Blogging Roller

I've been looking for weblogs that cover Java and J2EE and not finding much.  So, I was happy to find out about Rebelutionary and even happier to find the rebel talking about J2EE weblogging software.  Here is what the he had to say:

Sam Ruby pointed to me and advised checking out Roller. It looks light a good start, and I might try hacking on it. I like client side blogs though, and it seems very server side. Perhaps embedding Jetty in Roller, and communicating via XML-RPC with Charles Miller's RCS implementation would be an interesting project (basically we could recreate Radio using Open Source Java technologies). I wonder if Dave Winer would like that very much.

Rebelutionary is right, all the parts for building a pure-Java Radio knockoff are out there.  For example, you could start with the Netbeans Platform (just the framework, not the IDE), embed the Tomcat Servlet-engine/web-server to run Roller, integrate the JOE Outline editor, add Jython scripting, add the Hypersonic SQL database, throw in the Xindice XML database for good measure, and include the all-important ability to publish a static site via FTP. Sounds like fun.  The type of fun that would make my beautiful wife want to kill me.

Still can't get into MySQL at CQHost.  I wonder if 24 hour tech support means they'll be working this weekend.  Somehow I doubt it.  Maybe I should take a break too. Seeya.

I just heard from CQHost.  They have finally activated JSP support and I've tested it and found it to be working.  Great.  But, the username and password they gave me for the MySQL admin (phpMyadmin) do not seem to be working.  Time to write up trouble ticket #2.

This is my first experience with a hosting service, so I don't know what to expect.  I'm not ready to say I am unhappy with CQHost yet, but I will say this: they do not follow the underpromise and overdeliver philosophy.

Now my MySQL account has been activated, but I am still waiting for JSP support to be activated.  Why this was not activated when my account was created is beyond me.  CQHost is located in NYC, so I suppose that they have already gone home for the day and I will have to wait for tomorrow.

OK, about 32 hours after applying for a CQHost account I now have that account and I can login to the CQHost admin interface for my site.  Unfortunately, I still have to register my rollerweblogger.org domain name, request activication of JSP support, and request a MySQL account before I can really get going with my Roller install. 

In the meantime, I guess I need to figure out how to convert my old Radio weblog entries over to Roller.  I think XSLT might be the ticket.

Yesterday, I signed up for an account with CQHost Web Hosting to host this weblog on Roller.  So, with luck I will be eating my own dogfood in a matter of days.  As I mentioned before, they use Resin instead of Tomcat, but that should be no problem for Roller. 

If you need to develop custom JSP tags, you should take a look at Gregory Gerard's article on Accelerating JSP Tag Development with Jakarta Velocity. What a cool idea.

Here is the deal. Typically, in JSP tag development folks use out.println() calls to emit HTML.  This can result in messy and hard to maintain code.  Gregory describes a better approach: use Velocity templates to emit the HTML.  I'm using this technique to develop a nice configurable Amazon-style tabbed-menu tag for the Roller editor UI (but it will be generic enough for use in any JSP or Struts application).

Jeff Duska wrote in to tell me about CQhost Web hosting.  It looks like they might have what I need too: Servlet 2.3 support, MySQL, and domain name registration all for $19.95.  They include the domain name thing, but they don't offer a dedicated Java VM and they use Caucho Resin instead of Tomcat.  Tomcat is the butta-bomb of course, but Resin supports the Servlet 2.3 API so, in theory, it should work fine with Roller.  Jeff plans on running a Roller-based weblog at CQHost, so maybe I should just lurk and learn.

I just turned on Roller user and development mailing-lists at SourceForge.

Ugo has done a comparison of Roller, CocoBlog, and Radio using my bullet points from the Roller homepage.  This is nice to see.  I only take issue with one point:

• CocoBlog is 100% Java, whereas Roller depends on MySQL.

This point is probably better stated by saying Roller requires a JDBC accessible relational database and CocoBlog does not.  There are advantages and disadvantages of using a JDBC database to store blog entries, bookmarks, newsfeed info, etc. of course. 

For example, because Roller uses a possibly-remote JDBC database for persistance it is easy to distribute Roller accross multiple VMs.  That is important when you need to distribute the load on those high traffic days when you have nearly 10 hits occuring in a 24 hour period...  Ok, so maybe it is not that important.

There is a little bit of text on my screen now that says "Trial version: 3 days remaining" so I guess it is now time to fork over $39.95 to UserLand. 

I have just about convinced myself to pay for a Servlet supporting ISP to host my Roller-based weblog.  I have been scouring the ISP list at Servlets.com to find something suitable.  The best deal I have found so far is Threadcount.net.  For $19.95/month they have what I need: a devoted VM, Tomcat 4.X, and MySQL.  If you know of something better or have something to say about Threadcount, please let me know.  The fact that their FAQ link currently leads to a 404 is a little troubling.

I guess I will also need a domain name.  Threadcount offers domain name registration for "as little as" $15.95/year.  Are there any other hidden costs?  Any suggestions for the domain name?

Three days is not enough time to make the move and I'm still not quite ready to eat my own dog food as they say.  So don't worry Dave, your money is on the way.

By the way, I'm also in need of a name for a new baby boy due in June.  My favorites (Wolfgang and Otto) are out.  Any ideas?  I already have a Linus.

Larkfarm's Weblog Madness has list of weblogging software tools.  So does DMOZ.  However, these lists do not differentiate between open and closed source products.  I just submitted blosxom an CocoBlog to both of these lists.

Sam Ruby writes "Perhaps it is time to build a community of open source weblog developers?" I think a diverse community of open source weblog developers is already growing.  I just wish the community was not quite so architecturally diverse, because that would make it easier for me to crib source code from other projects.

Ugo Cei has released CocoBlog, the blogging software he uses to run his blog.  Like Roller, CocoBlog is probably not quite ready for prime-time.  Unlike Roller, CocoBlog is based on Apache Cocoon and Apache Xindice.

Yesterday I moved the Roller sources into the SourceForge CVS.  I had been managing them using Perforce (which rocks, by the way) on my homebox.

I had to rush out Roller 0.9.2 earlier this evening.  I found a couple of bugs in the user and newsfeed manager classes in the 0.9.1 release.  The bugs in the user manager were causing an exception to be thrown during new user registration.  Clearly, I need to do better sanity testing.  Sorry folks!

Some more good news. Shift\@ is supporting Roller as part of its product portfolio and Werner Ramaekers of Shift\@ is going to be helping out with Roller development. Welcome aboard Werner and thanks for lending a hand!

I've been thinking about how to make Roller really useful as a weblogger and trying to prioritize features for a 1.0 release.  I've saved my thoughts as a "story" called Roller Wish List.

Ok, so I now know of one successful install of Roller. Markus Kohler installed Roller and got it up and running.  Cool!  Apparently, he also made Roller and Very Quick Wiki share the same user / roles database.  Very Quick Wiki is a light-weight WikiWeb implementation written in Java / JSP and licensed under the GPL.

I've gotten a lot of nice email about Roller (thanks!), and lots of folks have downloaded Roller, but I still have not heard that anybody has actually installed and used Roller.  

If you have gotten Roller up and running, I would love to hear about it.  Conversely, if you had problems getting Roller up and running, don't just give up and curse that damn Dave - send me an email and / or file some bug reports.

Roller 0.9.1 is now available.  I fixed a couple of bugs and made some general improvements in database connection usage (the release notes cover the specifics).