Project Roller

Alfonso Romero's new book Apache Roller 4.0 Beginners Guide is now available and it looks like a great resource for Roller beginners and even for more experienced users who want a step-by-step guide to customizing their Roller blog.

Here's the cover:

And here's a blurb from the publisher's site:

Apache Roller enables you to build a fully-featured, multi-user blog server apt for all kinds of blogging sites. It is an ideal tool to create your own blogging network with unlimited users and blogs, forums, photo galleries, and more! While it is exciting to have a list of interesting features it can offer you, it might be a little difficult to get started with it by your self.

This book will teach you how to get started with Apache Roller and make the most of all its features using step-by-step, detailed instructions. You will learn how to establish your internet presence with an Apache Roller blog and use the latest web tools to enhance your posts and attract visitors. You will also learn how to promote your blog on popular social bookmarking services and customize it to suit your need.

There's also a very nice except of the book available online:

Working with Templates in Apache Roller 4.0

You can read more on the book's homepage at Pakt Publishing.

One more thing before I close out this entry: Big congratulations to Alfonso and thanks for helping beginning Roller users everywhere!

Want to learn about the new features coming in Roller 5.0? Come to ApacheCon US 2009 in Oakland, California this November and find out.

If you've been to an ApacheCon, then you know what a great experience the conference can be. If not, well then this is the perfect opportunity to join that experience. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the ASF, we're planning a conference like no other. FREE events include a 2-day BarCamp and Hackathon, and evening MeetUps.

Dave Johnson will be attending the conference and giving a talk on on Roller 5.0. Here are the details:

• Title: What's new in Roller 5.0
• Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
• Time: 4PM Pacific Time

Abstract: We'll cover the features of Apache Roller 5.0 (to be released Summer 2009 Fall 2009) and how it compares to other blog server options, typical deployment architectures and examples of Roller sites in production today. Ongoing student-driven work on OpenID and better Media Blogging support will be disucssed in detail. And, you'll learn how blog software is changing and adapting to incorporate Social Networking features such as profiles, friend relationships and social gadgets and how you can use Apache Shindig and Project SocialSite to add these features to Roller.

You can register for ApacheCon US 2009 via the link below.

Register for ApacheCon US 2009

• Bugs fixed are listed in the JIRA Issue Tracker Release Notes page
• Updated files and docs are available via the Apache download mirror network

This is a bug-fix only release with no new features.

This is a major new Roller release which includes easier blog theme customization, a much more simple installation/upgrade process, infrastructure improvements and numerous other small fixes. You can get the release files and the official documentation via the Apache mirrors at this page:

http://roller.apache.org/download.cgi

And you can read about the new features on the What's New in Roller 4.0 page of the Roller wiki.

Project releases are approved by vote of the Apache Roller Project Management Committee (PMC). Support for a release is provided by project volunteers on the project mailing lists. Additional free support is provided by many other volunteer subscribers to the list. Bugs found in a release may be discussed on the list and reported through the issue tracker.

Roller is a Project of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), formed by a resolution of the ASF Board of Directors. As an ASF Project, Roller is subject to the ASF Bylaws and the direction of the ASF Board.

The user mailing list and issue tracker are the only support options hosted by the Apache Roller project.

First, the big news, we've graduated! In our time in the Apache Incubator we grew the already diverse Roller community, demonstrated our commitment to and understanding of Apache governance, reviewed all of our code to ensure compliance with Apache licensing policies and made major improvements in the Roller software. Now we have met all graduation requirements, the ASF board has passed our graduation resolution and we're an official top-level project of the Apache Software Foundation, hosted at http://roller.apache.org.

And last but not least, the big new release. Roller 3.1 is a major new release that includes support for tagging (contributed by IBM), an improved weblog editor based on Xinha, numerous other improvements and bug fixes. Learn more from the What's New in Roller 3.1 page. And you can find the list of issues addressed in our issue tracker.

This is a new release, but the Roller 3.1 code-base has been in use for months at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site. Here are direct links to the download files:

Web application, binary release

• Roller 3.1 Web application (tar.gz) (key)
• Roller 3.1 Web application (zip) (key)
• Roller 3.1 Support at Java.net - required jars for use with Roller webapp

Source code release

• Roller 3.1 Source code (tar.gz) (key)
• Roller 3.1 Source code (zip) (key)
• Roller 3.1 Support at Java.net - required jars for use with Roller source

Here are links to the Roller 3.1 docs in PDF format.

