Better Blogs [Deleted]

[Rigel Kentaurus]

Treat your community to blogs. Better blogs.

Better Blogs is here. This is a XenForo integrated blogging system that is meant to be both a replacement for blogs for people that are migrating from vBulletin, and a fully featured blogging solution for communities that want to offer their members the opportunity of engaging into blogging in an easy way.

XenForo 1.3 ready

• Responsive Design
• Edit History
• Save Draft functionality
• Tag a user with @User

Basic Features

• Enable members to have a blog
• Blog Entries
• Comments
• Attachment support
• User Categories
• Global Categories

XenForo integration

• Alerts and Notifications
• Integration with the News Feed
• Integration with the PostBit
• Integration with the Member Page
• Integration with the Member Card
• Integration with the navigation
• Support for Likes on an entry
• Support for Likes on a comment
• Support for route filters
• Moderator actions logged in AdminCP
• Integration with AdminCP Stats
• Integration with Spam Cleaner
• Integrated with XenForo search (including Enhanced Search)

Blog functionality

• Subscription to blogs
• Subscription to entries
• Moderation tools
• Inline moderation
• Report and entry or post
• Blogs Home Page
• Browse by category
• Summary by year View
• Scheduled entries
• Blog Roll, integrated with Followers list
• RSS syndication for your blog
• Global RSS

Advanced functionality

• Blog Customization
• Download and Upload Customization
• Download Blog
• Widget Customization with BD Widget
• Sitemap for better SEO
• Integration with robots.txt file
• Customization with Web Fonts
• Privacy, limit entries to followers
• Privacy, limit entries to members
• Privacy, limit entries to specified users
• Retina Display ready

Importer ready

• Importer for vBulletin 3.8/4
• Importer for XI Blog 1.1 Beta 4
• Importer for LN Blog

Buy here.
Instant delivery to your paypal email address.

The Demo
Demo Site? Of course. Visit:

• http://xfaddons.com/
• http://xfaddons.com/blog-home/

Feel free to create an account and play with it as much as you want, that site is meant as a demo


If you like this add-on, please post a review. It takes 1 minute and I enjoy the feedback!

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

The Demo
Demo Site? Of course. Visit:

• http://xfaddons.com/
• http://xfaddons.com/blog-home/

Feel free to create an account and play with it as much as you want, that site is meant as a demo

Need help?

Please do not expect free unlimited support. I provide working software, and I will fix valid bugs reported to me, but it is up to you and your technical team to install it and make it work, I am open to questions, but debugging something specific to your site and add-on combination will have an additional cost.

Should you need it, I provide the following services for you

Professional Installation - $50
Professional migration - $50
One-on-one support - $30 / hour
Configuration for Blogs MultiSite - $100

If you want any of this, please open a new conversation with me. Allow for a response time of 24-72 hours as it will depend on my availability.

For queries about the product and bug reports, please reply on the thread, I will take care of bugs as fast as possible, and serious bugs really fast.

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

Importer instructions

Importing from vBulletin requires that you still keep your import table from the previous run. This is important, because we need the map for the user ids, else the importer won't work.

• Go to Tools -> Import external data
• On the "Select System to Import" Select Blogs for vBulletin 3.8+
• If there is no previous import data, you will be able to continue right away, if there is previous import data, the system will give you the option to archive the table. ALWAYS archive the table, do not empty the import log, those user ids are needed. Use "archived_import_log" as the name of your archive table
• Type the information for your database, and the path for your attachments. You may provide a dummy path (e.g. /tmp) but the path is required. Sorry, no support for attachments in the db.
• Select the instructions and complete all the import steps

I did tests with 100,000 entries and 800,000 comments. The import process took around 3 hours.

 

[Adam Howard]

What payment alternatives do you offer outside of paypal for those of us who can not use paypal?

Is there an import option for those of use who are using LN Blogs?

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/ln-blog.91/

 

[DRE]

OMFG

• RSS syndication, subscribe through Google Reader or anything else

I NEED!!!

GIMME FROM LNBLOG IMPORTER SO I CAN COP THIS PLZEEEE


ADD THE FUNCTION TO INCLUDE A WALLPAPER IMAGE FOR BLOG CUSTOMIZATION TOO

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

What payment alternatives do you offer outside of paypal for those of us who can not use paypal?

Can you use MoneyBookers? I could take the payment through that.
Why can't you use Paypal? Anything else I need to process manually so it is kind of annoying, thought not impossible
Open a conversation with me and I'll send you my MoneyBookers details

Is there an import option for those of use who are using LN Blogs?

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/ln-blog.91/

There is no import function for LN Blogs as of now. How big is your installation? (how many blogs?)
If there is enough demand for it I will code it.

 

[DRE]

Can you use MoneyBookers? I could take the payment through that.
Why can't you use Paypal? Anything else I need to process manually so it is kind of annoying, thought not impossible
Open a conversation with me and I'll send you my MoneyBookers details



There is no import function for LN Blogs as of now. How big is your installation? (how many blogs?)
If there is enough demand for it I will code it.

DUDE YOU PUT RSS IN THE BLOG THIS IS WHAT'S REALLY GOOD MY FRIEND!!!!!!!

CODE DAT SH$%^&$%^

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

GIMME FROM LNBLOG IMPORTER SO I CAN COP THIS PLZEEEE

I guess that is another vote for a LNBlog importer

ADD THE FUNCTION TO INCLUDE A WALLPAPER IMAGE FOR BLOG CUSTOMIZATION TOO

That is already included. Visit the two example blogs that I gave on the multisite, my members are already making good use of the wallpaper function.

