django-fluent-blogs: A Python repository from kevin-olbrich

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django-fluent-blogs

This is a basic blogging engine, with the following features:

Archive views by date, author, category and tags.
Contents filled by django-fluent-contents
RSS and Atom feeds
Granularity in templates to override layouts.
Abstract base model for custom blog models.

Used applications:

Categories based on django-categories-i18n (or django-categories).
Optional comments based on django-contrib-comments
Optional multilingual support based on django-parler.
Optional integration with django-taggit and django-taggit-autocomplete-modified for tag support
Optional integration with django-fluent-comments for Ajax-based comments
Optional integration with django-fluent-pages
Optional integration with django.contrib.sitemaps

TODO:

Have integration with blog publication protocols (like django-blog-zinnia provides), built in a similar way like django.contrib.syndication works.

Installation

First install the module, preferably in a virtual environment:

pip install django-fluent-blogs

# Install the plugins of fluent-contents that you use:
pip install django-fluent-contents[text]

# Optional: to add tagging support + autocomplete use:
pip install django-taggit django-taggit-autocomplete-modified

Configuration

Add the applications to settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS += (
    # Blog engine
    'fluent_blogs',

    # The content plugins
    'fluent_contents',
    'fluent_contents.plugins.text',

    # Support libs
    'categories_i18n',
    'django_wysiwyg',
    'slug_preview',

    # Optional commenting support
    'django_comments',

    # Optional tagging
    'taggit',
    'taggit_autocomplete_modified',
)

DJANGO_WYSIWYG_FLAVOR = "yui_advanced"

Note that not all applications are required; tagging is optional, and so are the various fluent_contents.plugin.* packages.

Include the apps in urls.py:

urlpatterns += patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/util/taggit_autocomplete_modified/', include('taggit_autocomplete_modified.urls')),
    url(r'^blog/comments/', include('django_comments.urls')),
    url(r'^blog/', include('fluent_blogs.urls')),
)

The database can be created afterwards:

./manage.py migrate

In case additional plugins of django-fluent-contents are used, follow their installation instructions as well. Typically this includes:

adding the package name to INSTALLED_APPS.
running pip install django-fluent-contents[pluginname]
running ./manage.py syncdb

Configuring the templates

To display the blog contents, a fluent_blogs/base.html file needs to be created. This will be used to map the output of the module to your site templates.

The base template needs to have the blocks:

content - displays the main content
title - the <head> title fragment.
link - displays <link> tags for RSS feeds.
script - includes additional <script> tags.
meta-description - the value of the meta-description tag.
meta-keywords - the value for the meta-keywords tag.
og-type - the OpenGraph type for Facebook (optional)
og-description the OpenGraph description for Facebook (optional)

The fluent_blogs/base.html template could simply remap the block names to the site's base.html template. For example:

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block headtitle %}{% block title %}{% endblock %}{% endblock %}

{% block main %}
    {# This area is filled with the blog archive/details:
    {% block content %}{% endblock %}

    {# Add any common layout, e.g. a sidebar here #}
{% endblock %}

When all other block names are already available in the site's base.html template, this example should be sufficient.

The filename of the base template can also be changed by defining the FLUENT_BLOGS_BASE_TEMPLATE setting.

Comments

The commenting support can be based on django-contrib-comments, or any other system of your choice. To integrate django-contrib-comments with your site theme, also create a comments/base.html template that maps the blocks:

title
content
extrahead (only for django-fluent-comments)

Adding pages to the sitemap

Optionally, the blog pages can be included in the sitemap. Add the following in urls.py:

from fluent_blogs.sitemaps import EntrySitemap, CategoryArchiveSitemap, AuthorArchiveSitemap, TagArchiveSitemap

sitemaps = {
    'blog_entries': EntrySitemap,
    'blog_categories': CategoryArchiveSitemap,
    'blog_authors': AuthorArchiveSitemap,
    'blog_tags': TagArchiveSitemap,
}

urlpatterns += patterns('',
    url(r'^sitemap.xml$', 'django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap', {'sitemaps': sitemaps}),
)

Integration with django-fluent-pages:

To integrate with the page types of django-fluent-pages, don't include fluent_blogs.urls in the URLconf:

urlpatterns += patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/util/taggit_autocomplete_modified/', include('taggit_autocomplete_modified.urls')),
    url(r'^blog/comments/', include('django_comments.urls')),   # or fluent_comments.urls
)

Instead, add a page type instead:

INSTALLED_APPS += (
    'fluent_pages',
    'fluent_blogs.pagetypes.blogpage',
)

A "Blog" page can now be created in the page tree of django-fluent-pages at the desired URL path.