• Roller 3.1 User Guide (PDF)
• Roller 3.1 Template Author Guide (PDF)
• Roller 3.1 Installation Guide (PDF)

If you run into installation problems please seek assistance on the Roller User Mailing List . Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA based Issue Tracker.

• Roller 3.0 Web application (tar.gz) (key)
• Roller 3.0 Web application (zip) (key)

• Roller 3.0 Source code (tar.gz) (key)
• Roller 3.0 Source code (zip) (key)

Note that we no longer use the wiki for the user and installation guides. Instead, we're using OpenOffice format and generating HTML and PDF versions of these two documents. Here are links to the latest docs for Roller 3.0 in PDF format.

• Roller 3.0 User Guide (PDF)
• Roller 3.0 Template Author Guide (PDF)
• Roller 3.0 Installation Guide (PDF)

Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

NOTE: Roller is in the Apache Incubator, but this release is not an official release of or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. Roller itself is licensed under the Apache license v2.0, but requires some components that have more restrictive licenses (i.e. Hibernate).

• Roller 2.3 Web application (key)
• Roller 2.3 Source code (key)

Note that we no longer use the wiki for the user and installation guides. Instead, we're using OpenOffice format and generating HTML and PDF versions of these two documents. Here are links to the latest docs for Roller 2.3.

• Roller 2.3 Installation Guide (HTML)
• Roller 2.3 Installation Guide (PDF)
• Roller 2.3 User Guide (HTML)
• Roller 2.3 User Guide (PDF)

Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

NOTE: Roller is in the Apache Incubator, but this release is not an official release of or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. Roller itself is licensed under the Apache license v2.0, but requires some components that have more restrictive licenses (i.e. Hibernate).

Roller 2.1.1 is available here: Roller 2.1.1 download directory

Roller 2.0.2 is available here: Roller 2.0.2 download directory

We no longer use the wiki for the user and installation guides. Instead, we're using OpenOffice format and generating HTML and PDF versions of these two documents. Here are links to the latest docs for Roller 2.1.

• Roller 2.1 Installation Guide (HTML)
• Roller 2.1 Installation Guide (PDF)

• Roller 2.1 User Guide (HTML)
• Roller 2.1 User Guide (PDF)

The Roller 2.1 Upgrade Guide is still on the wiki.

As usual, if you run into installation or upgrade problems, please seek assistance on the Roller mailing lists. Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

And work is well underway for Roller 2.2. What's New in Roller 2.2 describes what's coming in the next release.

NOTE: Roller is in the Apache Incubator, but this release is not an official release of or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. Also, Roller itself is licensed under the Apache license v2.0, but some components included in Roller have more restrictive licenses.

Get it in our Java.Net project's Roller 2.0.1 download folder

UPDATE: A small problem was found in the database upgrade scripts and the Roller 2.0.1 download has been refreshed with a fix for the problem.

Dave Johnson: Matt was one of the earliest users and supporters of Roller. He's the director of technology at the Javalobby and along with Rick Ross he helped grow the Roller community by offering free Roller-based blogs at JRoller.com. Matt, Rick and I spent many hours on instant messenger, on the phone and at Javalobby headquarters (here in Cary, NC) debugging Roller's early performance problems. Since then, he's played an active role in the Roller dev list and I've continued to work with him on Roller issues via instant messenger.

Matt is part of the Roller developer and user community, does good work and I'd like to encourage his further contributions and involvement by nominating him for committer status on Roller and giving him his first +1

• Full support for group blogging. Users can have multiple blogs and can invite other users to join group blogs with three permission levels and simple workflow.
• Web user interface redesign. The entire UI has been reworked to support group blogging, simplify and enhance the user experience.
• Additional database support. Database creation scripts added for Apache Derby, IBM DB2 and Oracle (in addition to existing MySQL, PostgreSQL and HSQL-DB support).
• Superusers. Global administrators can now admin and edit any blog in the system.
• And lots more!. The release also includes numerous bug fixes and small improvements, see CHANGES.txt for the full list of changes.

This is a new release, but the Roller 2.0 codebase has been in use for weeks at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site. Here are links to the updated documentation:

• User Guide
• Macro Reference
• Installation Guide
• Upgrade Guide - how to upgrade Roller 1.x to Roller 2.0
• Configuration Guide
• Javadocs

As usual, if you run into installation or upgrade problems, please seek assistance on the Roller mailing lists. Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

NOTE: Roller is in the Apache Incubator, but this release is not an official release of or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. Also, Roller itself is licensed under the Apache license v2.0, but some components included in Roller have more restrictive licenses.