You may prefer to read this post using the 'text_page' theme, a single column layout without the sidebar.

I'm posting a short version of the installation instructions included with the release for a couple of reasons:

1. I've been told the instructions included with the release are too long.
2. I think it's important to give anyone thinking about installing Ode a little preview of what the process is like (before downloading the release).

I should also mention that the requirements are minimal - An Apache-like web server with support for Perl. Ode itself, requires no non-standard modules (though various addins might).

The release package includes very thorough installation instructions. They're so detailed in fact that I've been told they actually confuse; making installation seem more complicated than it is. How's that possible?

Well, if I were to guess... When faced with a lot of reading we all tend to skim. That may be a good strategy for reading a long newspaper or magazine article, an academic paper, or a book, but it's not a good way to deal with what are essentially step-by-step instructions.

For example

Instructions for baking cookies

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place cookies in oven for 15 minutes.
3. After 5 minutes reduce heat to 325 degrees.
4. Take cookies out of oven.
5. Let cool before eating.

If you miss even one of those steps, the process will most likely not end with you enjoying delicious cookies.

Of course, it would be difficult to miss one of those steps as written. But if I stretched that out to be 5 pages of running commentary, then you might miss something. And if you did, it wouldn't be your fault.

So, what to do? There are two options:

Slow down and read through the longer version of the instructions included with the release, making a special effort not to miss anything.

Read the shorter version of the installation instructions here.

Either way, be sure to ask if you have questions or run into any difficulty.

I have absolutely no doubt that we can get Ode up running for you. (Assuming the host computer meets the necessary requirements.)

Remember, Ode is intended to be instructional. With that in mind, I'll repeat something I've heard over and over again in school:

1. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
2. Others are likely to have the same question. By asking you're not just benefiting yourself.

I like to think that Ode is equal parts project and community. Asking questions is a large part of what makes a community effort like this work.

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This will be short and to the point. This is in response to a user request. Given that a native commenting addin is not yet available, I do want to make sure that there is some sort of commenting solution for the time being.

Note: This is based on a very early pre-release of the disqus addin for Ode.

Download the disqus addin

Introduction

Disqus is a popular 3rd party commenting system with a lot of bells and whistles. To learn more, you'll want to visit their site. In fact you must visit the site and set up an account.

Disqus has a lot of features including (among others):

• Notifications,
• Media embedding,
• Integration with Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites

One of the big advantages of using Disqus is that it allows you to require that users authenticate to comment, without requiring that you manage authentications, or ask users to set up an account on your site.

Visitors can authenticate through Disqus using: a Disqus account, Twitter, Yahoo, and OpenId.

(There's also an option to allow visitors to post as guests using only a name and an email address.)

Should you use Disqus for comments?

At the moment a 3rd party commenting service is your only option with Ode. So if you want to enable comments right now, it's either Disqus or something else like it. What if the native comment solution were available and it did everything you need, should you use Disqus then?

I'd say it depends on how you think of comments.

If you consider comments an integral part of your site then you might prefer to have native comments saved locally along with the rest of your site content.

On the other hand, if you consider comments a nice extra, but not necessarily part of the content of your site, then a hosted service might be better for you.

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You could say there are two 'types' (Maybe 'kinds' is a better word because type sounds technical when used in the context of programming and this is not in any way a formal distinction) of addin interface routine:

1. Replacement type routines
2. All of the others

The key distinction is that you can have as many of the second type active at the same time, but only one of each of the replacement type routines.

Let's take a closer look at the replacement type routines and you'll understand why that is...

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If all addins include the same interface routines, how does ode.cgi keep things straight (i.e. avoid naming conflicts)? As you'll see once we start looking at some example subroutines, each addin must include a package statement declaring its namespace. By referencing these namespaces, Ode can target specific routines in specific addins with otherwise identical names.

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by getting to work documenting the addin interfaces (finally). I'm going to keep this fairly short and to the point (because I want to be able to finish). The idea is for me to come back periodically, adding to the descriptions, correcting small errors, etc. (Or maybe opening the documentation up as a wiki.)

Of course, if you have any questions, just ask *please*. Documentation is more of a process than a task to be completed. The process works a lot better with your involvement. By asking you can make sure that your questions get answered now, instead of eventually. That will help you and potentially many others as well. (People tend to have the same or similar questions.) So whether you want to help yourself, or be generous and help others, contributing to the documentation effort by asking questions is the way to go.

Ode's addin interface scheme is intentionally simple, as you'll see.

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I'd like this to be the year that Ode really hits its stride. To my way of thinking that means, among other things:

• Documentation
• Cleaning up the website(s)
• More addins and themes

• Slowly and carefully reviewing ode.cgi itself

  Making small improvements here and there, and planning for the next release.

• A t-shirt :)

Documentation is the most important piece of this in my mind (if just narrowly), so I can think of no better way to celebrate Ode's first birthday. I've been working on documentation for a couple of days now and will continue to do so consistently.