Integration with django-fluent-comments:

To use Ajax-based commenting features of django-fluent-comments, include it in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS += (
    'fluent_blogs',
    'fluent_comments',      # Before django_comments
    'django_comments',

    ...
)

Include the proper module in urls.py:

urlpatterns += patterns('',
    url(r'^blog/comments/', include('fluent_comments.urls')),

    ...
)

This module will detect the installation, and enable the moderation features and include the required CSS and JavaScript files to have a Ajax-based commenting system.

Integration with other commenting systems

To use a different commenting system instead of django-contrib-comments (e.g. DISQUS or Facebook-comments), override the following templates:

fluent_blogs/entry_detail/comments.html

These CSS/JavaScript includes are generated using:

fluent_blogs/entry_detail/comments_css.html
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/comments_script.html

Overriding the blog layout

To change the layout of the blog , the following templates can be overwritten:

In the archive/list page:

fluent_blogs/entry_archive.html - the starting point, which includes all sub templates:
fluent_blogs/entry_archive/item.html - a single list item (extends fluent_blogs/entry_contents_base.html).
fluent_blogs/entry_archive/empty.html - the default message when there are no entries.
fluent_blogs/entry_archive/pagination.html - the pagination at the bottom of the page.

In the detail page:

fluent_blogs/entry_detail.html - the starting point, which includes all sub templates:
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/contents.html - the entry contents (extends fluent_blogs/entry_contents_base.html).
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/widgets.html - space to add Social Media buttons.
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/comments.html - the comments.
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/navigation.html - the entry navigation links
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/page_footer.html - space below the comments to add Social Media buttons.
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/comments_css.html
fluent_blogs/entry_detail/comments_script.html

Common appearance:

fluent_blogs/entry_contents_base.html - the common appearance of entries in the archive and detail page.
fluent_blogs/base.html - the base template, e.g. to introduce a common sidebar.

Shared entry layout

When the layout of individual entries is shared with

By default, the contents fluent_blogs/entry_archive/item.html and , based on fluent_blogs/entry_archive/item.html by default

Custom entry models

This applications supports the use of custom models for the blog entries. Include the following setting in your project:

FLUENT_BLOGS_ENTRY_MODEL = 'myapp.ModelName'

This application will use the custom model for feeds, views and the sitemap. The model can either inherit from the following classes:

fluent_blogs.models.Entry (the default entry)
fluent_blogs.base_models.AbstractEntry (the default entry, as abstract model)
A mix of fluent_blogs.base_models.AbstractEntryBase combined with:

fluent_blogs.base_models.ExcerptEntryMixin

fluent_blogs.base_models.ContentsEntryMixin

fluent_blogs.base_models.CommentsEntryMixin

fluent_blogs.base_models.CategoriesEntryMixin

fluent_blogs.base_models.TagsEntryMixin

When a custom model is used, the admin needs to be registered manually. The admin can inherit from either:

fluent_blogs.admin.AbstractEntryBaseAdmin
fluent_blogs.admin.EntryAdmin

The views are still rendered using the same templates, but you can also override:

myapp/modelname_archive_*.html
myapp/modelname_detail.html
myapp/modelname_feed_description.html

Contributing

This module is designed to be generic, and easy to plug into your site. In case there is anything you didn't like about it, or think it's not flexible enough, please let us know. We'd love to improve it!

If you have any other valuable contribution, suggestion or idea, please let us know as well because we will look into it. Pull requests are welcome too. :-)

kevin-olbrich/django-fluent-blogs