Using Thingamablog

F
or this part of the first version of the online tutorial, I painstakingly created screen caps of each window you see when installing Thingamablog and captioned them with super helpful advice you'd never get anywhere else like: "Click Next". It took forever and didn't look too hot when it was done. This time around, I'm going to treat you a little better than that and instead focus just on what I think may be of interest. At least it makes for a shorter article, ehAn obligatory expression all Canadians must use - http://www.culture.ca?

OK, when I made this site my first step (and it will be your first step too) was to download Thingamabloghttp://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/download.html. So I did. Then I needed to install it. So I installed it. I also made sure to add a shortcut to my Quick launch bar.

Tip! After installing, I realized I forgot about the SUN Java Runtime Environment, so I located the most recent version, downloaded it, and installed it too. I only mention this to illustrate that it is not necessary to have the Sun JRE installed before you install Thingamablog.

Then it was time to run Thingamablog for the first time. There are some things worth noting at this point:

Thingamablog stores any blogs you create in a folder that contains, among other things, your database. So, let's say you decide to store your database in C:\My Weblogs. What you'll see in there right after is a user.xml (more on that later) and a folder called "database" where amazingly, your database is stored. One database can have many blog. If you then go through the wizard, create a blog, and then take another look in C:\My Weblogs, you'll see that in addition to the what I just mentioned, you know have a numbered folder there as well. Just remember, your content is still in your database - the numbered folder simply holds everything else (like pics, style sheets, and templates.) Consider my Thingamablog database:

I have 5 different sites (or blogs) in my Thingamablog folder, which I logically named "Thingamablog" (but upon reflection, I feel now that "Thingamablogs" would have been a better naming choice.) In the same folder I also store my local copy of my online cgi-bin (scripts) stuff, and of course there is the folder containing the actual HSQLDB database that all of the sites' entries are stored in.

So! If the actual content is in the database folder, then what's in the numbered folder for my site? Let's take a look:

Tip! First off, the only way I knew beforehand that my Using Thingamablog db folder was in 1131197605000 is because I keep in mind the order in which created my sites. But for those mornings where I am too fuzzy or unfocused to keep it all straight, I created that handy (and empty) !USING THINGAMABLOG folder. Now when I expand all of my Thingamablog websites, I can tell at a glance which is which. The exclamation mark is so that it stays at the top of my Windows Explorer listing. If you do this too, you can leave it empty or use it to store anything relevant to your site, like your Photoshop PSDs or whatever...

Continuing on...of the other folders under the numbered folder, Thingamablog created three of them:

1. temp - Thingamablog uses this folder while publishing. I use this folder for work files too. It doesn't seem to bother Thingamablog. Let's hope I never actually name something the same as what Thingamablog expects though. Because that would be a tough thing to trouble-shoot...
2. templates - Here are your 5 main templates (main, entry, category, archive, and index, plus your feed template.)
3. web - files dropped in here are automatically placed in your root web folder by Thingamablog.

...and I created the other one:

1. media - here is where I store the images supporting my entries, like the screen caps in this tutorial. I'm just trying too illustrate that you can create other folders within your Thingamablog hierarchy and they will co-exist peacefully, like my wife and I do twice per year like clockwork.

At this point, I'd like to summarize the steps thus far:

1. Install the Sun JRE and Thingamablog.
2. In Thingamablog, create a new database.
3. In Thingamablog, create a new site.
4. Exit Thingamablog and in Explorer, locate the numbered folder and optionally add the empty name of your site folder so you can find it later when you have "a whole wack o' sites" like yours truly.
5. Feel free to create more desired folders under your numbered site folder.

Now, that you've already picked a location to store your Thingamablogs folder, this would be a great time to suggest to you a good location (I was being sarcastic. I should have told you this before.) I recommend that you (exit Thingamamblog first) and place your newly created folder that stores all of you Thingamablog stuff just under your My Documents folder and as close as possible to it. What I mean is that instead of placing it in

\My Documents\bob\folder\mary\folder\Thingamablog\... 

you instead place it like so:

My Documents\Thingamablog\...

Then you and me can be folder buddies.

Notes:

Q. Why numbered folders?
A. My guess is so that you could have extended chars in your blog names - if that's not the reason, then it's a nice side-benefit.

Q. What's the user.xml for?
A. The user.xml is actually super-wicked-important. It's used by the built-in HSQL db to connect to the correct table in your database folder. And if you create a custom tag or add a news group to the built-in newsreader, that data gets stored in user.xml. I would say that aside from the contents of the database folder, the user.xml is the most important file IN THE WORLD. You should, like, back it up, like, 5,000 times, OK?

Linux Users:

It's hard to believe, but it was even easier to install Thingamablog on my linux box than on my Windows box. For linux users, Thingamablog is offered in both .ZIPped and .RPM formats, but even if you are using an RPM based distro there is little need to go that route. To install Thingamablog, I simply:

1. First made sure java was installed by typing: java -version at the console (It was. V1.4.2_06)
2. I downloaded the .zip into my home directory (/home/shoppe).
3. I unpacked the zip to the same location. This created a thingamablog-1.0.5 folder under /home/shoppe for me.
4. I then got into the folder, and ran: java -jar thingamablog.jar

Tip! Make sure you are in the Thingamablog program directory! (For example don't try to do this from the root directory: java -jar home/shoppe/thingamablog-1.0.5/thingamablog.jar

"Total install time including the shortcut to the desktop: about 3 minutes!"

Done. Thingamablog asked me if I wanted to create a new database; (I said "yes" which did absolutely nothing, so I clicked "yes" and then it did something.) I created a new database in /home/shoppe/thingamablogs folder, and then I was ready to go on creating blogs and web sites. And though I thoroughly dig the informative little console dialog that opens (and stays open) when running Thingamablog from the command line like I did above, I still created a shortcut on my desktop so that now I can run Thingamablog by simply double-clicking on the icon (but I don't get the dialog.)

Tip! Thingamablog also creates a hidden directory under your home directory called .thinga. There is really no need to fiddle with the files in there, but in case you make a mistake and wish to start at the beginning. Delete that .thinga folder, and Thingamablog will think that you've never run it before. (Careful though. You'll lose everything. Do this only if you really wish to start over.)