I just released a minor update to BlogCFC. This includes fixes by Gary Funk, minor tweaks here and there, and an updated SweetTweets/ColdFish plugin.

I've decided to stop griping and finally add a rich text editor to BlogCFC (as an option of course). I'm looking into TinyMCE first with possible support for CKEditor as well. Some things have cropped up though that worry me.

First off - it is a bit difficult to get tinymce to ignore certain elements, like the more tag. I could simply add a new form field to the editor that would be used for all the text you would normally place before the more - I could name this the excerpt which is really what it is.

Code blocks are more worrisome though. I've looked at a Mango plugin for it, and while it isn't quite working for me, I assume I'll get it there eventually, but it begs the question:

If code blocks just don't work well in tinyMCE, would folks be ok with not being able to use tinyMCE? I figure it would still be a useful feature for BlogCFC users of a non-technical nature. They can use all the pretty buttons, make nice blog entries, etc. Those of us who normally need code blocks can handle HTML ourselves typically.

Thoughts?

Folks, please read, and comment, on this entry from Adam:

Are TweetBacks Dead?

I'm very interested in what people think. I'm a huge fan of the concept, but, if they are dead, then I'll remove it from the product.

Please post your comments on his blog, not here.

Welcome to the first update to BlogCFC in 2010. Version 5.9.5.003 (available here) includes some important updates:

• Andreas Schuldhaus provided XHTML fixes for the front end. Now folks know that I'm not a huge fan of XHTML. I mean I'm not against it of course, I just don't see the big deal. However, I do know it is important to some folks, and Andreas did all the work for me, so I couldn't say no! I'll try my best to ensure future client updates don't break this.
• The next change is a minor one, but I think it is important. As you know, BlogCFC has long supported Pages. These are simple free form things. You can use them for whatever. An "About Me" page for example. I made a slight change to the database (see the readme) to support pages with no layout. This means you can create a page and set it to not use the blog's main layout. You can then put in any HTML you want. You could also use a META tag to link to a binary file. You get the idea. While I don't pretend BlogCFC is a CMS, I do think this will help folks who want to work with content that isn't in blog entries.
• There were some critical performance fixes. First, Gary Funk updated the MySQL and SQL Server install scripts. This came about from issues I discovered in getting data for recent comments. It only seemed to impact databases with large numbers of entries. (By the way, the recent comments pod is now cached.) Gary did a butt load of updates here and it should help for those of us with larger databases. Secondly - I found a pretty dumb error in the code that handles mailing subscribers. I plan on blogging it today (back on my blog).
• Lastly, I've updated ColdFish to the latest version. It now supports switching back and forth to a plain text version.

Enjoy, and I hope 2010 brings many new improvements and features to BlogCFC!

Recently I made quite a few changes to the "Blog Entry" editor screen. I think I went a bit too far. I lost the Upload/Insert image functionality and I've got a bug report on IE. Also, for large entries, the text box tends to grow way too big.

So - folks - those of you running the very latest - can you give me some feedback? Do you agree? I think I may just remove the auto-grow textbox, restore the links, and see how that rolls.

This is a pretty big update - but it focuses mainly on the Admin area. You can see a nice video over at my blog and download the bits from RIAForge.org.

Read the readme.txt for details, but here are the high level changes:

Removed Spry and Tabber. jQuery+jQuery UI used.

Body text area auto grows as you type.

Related Entries improved to support blogs with lots of entries.

Admin now checks for a new version. Helps you detect if your blog is out of date.

If you go to the next page on the blog, you now have a previous entries link to go backwards.

SweetTweets/ColdFish updated to latest version.

I just pushed up a minor update to 5.9.4. Release notes are below.

/org/camden/blog/blog.cfc - Fix to rss code to not output image stuff if the itunesimage value not specified
/org/camden/blog/blog.cfc - case sensitivity issue for mysql fixed
/client/stats.cfm - Added numerFormat around most stats. Makes the #s a bit nicer.
/client/admin/settings.cfm - Support setting Use cfFormProtect (thanks Todd Sharp!)

Upcoming changes:

My next update will be to add metadata keyword/description support for the blog entry/blog category level. The flow will be: If keyword/desc defined for entry, use it. Else check category. Finally use the default settings.

Title says it all - I decided to not wait for the Analytics stuff and just go ahead and get 5.9.4 out the door. Enjoy.

Thanks to those who tested my 5.9.4 updates. I believe the security stuff is good to go. Since that release though, I've found a few minor things here and there. I've made some improvements as well (search now paginates). Todd Sharp is also working on some small changes as well.

So.... I'm going to delay releasing 5.9.4 until Todd's done, and I get back from vacation. I'd estimate it will ship around mid-August, right before CFUNITED.

Obviously if these new features turn you on - just get from SVN. My blog is running it now.