dave's wiki

Roller 3.0 is a major new release that focuses on infrastructural improvements necessary to better support a large community of bloggers. These improvements includes a completely new URL structure, a new template system, better support for multi-language weblogs and an easy-to-manage front-page weblog.

This document summarizes the new features in Roller 3.0. Docs are also available. The draft User Guide, Template Guide and Install Guide documents are available at the links below.

• Roller User Guide (PDF)
• Roller Template Guide (PDF)
• Roller Install Guide (PDF)

New URL structure#

Roller's old URL structure was widely regarded as clunky and folks didn't understand why weblog URLs had to begin with "page" instead of simply the weblog's name. So we redesigned the Roller URL space to make it more logical, more self-consistent and able to better support multi-language weblogs and paging.

Old URLs are still supported, but they will be redirected (HTTP 301) to the new URL system. So we won't be breaking links to your weblog and we won't be breaking your feed subscribers -- since feed aggregators know how to handle redirects.

Here's an overview of key weblog URLs support by Roller:

• /<weblog> - The main URL of your weblog
• /<weblog>/entry/<anchor> - Entry permalink
• /<weblog>/date/<YYYYMM> - Link to one month of entries
• /<weblog>/date/<YYYYMMDD> - Link to one day of entries
• /<weblog>/category/<category> - Link to category restricted view
• /<weblog>/feed/entries/<flavor> - Entries feed in either "rss" or "atom" flavor
• /<weblog>/feed/comments/<flavor> - Comments feed in either "rss" or "atom" flavor
• /<weblog>/page/<page-link> - Link to one specific page template
• /<weblog>/resource/<uploaded-file> - Link to an uploaded file resource

The original URL re-structuring proposals are here:

• Proposal_NewUrlStructure
• Proposal_NewUrlImplementation

New template system#

Roller's old template system was complex and confusing, with way too many objects available and way too many macros (there were over fifty macros). We want to make template authoring as easy as possible to encourage the development of cool new themes by the Roller community. So in Roller 3.0, we've deprecated the old system and we've created a whole new page template system with a much more logical and self-consistent set of models and macros.

You can still use the old template system, but by default in new Roller installs it will be turned off -- and all new template development should be done using the new system. All existing Roller themes have been rewritten to use the new models and macros.

Plus, the new system features something that the old system sorely lacked: complete documentation. You can find complete documentation for Roller 3.0 page template system here: Roller 3.0 Template Guide (PDF).

• Proposal_AtlasMacroModels

Better support for multi-language weblogs#

To better support multi-language weblogs, we've added a couple of new configuration settings to Roller and some new URLs for viewing multi-language weblogs. Here are the new settings on the weblog Preferences->Settings page:

And here's what those new settings mean:

• I publish my weblog in multiple languages: check this box if you blog in multiple languages and would like to specify a language locale for each of your weblog entries.
• Show my weblog entries from all languages on my home page: check this box if you'd like your weblog's main page to show your posts in all languages. If you don't check it, then readers will only see weblog entries from your default locale.
• Locale: set the default locale for your weblog.
• Timezone: the timezone to be used in your weblog.

If you publish your weblog in mutliple languages, then the following types of URLs to access content in any one specific language.

• /<weblog>/<lang>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/entry/<anchor>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/date/<YYYYMM>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/date/<YYYYMMDD>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/category/<category>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/feed/entries/<flavor>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/feed/comments<flavor>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/page/<page link>
• /<weblog>/<lang>/resource/<uploaded file>

Where <lang> is a 2 or 5 char locale identifier like "ja" or "ja_JP"

Front-page weblog#

Roller's old front-page didn't adequately support the needs of a community of communities, like blogs.sun.com or the JRoller Java community. It wasn't possible to filter entries displayed by category or language. It wasn't easy to find bloggers. Plus, the front page was nflexible. You had to hack Java and JSP to change it. That made it difficult to temporarily change the front page of a Roller site to reflect some ongoing community event, like a blog carnival or a product launch.

So we changed Roller to make the front-page into a weblog and we've added a bunch of new page models and macros to make it easy to include site-wide data and user/blog directory in that blog. We've also create a new theme called front-page that looks just like the old Roller front-page.

Here the original new front-page proposal:

• Proposal_Atlas

Non-core themes and plugins removed from Roller#

With Roller 3.0, the Roller team decided to maintain and ship only a small "core" set of themes and plugins. All other themes and plugins have been moved to the Roller Support project on Java.net.

If you are upgrading an existing Roller installation that uses any of the following themes, the you must download the themes from Roller Support themes page -- otherwise, weblogs that use those themes will not display properly.

• almostspring
• andreas08
• cheb
• clean
• currency
• grey2
• moonshine
• movablemanila
• ocadia
• pacifica
• robot
• rolling
• sunsets
• werner
• x2

Other changes#

• Styled RSS and Atom feeds: If you click on a Roller feed now, you won't see a page of XML. Instead, you'll see a nicely formatted page of text that explains how to subscribe to the feed.
• Comment feeds: Each Roller weblog now provides an RSS and an Atom feed of the most recent comments posted.
• And other small changes... see the JIRA change list for details.