User Guide
Apache Roller Weblogger
Version 5.0
May 2011
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1 Overview............................................................................................................................................................. 4
1.1 Copyright and trademark information..........................................................................................................4
1.2 Feedback...................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.3 Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................................ 4
1.4 Modifications and Updates.......................................................................................................................... 4
2 Introduction........................................................................................................................................................5
3 Getting started with Roller............................................................................................................................... 6
3.1 Getting started with a new Roller installation..............................................................................................6
3.2 Creating a new user and weblog ................................................................................................................. 7
3.3 Getting around in Roller...............................................................................................................................9
4 Creating and editing your weblog.................................................................................................................. 10
4.1 Creating and editing a weblog entry...........................................................................................................11
4.1.1 Weblog editor fields............................................................................................................................12
4.1.2 Weblog editor buttons.........................................................................................................................12
4.1.3 Weblog editor plugin settings............................................................................................................. 13
4.1.4 Weblog editor advanced settings........................................................................................................ 13
4.2 Finding and editing weblog entries............................................................................................................ 14
4.3 Managing categories.................................................................................................................................. 15
4.4 Managing your weblog's blogroll...............................................................................................................16
4.5 Uploading images and other files to your weblog .................................................................................... 17
4.5.1 How to upload files............................................................................................................................ 18
4.5.2 How to edit and update files...............................................................................................................20
4.5.3 How to use Media File Directories.....................................................................................................21
4.5.4 How to delete Media Files..................................................................................................................21
4.5.5 How to delete Media File Directories................................................................................................ 21
4.5.6 How to post images to your weblog................................................................................................... 21
4.5.7 How to post a podcast to your weblog............................................................................................... 21
4.6 Podcasting with Roller............................................................................................................................... 22
4.6.1 How to create a podcast feed with Roller ..........................................................................................22
4.7 Using a weblog client with Roller..............................................................................................................23
5 Working with comments and trackbacks...................................................................................................... 24
5.1 Comment notification via email.................................................................................................................24
5.2 Comment management...............................................................................................................................24
5.3 Comment moderation.................................................................................................................................25
5.4 Global comment management....................................................................................................................25
5.5 Preventing weblog spam ........................................................................................................................... 26
5.6 Sending trackbacks.....................................................................................................................................27
6 Choosing your weblog theme ......................................................................................................................... 28
7 Managing your weblog preferences................................................................................................................29
7.1 Weblog settings.......................................................................................................................................... 29
7.1.1 General settings ................................................................................................................................. 29
7.1.2 Internationalization Settings...............................................................................................................30
7.1.3 Comments and default comment settings...........................................................................................30
7.1.4 Weblog client API ..............................................................................................................................31
7.1.5 Formatting ......................................................................................................................................... 31
7.1.6 Spam prevention ................................................................................................................................32
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7.2 Weblog members: managing a group blog.................................................................................................33
8 Using weblog pings...........................................................................................................................................35
8.1 Registering with an Aggregator................................................................................................................. 35
8.2 Ping Targets, Common and Custom...........................................................................................................35
8.3 Setting up Automated Pings....................................................................................................................... 35
8.4 Sending a Manual Ping.............................................................................................................................. 37
8.5 Creating and Editing Custom Ping Targets................................................................................................ 37
8.6 More on Registering with an Aggregator...................................................................................................39
9 Roller administration.......................................................................................................................................40
9.1 Managing users.......................................................................................................................................... 40
9.2 Configuring Roller..................................................................................................................................... 42
10 Weblog update ping administration............................................................................................................. 45
10.1 Creating and editing common ping targets.............................................................................................. 45
10.2 How Roller Processes Weblog Update Pings...........................................................................................45
10.3 Configuration Properties Controlling Ping Processing............................................................................ 46
10.4 Suspending all ping processing................................................................................................................46
10.5 Controlling and disabling ping usage.......................................................................................................46
10.6 Initialization of common ping targets...................................................................................................... 47
11 Weblog Export................................................................................................................................................48
12 Planet Roller administration ........................................................................................................................49
12.1 Configuring Planet Roller........................................................................................................................ 49
12.2 Adding external weblogs to Planet Roller................................................................................................51
12.3 Adding custom groups to Planet Roller................................................................................................... 52
13 Apache Software License, Version 2.0..........................................................................................................53
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1 Overview
This document is a user guide to the Apache Roller Weblogger, the Java-based and open source weblog server
that is produced by the Apache Roller project of the Apache Software Foundation.
There are separate guides available on other topics; an Template Guide for those who wish to customize the
layout and design of their weblog pages and an Installation Guide for those installing the Roller software on a
web server.
1.1 Copyright and trademark information
The contents of this document are subject to the terms of the Apache Software License.
All trademarks within this document belong to legitimate owners.
1.2 Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to: dev@roller.apache.org
1.3 Acknowledgments
The general format of this document was based on the documentation template used by OpenOffice.org.
1.4 Modifications and Updates
Date Description of Change
08/11/07 Rewrites and updates for Roller 4.0, Dave Johnson
07/05/07 New format/layout, Dave Johnson
07/31/07 Roller 4.0 updates from Linda Skrocki
12/23/08 Notes on how email addresses are used
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2 Introduction
This user guide describes how to use the Apache Roller Weblogger or Roller for short, a web application that
can support a single user weblog, thousands of weblogs and/or group weblogs.
You'll learn how to register as a new user. You'll learn how to create one or more weblogs for yourself or a
group of your friends. You'll learn how to create, edit and post weblog entries. We will also cover more
advanced topics such as adjusting your weblog's settings, how to customize your blogroller, how to manage
weblog pings and more.
First, let's get some terminology out of the way because there's a lot of jargon in weblogging. Here's a list of
some of the terms we use in this manual without a whole lot of background.
● Weblog: A set of web pages and RSS/Atom feeds that display weblog entries written by one or more
authors, uploaded images, bookmarks and comments posted by visitors. Weblog entries are displayed
on the main page of the weblog and in the weblog's feeds in reverse chronological order.
● Weblog entry. A single weblog entry with a title, publication timestamp, summary, content and some
settings that indicate if and when comments are allowed.
● Comment. A comment posted by a visitor to a weblog and regarding one specific weblog post. A
comment has an email address, a publication timestamp and some content.
● Trackback. A comment posted by a remote weblog regarding one specific weblog post. Trackbacks are
stored as comments by Roller.
● Templates. Each Roller weblog is defined by a set of HTML and CSS templates that provide the layout
and styles for the weblog. Normally templates are authored using Velocity template language, but other
languages are possible via plugins (i.e. Groovy Server Pages, JRuby, etc.)
● Feed. A feed is an XML representation of the most recent entries, comments or other data. Folks can
subscribe to your feed to be alerted of new weblog entries and comments posted. Roller supports both
RSS and Atom formats for feeds.
● Feed reader. Software that makes it easy to subscribe to and read feeds, e.g. Google Reader, Net News
Wire, Feed Demon, etc.
● Blog client. Software that makes it easy to post to your weblog, e.g. Ecto and Mars Edit.
With that out of the way, let's get started blogging with Roller.
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