Blogs Module

The blogs module is a small blog application which allows users to publish articles. A user may own several blogs, each blog having a name and its own base URI. Within a blog, the user may write articles and publish them. Once published, the articles are visible to anonymous users.

The blogs module uses several other modules:

• the Counters Module to track page display counter to a blog post,
• the Tags Module to associate one or several tags to a blog post,
• the Comments Module to allow users to write comments on a blog post,
• the Images Module to easily add images in blog post.
• the SEO Module for the generation of sitemap entries for the blog posts.

Integration

To be able to use the Blogs module, you will need to add the following line in your GNAT project file:

with "awa_blogs";

The Blog_Module type manages the creation, update, removal of blog posts in an application. It provides operations that are used by the blog beans or other services to create and update posts. An instance of the Blog_Module must be declared and registered in the AWA application. The module instance can be defined as follows:

with AWA.Blogs.Modules;
...
type Application is new AWA.Applications.Application with record
   Blog_Module : aliased AWA.Blogs.Modules.Blog_Module;
end record;

And registered in the Initialize_Modules procedure by using:

Register (App    => App.Self.all'Access,
          Name   => AWA.Blogs.Modules.NAME,
          URI    => "blogs",
          Module => App.Blog_Module'Access);

Permissions

Permissions are defined to control who is allowed to create, update and delete blog posts:

Name	Entity type	Description
blog-create	awa_workspace	Permission to create a new blog.
blog-delete	awa_blog	Permission to delete a blog.
blog-create-post	awa_blog	Permission to create a new post.
blog-update-post	awa_blog	Permission to modify a post.
blog-delete-post	awa_blog	Permission to delete a post.
blog-add-comment	awa_blog
blog-publish-comment	awa_blog	Permission to change the publish status of a comment.
blog-delete-comment	awa_blog	Permission to delete the comment.

Configuration

The Blogs module defines the following configuration parameters:

Name	Description
blogs.image_prefix	The URL base prefix to be used for blog post images.
	#{contextPath}/blogs/images/
blogs.post_uri	The post URI to write in generated sitemaps. The URI must be absolute and specify the host and domain. This EL expression is evaluated twice: a first time during application setup and a second time for each URI that must be generated. The blog post base URI is defined in the variable #{uri} (be careful to escape the '#' by using #{uri} due to the double EL evaluation).
	#{app_url_base}/blogs/posts/#{uri}
blogs.image_uri	The image URI to write in generated sitemaps. Similar to the blogs.post_uri, this must be absolute and specify the host and domain. This EL expression is evaluated twice: a first time during application setup and a second time for each URI that must be generated. The blog post base URI is defined in the variable #{post_id} (be careful to escape the '#' by using #{post_id} due to the double EL evaluation).
	#{app_url_base}/blogs/images/#{post_id}/#{image_id}/default/#{image_title}

Ada Beans

Several bean types are provided to represent and manage the blogs and their posts. The blog module registers the bean constructors when it is initialized. To use them, one must declare a bean definition in the application XML configuration.

Name	Description
post	This bean describes a blog post for the creation or the update
postList	This bean describes a blog post for the creation or the update
postStatusList	A localized list of post statuses to be used for a f:selectItems
postAccessStats	The counter statistics for a blog post
blogFormatList	A localized list of blog post formats to be used for a f:selectItems
adminBlog	The list of blogs and posts that the current user can access and update.
blog	Information about the current blog.
feed_blog	Information about the RSS feed blog.
blogTagSearch	The blog tag search bean.
blogTagCloud	A list of tags associated with all post entities.
postComments	A list of comments associated with a post.
postAdminComments	A list of all comments associated with a post (for admin purposes).
postNewComment	The bean to allow a user to post a new comment. This is a specific bean because the permission to create a new post is different from other permissions. If the permission is granted, the comment will be created and put in the COMMENT_WAITING state. An email will be sent to the post author for approval.
blogPublishComment	The bean to allow the blog administrator to change the publication status of a comment.
blogDeleteComment	The bean to allow the blog administrator to change the publication status of a comment.
commentEdit	The bean to allow a user to edit the comment. This is a specific bean because the permission to edit the comment is different from other permissions.
blogStats	This bean provides statistics about the blog

AWA.Blogs.Models.Admin_Post_Info

The Admin_Post_Info describes a post in the administration interface.

Type	Ada	Name	Description
	Identifier	id	the post identifier.
	String	title	the post title.
	String	uri	the post uri.
	Date	date	the post publish date.
	AWA.Blogs.Models.Post_Status_Type	status	the post status.
	Natural	read_count	the number of times the post was read.
	String	username	the user name.
	Natural	comment_count	the number of comments for this post.

AWA.Blogs.Models.Post_Info

The Post_Info describes a post to be displayed in the blog page

Type	Ada	Name	Description
	Identifier	id	the post identifier.
	String	title	the post title.
	String	uri	the post uri.
	Date	date	the post publish date.
	String	username	the user name.
	AWA.Blogs.Models.Format_Type	format	the post page format.
	String	summary	the post summary.
	String	text	the post text.
	Boolean	allow_comments	the post allows to add comments.
	Natural	comment_count	the number of comments for this post.

AWA.Blogs.Models.Comment_Info

The comment information.

Type	Ada	Name	Description
	Identifier	id	the comment identifier.
	Identifier	post_id	the post identifier.
	String	title	the post title.
	String	author	the comment author's name.
	String	email	the comment author's email.
	Date	date	the comment date.
	AWA.Comments.Models.Format_Type	format	the comment format type.
	String	comment	the comment text.
	AWA.Comments.Models.Status_Type	status	the comment status.

AWA.Blogs.Models.Blog_Info

The list of blogs.

Type	Ada	Name	Description
	Identifier	id	the blog identifier.
	String	title	the blog title.
	String	uid	the blog uuid.
	Date	create_date	the blog creation date.
	Integer	post_count	the number of posts published.

Queries

Name	Description
blog-admin-post-list	Get the list of blog posts
blog-admin-post-list-date	Get the list of blog posts

Name	Description
blog-post-list	Get the list of public visible posts
blog-post-tag-list	Get the list of public visible posts filtered by a tag

Name	Description
comment-list	Get the list of comments associated with given database entity

Name	Description
blog-list	Get the list of blogs that the current user can update

Name	Description
blog-tag-cloud	Get the list of tags associated with all the database entities of a given type

Name	Description
blog-image-get-data	Get the data content of the Wiki image (original image).
blog-image-width-get-data	Get the data content of the Wiki image for an image with a given width.
blog-image-height-get-data	Get the data content of the Wiki image for an image with a given height.

Name	Description
blog-image	Get the description of an image used in a blog post.

Name	Description
post-publish-stats	Get statistics about the post publication on a blog.
post-access-stats	Get statistics about the post publication on a blog.

Data model