Registrations in Barblefork v1.0-Alpha

Barblefork 1.0 (Night Shade version) is now here with us. With a little bit of tweaks I've done on the original script, you can now blick (blogging in a bliki context) whatever you like, whatever interests you....In a developer's perspective, blikis offer two directions in which the course of development can be turned to. The developer can make the script to be more blog-like (hmmmm, Tiddlywiki, a client-side wiki almost fits this description???) or more wiki-like. The former is what I've taken on this project. If you read the release notes and the documentation manuals in the package, you'll notice that I've eliminated registration. Why did I do this? If you look at any blog, you will notice that the blogger/site owner tends to have a "higher" power position than his/her readers. Blogs are points of influence in cyberspace. Bloggers can state their opinions without any fear of say someone tagging their content as inappropriate, or someone deleting (or editing) their posts in any way. Now shutting registrations is the very first step I hacve done to achieve this. I want to give the blicker (!) much more control over their site's content than what other bliki scripts give at the moment. So sleep tight, BarblefoLk; no one should edit your bliki posts.

PS: Please download the User Documentation from our SourceForge page to see how you can prevent others from editing your posts. Barblefork is a FREE and OPEN SOURCE project. It depends on people such as YOU and ME in its development. You can join the project on SourceForge. Good luck!

Update

I'll be working more on an issue with the registration page. I small bug? Not quite.
Best regards!

Barblefork v1.0-Alpha Out

Barblefork version 1.0 aka the Night Shade version is now out. You can download it from the SourceForge project page. As I said in the previous post, Barblefork is a bliki script; a mashup of a wiki engine and blogging features. It's written in PHP and uses the MySQL database. What a better way of getting to grasp MediaWiki-like wiki syntax for editing, with the ability of blogging selectively every page that you create. To whet your appetite here are some of its features:

1. Site name can now be set during installation.
2. Registration has been shut.
3. Comments on every bliki post.
4. Site Homepage/Bliki Homepage is now styled to a blog's homepage by default.
5. Number of tabs have now been limited to 7.
6. Selective Blogging. You can choose to blog or not to blog any of the pages you create.
7. MediaWiki syntax for editing.

Improved site appearance.Barblefork is in the ALPHA status. Did you read on its SourceForge page who are its intended audience? Advanced End Users. If you really are into testing it, nicking bugs, or you aren't scared of deploying it for use for your website, then this is your script. You can download the User Documentation to see how you can set up and use the script. (The documentation is not complete. You can help out in building it).

P.S: Barblefork is a FREE and OPEN SOURCE project. It depends on people like YOU and ME in developing its features and fixing bugs ( contributing to its code base) and also building its documentation. You can join the project at SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/barblefork ).Best regards!

Barblefork. A Fork of WikyBlog?

Well, well, well. What is *Barblefork* in the first place? Have you ever heard about a "bliki"? A bliki is simply a mash-up of a blog and a wiki; *BL*og + *wIKI*. That's it! What a bliki does is that it gives the webmaster some of the features of a wiki (open editing(depends on the script one is using), version control of pages, watching of pages, wiki syntax etc.) and blogging (comments, posts/entries). Barblefork is just that. It is the bliki script that is out to be the Wordpress of the *Blikisphere*.

History

 I created Barblefork out of the source code of WikyBlog, a neglected bliki engine. I love wikis more than blogs. The very first site I ever created was a wiki site. The good thing about the script I was using then was that it had comments for its wiki pages in addition to blogging features right out of the box. I guess this *blogging/blicking* feature fired up my interest in running a dedicated bliki script for my next site. Unfortunately, I neglected my site and I saw no need of it after it was hacked into. Meanwhile, I was searching all over cyberspace for bliki software until I found WikyBlog. I installed on my server and since then I have played around with some of its features while using it for my notes.

Why the Fork?

Let me give the reasons in the form of a list.

1.  *Geekiness*. Here is one truth: the average webmaster or newbie is not that interested in complicated bells and whistles. In fact this can be a turn off. The parent script, although still in BETA, still has some nerdy stuff e.g enhanced scrolling (what is that?), enhanced tabbed browsing (anyone?), maps.
2. *Developer Links*. WikyBlog has 5 more links on the side menu pointing to the developer's site in addition to the footer link. For any average blogger/*blicker* who doesn't know how to switch them off, this can dissuade from using the script. A footer link is enough, aye?
3. *Developement pace*. The last release of WikyBlog was uploaded more than 1 year ago.
4. *Usability* WikyBlog's tabbed interface is quite confusing to an average surfer. The comments system is based on MediaWiki's Talk page feature; it's not quite an attractive feature. Enhanced scrolling???? . 
5. *Target Audience*. The [[http://www.wikyblog.com|parent script's]] footer link's title reads "WikyBlog, not exactly a wiki, not exactly a blog"!!!Barblefork's bliki will be much more biased towards blogging but will still keep some wiki features such as version control, wikis syntax...

Developers

Saul Ramissisu (kenymblogs@gmail.com). I am not a developer in any way so if you'd like to contribute to the codebase, PM me on SourceForge (saul112@users.sourceforge.net) and I'll set you up.