The DomBlog Template v1.6
If you don't know what a blog is by now you've obviously not been spending enough time on the Internet. Even my mum and dad know what a blog is!
There's something like 500,000 blogs and growing. Some good, some bad. There aren't however that many blogs out there that are based on or talk about Domino. Hopefully I can help change that by making a template available.
So, here it is. The DomBlog version 1.6. Download it and get yourself blogging. All you need to do is get it on to a server with all the document intact and go from there. Add yourself to the ACL with the Admin role. Once logged in you will see a red box section with all the options you need to administer the site - creating new blogs and adding new image resources etc. I've put a few in there for an example of how to do it. It should look pretty much identical to the shot below and like this online version.
Once you're up and running be sure to let me know and I'll start to compile a list of any blog using this as the template.
Terms of usage:
If you do end up actually using the template as a blog of your own I have a few things to ask of you. One that you make a donation to my favourite charitable cause MSF or, if you'd rather, you can make a donation to my second favourite cause, me, via my Amazon wishlist. Another is that you make some reference either in the source or on the site about where you got it from. Don't try and pass it off as your own. It's not clever!
Apart from that, do what you want. Learn from it. There are some nice little tricks included in there that can be stripped out and used to great effect elsewhere.
If you make a significant improvement to any part of the template let us all know. Or if you have an idea for how it could be improved let us all know.
Future Improvements:
- Addition of ContentEditable style editor.
- Ability to block IP addresses of offensive posters.
- Ability to require new posts go for approval before appearing on live site.
- Adition of a Category field (e.g: "Internet", "Life", "Love", "Thoughts" etc) to blogs and subsequent views.
Note: Any changes to the template will be added to an update to this "article".
Known Issues:
- User responses trying to use the bulletin board style formatting is less than perfect. Hey, it is Notes!
- There is no option to preview either the main blog or the posts that users add. Might resolve this in v2.0.
Version History:
- Version 1.6.2 (11 Sep 2008)
- Added a fix to allow use of blog with SSL.
- Fixed content-type issue of global.css which meant it didn't work in Firefox..
- Version 1.6.0 (11 Jul 2003)
- Added the first release of the Domino Blog API (1.0). Thanks to John Marshall for all his hard work.
- There is now the ability to have more than one author on your blog.
- Version 1.5.2 (16 Jun 2003)
- Fixed a bug that prevented comments from being saved when HTML was allowed in the Blog Preferences. Thanks to Clyde McKenney for pointing this out to me.
- Links to images in Resource documents now include the document name to make it easier to copy them as links for your blog entries.
- Version 1.5.1 (11 Jun 2003)
- Fixed a bug with the way dates were handled that meant only UK format was accepted.
- Fixed a bug whereby the Title field was case-sensitive. Thanks to Julian Robichaux.
- Tidied up the code to try and cater for standard Java coding guidelines. Thanks to Johan Kanngard.
- Version 1.5.0 (09 Jun 2003)
- The template is now an R6 database.
- Added ability to blog via the Blogger API. Read how...
- Added the ability to place blogs in Draft status.
- Draft blogs can be given a date on which they will be automatically posted.
- Added ability to list sites that you consider worth reading.
- Added a RSS feed of all Blogs. Courtesy of Chris King and by request of Justin Freeman.
- The mail received when people respond to a blog has been tidied up.
- Fixed a bug with the search feature, discovered by Chris King.
- Fixed a bug with the $$Return value of reader responses. Thanks to Chris King for pointing this out.
- Version 1.1.3 (19 Dec 2002)
- Added a feature to the "blogpost" form that allows the Administrator to view all posts by the same IP address.
- Added a list of names to the "blogpost" form that posted using the same IP address. Allows the Administrator to quickly identify dubious posts.
- Fixed a typo in the Calendar header row HTML.
- Added version number to the HEAD element.
- Re-ordered Admin links following a prompt by Uncle Phil.
- Removed a legacy Subform element.
- Fixed a bug in the "blogpost" form that broke the link to the parent blog.
- Version 1.1.2 (16 Dec 2002)
- Fixed a bug whereby removal of the "unid" view in v1.1.1 had caused the Delete Document admin link to break.
- Removed the legacy Approve and Un-Approve buttons from the "post" form.
- Fixed a bug that meant that New Post mails were sent every time a post form was saved instead of just the first time.
- Version 1.1.1 (15 Dec 2002)
- Fixed a bug in the search view HTML that broke the result links.
- Version 1.1.0 (15 Dec 2002)
- You can now have more than one blog post per day.
- You can specify a name to send mails to when an occurs and/or a reader posts a comment. Both controlled via Application Setting documents.
- Added an experimental feature allow users to add their own formatting and links when they can't use HTML. Not perfect but it can only get better ;o)
- Version 1.0.3 (12 Dec 2002)
- Users can no longer add HTML to their Name and Email fields in blog responses. This stops people able to use JavaScript to hijack your site.
- Changed the CSS layout styles so that it doesn't tend to scroll horizontally as much on smaller screen sizes.
