Panda - simple blogging engine

Sample file db structure

db
|---- blog
|     |---- 08-09-01 first post
|     |---- 09-09-02 learn javascript.html
|
|---- tag
|     |---- programming
|     |---- funny
|
|---- static
      |---- About

Why

• Blogs are stored locally
• Write in Markdown, HTML, reStructuredText or even LaTeX format ( Math equations won't render yet )
• Remote server is a mirror of local repository
• No server side API for publishing / editing, just use Darcs, Git or any SCM
• No need to find external hosting of your videos, images or sound. Put them in public folder ( still managed by SCM if you wish )
• Easy to use, just create a file and the engine takes care of the rest
• Extensible through embedding any HTML snippets
• Use custom.css for theming

Quick Demo

It powers my blog ;)

Note: the demo might run on an experimental branch, so differences from the cabal version could occur.

Install

install lighttpd

install panda

cabal install panda

bootstrap

# panda is a kibro project
kibro new myblog
cd myblog

# get a template to start
rm -r db; rm -r public
git clone git://github.com/nfjinjing/panda-template.git db
sh db/scripts/bootstrap.sh

run

kibro start

It should be running on http://127.0.0.1:3000 now.

Since Panda is based on Kibro, it helps to read how Kibro works.

Goodies

Install Ruby / Rake, then rake -T to see a list of helper commands.

Config

Edit db/config/site.txt

blog_title   = My shiny blog
host_name    = yourhost.com
author_email = your_mail@yourhost.com

Restart required. (hint: rake r)

Future

There are many things could be done. Whatever there will be, the key idea is simplest data / folder structure.

Hacking

Another way to get Panda running with source is:

# clone the source
git clone git://github.com/nfjinjing/panda.git myblog
cd myblog

# get a template to start
git clone git://github.com/nfjinjing/panda-template.git db

# manually adjust path information for lighttpd
# edit first 6 lines of app/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf to match your path

# manual staging
ln -s db/public public

# run
kibro start

I'm heavily using the MPS package which introduces things like

reject, join, belongs_to, match, gsub

and so on.