.
This a a collection of tools usable in both platforms. The project was formerly known as blog_helper, but Karakuri is a far more suitable name & will be used from now on.
- tag your posts
- use seo friendly page titles
- use the disqus comment counter
- a workaround for serious allowing you to use generic yaml fields
It's a piece of cake: just install the gem. Simply add gem 'karakuri' to your Gemfile or use sudo gem install karakuri to get going.
For a default karakuri powered toto template, check out dorothy's sister karathy.
Piece of cake, again: all you have to do is use <% require 'karakuri'%> in your .rhtml or .erb file and call the corresponding methods.
For example, to use seo friendly titles, your layout.rhtml should be looking like this:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<% require 'karakuri'
page_title = Karakuri::seo_friendly_title(@path, title, 'yourSitesTitle.com')
%>
<title><%= page_title %></title>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="<%= page_title %> - feed" href="/index.xml" />
.
.
.
Adding the tagging feature requires the toto_prerelease as mentioned above, since we need the http request to apply our little hack.
To add a list of tags to your article, just use a custom yaml attribute:
title: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
author: Lyman Frank Baum
date: 1900/05/17
tags: hacks, love, rock 'n' roll
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry,
who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.
Next, you need a place to show the tag links, for example the index.rhtml:
<section id="articles">
<% require 'karakuri' %>
<% for article in articles[0...10] %>
<article class="post">
<header>
<h1><a href="<%= article.path %>"><%= article.title %></a></h1>
<span class="descr"><%= article.date %></span><% 10.times { %> <%}%>
<span class="tags">
<%= Karakuri::tag_link_list(article[:tags]) %>
</span><% 10.times { %> <%}%>
.
.
.
And again: piece of cake ;-). Now all we need to add is a page that displays articles belonging to a ceratin tag:
Create a page called tagged.rhtml in your templates/pages directory that looks like this:
<%
require 'karakuri'
desired_tag = Karakuri::desired_tag(env["QUERY_STRING"])
%>
<h1>Posts filed under '<%= desired_tag %>': </h1>
<ul>
<% Karakuri::desired_articles(@articles, desired_tag).each do |article| %>
<li>
<span class="descr"><a href="<%= article.path %>" alt="<%= article.title %>"><%= article.title %></a><br/></span>
</li>
<% end %>
</ul>
<br/>
Now, you did most likely implement a tag listing on your toto blog. Congrats!
Example usage:
<h1>Tags</h1>
<% Karakuri::tag_cloud(@articles).each do |tag, freq| %>
<%= %|<a href="/tagged?tag=#{tag}" alt="articles concerning #{tag}" style="font-size: #{10 * freq}px">#{tag}</a>| %>
<% end %>
Thanks baopham for the nice addition.
To use a bit.ly shortened URL, just call the followin function inside a .rhtml file:
<%= Karakuri::short_url_bitly(<url>, <bit.ly login name>, <bit.ly api key>) %>
Basically just adds the necessary java script to enable the disqus comment counter. For best performance, place it near the end of the page:
<%= Karakuri::disqus_comment_count_js(@config[:disqus]) %>
</body>
</html>
Mind the usage of @config[:disqus], this enables configuration via config.ru.
To access the comment count, use #disqus_thread at the end of the permalink to the post & it will be replaced with the disqus comment count:
<a href="<%= article.path %>#disqus_thread"> </a>
Will result in the number of comments of the article the permalink posts to.
I hacked serious' custom yaml field access (quite dirty hack) - but please refer to the source & ri for that, I don't use serious anymore.