- Version 1.0.2 (10 Dec 2002)
- Added the ability to control whether reader's can add HTML to their comments. Controlled using the Application Settings documents. Thanks to Todd Harris for the prompting.
- Version 1.0.1 (08 Dec 2002)
- Fixed a bug in the date formula of the calendar code that resulted in too few days being displayed. Thanks to Danny Jamieson.
- Version 1.0.0 (08 Dec 2002)
- Initial release.
Plug in
Nice job, nice to see some of my influence in there!
I am planning to release my web poll voting database for web polls soon, it needs some brushing up first. How about it becomes the first "plugin" for domblog. I'm not sure exactly how that might work yet, but if you have the plugin "installed" you get the option to show it on your blog or not. I am sure there are other "plugins" that could be used to extend the basic functionality. All that would be needed is some kind of CSS API and an admin panel to manage them. Just an idea!
Mike -notestips.com
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Re: Plug in
Not trying to steal my limelight here are you Mike ;o) This is what happens when you spend 9 months developing to another man's standards. Not that there's anything wrong with them of course... bold for computed-text, red for hidden-text etc. Something tells me they are going to stick with me.
Plugins sounds like a good idea. Going to have to take back what I said about DOmino not being suitable for blogging. This could abtually become a half decent template!
Jake
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Speaking of plugins...
CNet news.com offers news-feeds in XML-format using a format they call RSS. Have a look at it on the following links: http://news.com.com/2009-1090-980549.html?tag=netools
http://www.syndic8.com
The page links to other sites describing the RSS format.
Could be a nice feature/plugin or whatever you would like to call it... :-)
Ove
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too good
jake, your production is like a good wine the look is good, the smell is good, and we drink it too fast :-)
One little caveat if you are creating two blog for the same day (yes we can be prolific) they have the same (not) unique ID (AAARGH) and then when you try to see the second, you get the first.
Thank's for your work and sorry my english
Ph Koenig www.unclephil.net (with your help)
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Thanks for the template
Jake, thanks for the template. I think I can put this to good use. Your tips have helped me expand to my capabilities as a Domino Developer. I just wanted to say thanks, also, the Phoenix browser rules. I downloaded ver 0.4 and it been more stable than the previous releases. It doesn't crash anymore when I go to a page with Flash. I run Phoenix on my laptop and on my Linux web servers at work.
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Re: Thanks for the template
Thanks Brian. Glad you like it ;o)
Phoenix 0.5 is out now so probably worth the upgrade...
Jake
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Bug?!
Hey Jake very nice the DomBlog!. I like it very much!. But i think that is having a litle problem with the comments and the parent documents. This happend sometimes, i dont figure it out why, but when you make a new Blog, the new blog shows at the principal view but then if you go inside the blog the links make you go to the preview blog, and if you put a comment the comment appear in the preview blog and not in the new one. Well i hope i had been clear.
Thanks a lot Jake for your helpfull spirit!!.
Chau!
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Re: Bug?!
Hi Manuel,
I'm note quite sure what you mean. When you say "preview" blog how is that different to a normal blog entry?
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Re: Bug?!
Are you using IE ? It maybe something as simple as IE caching previously loaded pages and not picking up updates.
This has caught me out on numerous occassions. The same occasionally happens on the Codestore site (and others), when launching via Favorites, IE brings up a *cached* version of the blog page, I am then forced to hit *refresh* to display the latest updates ...
One way round this is to add the following META tag to the HEAD content:
<code>META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache"</code>
It's just a thought ... :o)
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Another feature to possibly add
Here's a thought. Why not add a feature as to wether users are allowed to post comments to any given story?
A simple "Allow Comments?" with a Yes/No option (defaulted to Yes) would give people the ability to create purely informational documents for things like FAQ's and Help pages.
Yes? No? Sideways?
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Re: Another feature to possibly add
You've obviously not used the template then Dragon ;o) There's a checkbox next to the Post button called "Allow Posts" which does exactly what it says on the tin...
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Templare Intact
I'll leave it in tact, but...
!-- DomBlog templare by Codestore.net Christmas 2002 - Jake Howlett. Please leave this line intact! // -- +
--Jeb
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Re: Templare Intact
Maybe it should read "Leave this line intact and feel free to correct my typo" ;o)
Jake
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unid view
You might like to know that the By Unique ID (unid) view is missing from the template v1.1.1 that I downloaded. I was able to retrieve a copy of the view from v1.0.3. The missing view causes the Delete Document function to fail.
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Re: unid view
Thanks Bruce. Missed that one. Damn! That's what happens when you work on a Sunday with a hangover.
Will rush v1.1.2 out tonight....
Cheers Jake
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Missing stylesheet in Mozilla
I am testing "all" features in your DomBlog, and I will post future comments here. The first thing I saw, is when using a Mozilla browser, the stylesheet is not correct. This i because the DomLog uses Domino pages as CSS files. I got the tip from Laurent de Walick, http://www.dewalick.com, that I could use an agent instead and print out the correct Content-Type. Perhaps something to do in the DomBlog?