 

[DRE]

You deserve extra donations for making an importer, just saying. I'd donate.

 

[Adam Howard]

Can you use MoneyBookers? I could take the payment through that.
Why can't you use Paypal? Anything else I need to process manually so it is kind of annoying, thought not impossible
Open a conversation with me and I'll send you my MoneyBookers details



There is no import function for LN Blogs as of now. How big is your installation? (how many blogs?)
If there is enough demand for it I will code it.

Sorry, MoneyBookers isn't an option.

Amazon?
Google Checkout?
Payza?
2 Check out?

..... Any other alternative will do ... Your pick

My LN Blog install has currently 88 Blog post with a few hundred replies in it.

 

[DRE]

OH SNAP YOU CAN EMBED PICS, VIDS AND SMILIES IN BLOGS UNLIKE IN LNBLOGS!!!

http://xfaddons.com/index.php?xfa-blog-entry/ah-yeah.7/

 

[Adam Howard]

OH SNAP YOU CAN EMBED PICS, VIDS AND SMILIES IN BLOGS UNLIKE IN LNBLOGS!!!

http://xfaddons.com/index.php?xfa-blog-entry/ah-yeah.7/

You could do that with LN Blogs.... Just not in comments

edit: Oh I see. You can do that in comments with this. Nice.

 

[DRE]

Where's the header and navigation? This is awkward.

 

[Adam Howard]

Where's the header and navigation? This is awkward.

I agree. The whole full screen thing is kind of a put off in my opinion.

Also the blog navigation tab should direct me to all the blog listings and not just directly to my own blog.

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

Where's the header and navigation? This is awkward.

The design is a little different. The user blogs are meant to be a semi-private option for the user. As such, I did a lot of work at removing the basic header and navigation.

I did the same thing in vBulletin and had really good response from the users, while it is still part of the site, it creates more sense of ownership for the user if it does not have a 300px header before their content actually starts. When you add customization, this is a little more relevant since the user is now able to configure the background of the page.

It would be fairly easy to switch to the default Page Container that includes everything, though I am not shipping like that. I want the blogs to differentiate in some way. The default navbar already includes a shortcut for alerts and for returning to the main site. The interaction is designed in such a way that facilitates the reading of the blog, and jumping to other blogs.

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

I agree. The whole full screen thing is kind of a put off in my opinion.

Also the blog navigation tab should direct me to all the blog listings and not just directly to my own blog.

That is completely intentional. Though there is a home page, that is not the starting point. The objective is promoting members to create a blog and to start writing. Unless you are running a network of blogs with topics solely related to your site, the blogs are personal in nature. The idea is to promote creating a blog to the users, and the navigation is geared toward going to your friends blog (entries which you may be interested in).

You could change that if you want, it is a simple edit on the navigation, but I personally think I have come up with a better experience for blogs, and since it has worked pretty good for me I made it the default.

 

[Adam Howard]

The interaction is designed in such a way that facilitates the reading of the blog, and jumping to other blogs.

If that is your goal... You need to make it so that when I click on this



I am automatically direct to here

http://xfaddons.com/index.php?xfa-blog-home/

 

[DRE]

The design is a little different. The user blogs are meant to be a semi-private option for the user. As such, I did a lot of work at removing the basic header and navigation.

I did the same thing in vBulletin and had really good response from the users, while it is still part of the site, it creates more sense of ownership for the user if it does not have a 300px header before their content actually starts. When you add customization, this is a little more relevant since the user is now able to configure the background of the page.

It would be fairly easy to switch to the default Page Container that includes everything, though I am not shipping like that. I want the blogs to differentiate in some way. The default navbar already includes a shortcut for alerts and for returning to the main site. The interaction is designed in such a way that facilitates the reading of the blog, and jumping to other blogs.

Your blog is like.. if wordpress had tighter xenforo integration. Wordpress is way more powerful than both your paid blog solution and onimua's paid blog solution. It also has xenforo integration with Xenscripts, just not integrated with xenforo alerts activity feed, profile tab etc.

At least you named it right.

LN Blog - Good Blog
Better Blogs - Better Blog
Wordpress - Best Blog

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

Your blog is like.. if wordpress had tighter xenforo integration. Wordpress is way more powerful than both your paid blog solution and onimua's paid blog solution. It also has xenforo integration with Xenscripts, just not integrated with xenforo alerts activity feed, profile tab etc.

At least you named it right.

LN Blog - Good Blog
Better Blogs - Better Blog
Wordpress - Best Blog

I actually evaluated creating a Wordpress blog (there is a wordpress MultiSite) for each of my members at one point. It was a cute idea, but the prospect of giving them the option of running any random plugin and installing styles was too much. I think for a more hardcore solution that would be the way to go.

 

[DRE]

I actually evaluated creating a Wordpress blog (there is a wordpress MultiSite) for each of my members at one point. It was a cute idea, but the prospect of giving them the option of running any random plugin and installing styles was too much. I think for a more hardcore solution that would be the way to go.

You can create a wordpress blog and block parts of wordpress from them whenever they log into the admin panel. You have to do it by setting certain user level permissions by installing several plugins then modifying some of those plugins and even core files in wordpress. I don't even wanna talk about it but I actually got this done and it was a pain-in-the-ass. It's why I don't mess with Wordpress now because they need to set better user permissions and make it more simple.

So when it comes to ease of use I'd say your blog takes a huge dump all over wordpress.

I just can't see why I should buy it or donate for anything extra if you don't want to integrate it to look like the rest of the site.