ThingaWeb

ThingaWeb is a web interface to the popular cross-platform, standalone blogging application, Thingamablog (TAMB) created by Bob Tantlinger.

Thingamablog is a desktop application written in Java and allows the user to author and publish weblogs from a desktop computer. Unlike most blogging solutions, Thingamablog does NOT require a third-party blogging host, a cgi/php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. In fact, all you need to setup, and manage, a blog with Thingamablog is FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server.

I started using Thingamablog for my blog a few months ago. I soon ran into a couple of issues:

1. TAMB stores its database on the local computer and publishes static HTML pages via FTP. This of course means that I need file system access to the DB for blogging. So I cannot blog from work as well as home. My solution to this issue was to put a JRE, TAMB and the DB on a USB memory stick (see HOW-TO on my web site & at the TAMB forums)
2. My company's firewall blocks FTP. So my nice little Blog-On-A-Memory-Stick didn't solve my problem. I was reduced to blogging to work but publishing only from home.

I wrote ThingaWeb to address these problems. I run ThingaWeb on my home PC using Tomcat and connect to it over the web from work. Now I can blog from anywhere in the world using Thingamablog! Cool.

Thingaweb 0.1b Released

I am releasing the ThingaWeb 0.1b under the GNU General Public License. The features section lists what is available in version 0.1b as well as what is not. See the ReadMe file for details. You can download the binary and source packages here. Installation instructions available for Tomcat 4.1.31.

Do let me know if you download ThingaWeb and if you have any issues with it.

Screen shots of ThingaWeb 0.1b.

I have used a number of 3rd party components in ThingaWeb. This is the first time I am releasing software under the GPL and as far as I can make out, I am following all license requirements. If you notice any violations please let me know so that I can address the issue(s).

Features

What is available in ThingaWeb 0.1b?

1. Web interface to Thingamablog
2. Supports multiple blogs on the same TAMB DB
3. Supports multiple authors
4. View all posts - Current, Drafts, Expired, Full Archives (month wise) & all Categories
5. Edit existing posts
6. Create new posts
7. WYSIWYG post editor
8. Publish changes
9. Publish Entire Weblog
10. Ping Only
11. View Publish Status
12. Security. You have to login to use ThingaWeb.

What is not available in ThingaWeb 0.1b?

1. Create a TAMB DB
2. Create a new weblog
3. Edit weblog settings
   1. Edit general settings
   2. Edit Front Page settings
   3. Edit Archiving settings
   4. Add or modify categories
   5. Add or modify authors
   6. Add or modify Custom Tags
   7. Add, remove or modify Pinging settings
   8. Modify publish settings
4. Edit Templates
5. Manage media file

Download

• Binaries - Some configuration required. See Installing ThingaWeb 0.1b (zip file)
• Source - Complete source code (zip file)

Installing ThingaWeb 0.1b

Before you install & run ThingaWeb 0.1b, make sure you backup your Thingamablog database.

ThingaWeb 0.1b has been tested on Tomcat 4.1.31 using JDK 1.4.2_07.
It should work on later versions of Tomcat and the JDK.

If you don't have Tomcat installed:

1. Download the JDK from Sun's web site. Tomcat needs a JDK installed. It will not work with a JRE.
2. Download and install Tomcat 4.1.31 or later version
3. Test your Tomcat installation

If you already have Tomcat or have finished installing it:

1. Unzip the ThingaWeb 0.1b distribution to a temporary folder.
2. Use a text editor like NotePad to edit the "thingaweb.properties" file. See Folder Structure below for the folder in which this file resides. This file has two entries:

       log.file.name
       thinga.db.path

   By default these are set to (my values):
   

     log.file.name=D\:\\Server\\logs\\thingaweb_execution.log
     thinga.db.path=D\:\\WebSite\\blog_db

   Change the values to reflect your setup.


3. Use a text editor like NotePad to edit the "users.csv" file. See Folder Structure below for the folder in which this file resides. This file contains the user name, password and role for each user that is authorized to use this instance of Thinga Web. Each row in this file contains details of a single user as follows:
   

   <user name>,<password>,thingawebuser

   By default there are two users:
   

   admin,admin123,thingawebuser
   guest,guest,thingawebuser

   Modify this file to have as many users as you need.


4. After you have modified these two files, copy the entire "thingaweb" folder into the "webapps" folder of your Tomcat installation.
   
   You can edit Tomcat's server configuration file, server.xml, to add the new thingaweb context by adding the following:
   

   <Context path="/thingaweb" docBase="thingaweb" debug="0" />

   However this is not a mandatory step.


5. Start Tomcat, open a web browser and navigate to
   

   http://<host>:<port>/thingaweb

If everything went well, you will be presented with the ThingaWeb login screen.

Happy (remote) Thingamablog Blogging!!!

Folder Structure

• thingaweb
  • pages
  • WEB-INF
    • classes
      • com
        • gautams --- users.csv
          • thingaweb
            • servlets --- thingaweb.properties

Running Thinga Web 0.1b

1. Start your Tomcat instance
2. Use a browser to navigate to ThingaWeb

Documentation

I don't have any documentation at this time. Will try to put together a user's guide as soon as I can.

Contact

The ThingaWeb homepage is: http://www.satpathy.in/thingaweb/

Author: Gautam Satpathy
Email: gautam@satpathy.in

License

Thingamablog is open source software. The GNU General Public License applies. See the license file here.