/home/ap0calypse

bazinga

This blog was created by my own simple blog-software called bazinga.

I created this software because most common products didn't fit my needs. I needed something simple and straightforward. Most important, I wanted something fast and commandline-driven. After looking at nanoblogger I figured out, that it missed some features I really needed. Long story short: That's when I started to write bazinga.

bazinga nearly covers all the features of nanoblogger but is maybe a little bit faster. Here is a short feature list:

• automatically generated rss-feed for your articles
• history and reset function for version control of your blog (powered by git)
• automatic conversion of LaTeX formulae to images which then are inserted
• automatic conversion of gnuplot functions to images which then are inserted
• push function to update your remote blog via FTP
• exporting specific articles or pages
• completely command-line driven, you never have to leave your terminal
• (quite) intuitive usage (bzg add, bzg delete, bzg update, ...)
• page output in search-engine friendly page structure
• central configuration (bazinga.conf)
• easy backup (just copy bazinga.dat anywhere you want)
• ...

Maybe there are even more features I can't think about now, but that should basically cover it's features.

You can pull a copy from my github repository if you want.

-> bazinga github repository

Just clone the repository like this:

$ git clone git://github.com/ap0calypse/bazinga.git

For all the ArchLinux users out there I provided a AUR package for bazinga. It's my first package, so please forgive me if there are any mistakes. I installed it myself via clyde and it works fine. Please tell me if there is something wrong. I assume that you are using clyde in my example, but please adjust the command to your needs.

$ sudo clyde -S bazinga-git

If there are any problems, just drop me a line.

Installation

bazinga comes with some template files. If you cloned the github-repository, you should see the examples/ directory where all the needed files can be found.

Step 1 - create the bazinga directory

$ cd ~; mkdir .bazinga

Step 2 - copy the files into bazinga directory

$ cp examples/example-config ~/.bazinga/bazinga.conf
$ cp examples/index.template ~/.bazinga/ 
$ cp examples/style-dark.css ~/.bazinga/style.css

Step 3 - edit the config

Please be sure to enter all the params needed. Otherwise there could be problems.

Usage scenarios

Example 1: "I want to add a page to my new blog, how do I do this?"

# let´s generate an empty page first

$ bzg generate page > ~/my_new_page.txt

# now you edit the page with your favorite text editor (which is vim ... right? ;) )
...
# after editing you can check if the page is correct

$ bzg check ~/my_new_page.txt
 >> Content file seems to be correct.

# looks good, so now let´s add it

$ bzg add ~/my_new_page.txt
 >> Content file seems to be correct.
 >> Added ´3c1cf2bf86d07b2d´ to pages.

# great, now you have created a page, but where is it? You have to update the structure first.

$ bzg update
 >> Updating local bazinga directory.
 >> Update complete.

# perfect, now we have the complete structure in the directory you specified in the config.
# if you want to, (and entered the needed values in the config) you can now push to your remote ftp
# site.

$ bzg push 
 >> Pushing to: blablabla.org into directory /
Please enter your password (won´t be echoed): 
 >> Push done!

# that´s it! look at your work and be proud :P

Example 2: "I want to replace a page/article with something else. Is that possible?"

Foshizzle! There are some ways to get this done.

# let´s find out which article you want to replace
$ bzg list
Articles:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
 8bb9b13a9ad7dd48 (My first article with bazinga) from: ap0calypse - 2011-10-09 21:05


Pages:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
0ed53b943881092c (about me) from: ap0calypse - 2011-10-09 20:55
14286d87c44c6a45 (bazinga) from: ap0calypse - 2011-10-09 20:56
bc6e3982a507c766 (links and friends) from: ap0calypse - 2011-10-16 22:36

# that´s the output I get. I guess yours will differ ;)
# now, we want to replace the links page for example. I assume you 
# already have the page ready, otherwise you can just export the
# old links-page and re-edit it.

$ bzg replace bc6 my_new_links.txt

# after that, you should get a message, that the old one was deleted and
# a new one was added. don´t panic, that´s fine.
# now we can update and push again

$ bzg update