A little More Complete
The glaring deviation from the typical blog format that this site has been guilty of is the lack of a comments function. Its a one-way street. I write, you read; the end.
But all that is about to change. I finally got around to coding a comments system. Astute readers might have already noticed the comments link at the bottom of each post which can be used to read and add comments to each. I have done some limited testing and everything seems to be a go, but I’m sure some bugs will creep up here and there. So comment away, and let me know if you break it.
Coding the function was easier than I expected and only took a few hours. I was pleasantly surprised that PHP made many of the things I was unsure about how to implement (like stripping HTML from posts) a breeze. I still need to code the admin side which will allow me to stifle the free speech of those who would make an inappropriate comment or otherwise abuse the system, but I suppose I can delete from the database for the time being should anything like that occur.
All said, coding my own weblog and content management system has been a great learning process and I am really glad I decided to take this road rather than implementing a stock solution like Moveable Type. I will say it again, I have no doubts that MT is a great product but I felt and still feel that my time was better spent learning to build what I needed from scratch rather than learning how to use someone else’s software. And much of what I learned has carried over into my clients’ sites. Very much a win-win.
Future plans? There is not much more that I want to do with the system at this point but there are a few things I may try down the road for the purpose of challenging myself if nothing else. I think categorization of the posts would be nice and probably not very difficult. Additionally, some more robust GD tools would be nice for uploading images to the portfolio section, and along the same lines, tighter integration between the moblog and weblog—perhaps even a full combining of the two. I also have this need to try a Flash version. The goal would be to use the same database (and images in the case of the portfolio) to display the same content via a Flash interface. Theoretically, it seems possible but I haven’t tried it yet. The last thing I would like to try would be a full optimization of the code; creating re-useable functions, making it more easily configurable and installable so that I could distribute it.
I think it is worth a shot.