So, Where is the documentation anyway?

Well it's an interesting question. If you're someone who has struggled to find info about Ode, you might be surprised (maybe disbelieving is a better word), when I say that the documentation has been here all along!

Let me explain...

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Most of this is either fairly self-explanatory or covered by the documentation at simpleviewer.net. There really is nothing specific to Ode about using SimpleViewer. (That's the point after all :) Still if you're looking for a detailed step-by-step walk through along with a couple of suggestions, you might want to read this through.

Regardless, give SimpleViewer a try. I think you'll like it.

You might prefer to read this relatively long post using the text_page theme.

I've decided to tackle photo galleries for this first how-to for several reasons:

1. Photos are important and speak directly to the idea of 'the personal web' I like to think about. Integrating photos with a weblog is a unique and compelling way to share experiences. Photos on their own are a little abstract and captions don't help enough. Tags, though informative are about as pleasant to read as an entry in a library catalog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_catalog). A weblog post gives context to the photos while the photos enliven the text. It's a perfect marriage. I'd love to see more Ode sites featuring lots and lots of photos.

2. It's pretty straight-forward and the results are really nice. Though people post lots of photos to social media sites, this is an area where I believe weblogs have the advantage.

3. There's a particular solution I really like and want to talk about.

Let's get started.

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The goal of these how-tos is two fold:

1. To serve as a very practical resource to help you accomplish the sorts of things you might want to do with your Ode site, integrating a photo gallery for example.

2. To serve as a reminder of advantages of the Open Web. The fact that these solutions work for Ode with no direct coordination or collaboration (as they work with many other platforms) is a testament to the true value of Open. It is because of open that I can claim quite sincerely that a humble little application like Ode is in a lot of ways on par with Facebook and other platforms which enjoy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment and legions of full and part-time developers.

Hopefully there will be a bunch.

Want to write a howto yourself? I'd encourage you to do it. If you'd like my input, feel free to email me directly (or you can discuss it on the forum.

Ode's themes really are simple. This post tells you everything you need to know to use them effectively (Part 2 of 2).

This is a continuation of 'Everything you need to know to successfully use Ode themes Part 1' which talked a lot about non-dated themes, and how ode handles those. I ended that post with a short introduction to dated-themes and the use_site_look_date setting (which is found in the config file). I'll start by repeating that short introduction and then I'll talk about how Ode behaves differently when dated themes are enabled, i.e. when use_site_look_date is true.

Like the first part, this post is long, and so you may want to read this post with the text_page theme (which is little more flexible and better suited to reading longer content).

Before I get started though, I want to say that I recommend everyone use dated themes. (Of course you're free to ignore this advice.) Dated themes are really no more complicated than non-dated themes and I believe that the added functionality is beneficial. (Keep reading.) Furthermore, even with dated themes enabled, you don't necessarily have to do much with them, but you will make it a little easier on yourself should you choose to embrace dated themes at some point in the future.

Dated themes allow a site maintainer to save previous versions of a theme as changes are made over time. These dated variants of the same theme can be used to recreate the look of the site from any point in time (i.e. you can recall any prior version of a theme).

The config file includes a setting labeled 'use_site_look_date'. This variable acts as a mode toggle (on/off switch).

When use_site_look_date is true the dated themes mechanism is enabled, and when the same setting is false, it's disabled.

Dated themes are identical to non-dated themes with the single exception of the name of the directory enclosing the theme.

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Ode's themes really are simple. This post tells you everything you need to know to use them effectively (Part 1 of 2).

Note that this is not a post about theme design and development. For example, I will not say much about theme components (page, page_no_posts, date, content_type). That's a topic for another post.

Let's make a deal. Follow along with this post and the next one from beginning to end, without skipping ahead or jumping around. Make sure you understand each point before moving on. If, after reading this over a couple of times, you are having trouble with using any themes, contact me directly (really) and I'll help you figure out what's going on. (You can find my email address somewhere in this site's sidebar.)

I recommend that you read this post with the text_page theme, which is little more flexible and better suited to reading longer content.

OK, ready?

What is a theme?

A theme is a folder containing at least the following four required files:

1. page
2. page_no_posts
3. date
4. content_type

The folder and its contents constitute a single theme.

For example, the text_page theme, which is included as part of Ode's release package (as of version 1.2.0) looks like:

text_page/
    content_type.text_page
    date.text_page
    page_no_posts.text_page
    page.text_page
    text_page.css

This is a particularly straightforward theme. It consists only of the 4 required files and a stylesheet. There isn't even an images directory or a single image file. But, while it is uncomplicated it isn't special. It is essentially the same as every other theme.

Notice that all of the required files must end with an extension that matches the name of the enclosing folder (i.e. the theme name). This requirement does not extend to other files. You are free to name your CSS files, images, javascript files, and anything else you want to include as part of your theme, whatever you like.

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