- Johan http://dev.kanngard.net
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Additional Feature: Logging referers
Jake,
How about an additional feature for logging referers. Borrowing a trick from Mike at http://notestips.com. For example create a computed for display field on every page with a formula similar to this:
sReferer := @LowerCase(HTTP_Referer); @If((sReferer = "") | @Matches(sReferer; "http://*swapcode.com/*") | @Matches(sReferer; "*127.0.0.1*") | @Matches(sReferer; "*localhost*");@Return("");""); @NewLine + " <!-- start log referer -->" + @NewLine + " <img src=\"" + DBURL + "logreferer?openagent&referer=" + @URLEncode("Domino"; HTTP_Referer) + "\" style=\"border:0px;width:1px;height:1px;\" alt=\"\" />" + @NewLine + " <!-- stop log referer -->" + @NewLine
The "logreferer" agent just saves a document with the value of the "referer" taken from the query string. Or in my case I save all the CGI variables as well so I can see what browser is used.
Keep up the good work I appreciate greatly the work you and others have done for the Domino development community.
I try in my own small way for the few Domino.Doc developers out there, at http://swapcode.com now XHTML 1.1 compliant.
regards john marshall
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Thanks for the template, Jake
Thanks, Jake.
I use this template for the next version of my site ( Now is made with HTML only ).
I've translated to spanish and i'm working with it to enhance a bit ....
Sorry, my english is very,very poor.
You can see works in spanish about Domino/Notes in www.notesring.com, www.dominocode.net ( ¡Hey, Alex! ) or in my site : www.iespana.es/lapaginadehamfree
Regards.
Hamfree
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Just a small Improvement
Well I like the template but found that there was no way to navigate to months( incase you do not have an entry for the month or incase you do not want all month to display as links, imagine if you have two years worth of posts).
I just wrote a small code( nothing fancy) but it lets you fo to next and prev months.
Added fields calYear, calmonth, Prevmonth, nextmonth, CalendarHeader.
calYear @Left(ShowBlogsFor; "-")
calMonth @Right(ShowBlogsFor;"-")
"PrevMonth" def Value Pyear :=@If(calmonth="01";@Text(@Sum(@TextToNumber(Calyear) :( -1))); Calyear); Dmonth :=@If(calmonth="01";"12" ;@Text(@Sum(@TextToNumber(calmonth) :(-1)))); Pmonth :=@If(@Length(Dmonth)=2;Dmonth;"0"+Dmonth);
Pyear +"-"+ Pmonth
"NextMonth" Def Value Nyear :=@If(calmonth="12";@Text(@Sum(@TextToNumber(Calyear):1)); Calyear); Smonth :=@If(calmonth="12";"01";@Text(@Sum(@TextToNumber(calmonth):1))); Nmonth :=@If(@Length(smonth)=2;smonth;"0"+Smonth);
Nyear +"-"+Nmonth REM "Builds the title and paigation urls for the next and prev buttons";
table := "<table BGCOLOR=\"ccaaff\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" WIDTH=\"200\" id=\"calendarHeader\"summary=\"Calendar Month, next and previous buttons\"><tr>";
nextimg := "<img src=\"graphics/next.gif\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" alt=\"Next Month\">"; previmg := "<img src=\"graphics/prev.gif\" border=\"0\" align=\"left\" alt=\"Previous Month\">";
prevcell := "<td>"+@If( PrevMonth = ""; "";"<a href=\"bymonth?OpenView&count=-1&RestrictToCategory="+PrevMonth+"\">"+previmg+"< /a>") +"</td>"; nextcell := "<td>"+@If(NextMonth = "";""; "<a href=\"bymonth?OpenView&count=-1&RestrictToCategory="+NextMonth+"\">"+nextimg+"< /a>") +"</td>"; tableend := "</tr></table>";
table+prevcell+nextcell+tableend
Thanks for all the help and Ideas.
Now Jake, I was thinking of using this templete for Calendaring , but I can not converte anydate other than @date(@today) to stringkeyID like yyyymmdd.
Today I will try to write some javascript. If any one can help me then it will be great. After that we can just challenge the Inotes template (for which design codes are not open) I mean most of functionality is embedded in forms5.nsf
Wait for your reponse
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RSS newsfeed
Hi Jake,
Have you considered including a RSS newsfeed for codestore so that your articles could be displayed on other websites?
Hoo roo Justin
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Re: RSS newsfeed
Codestore has had an RSS feed in the past but I don't think it will return.
However, adding it to the DomBlog template seems like a good idea. Thanks Justin.
Jake
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Would port forwarding break layout?
This looks like a wonderful contribution, but when I browse it at: http://www.rfdinc.com:8086/rfd/domblog.nsf
the layout doesn't look at all like your fine example. There's no formatting. All the items appears (as below), followed by the calendar. Any ideas?
Version 1.1.3 Release Thu 19 Dec 2002, 22:14 Not sure how much I will get done over the festive season so here are some bug fixes before my off.
See version history in the main article for more details.
Read / Add Comments (0) Version 1.1.2 released Mon 16 Dec 2002, 19:25 Fixed a few minor bugettes. See version history in the main article for more details. Version 1.1.3 Release Thu 19 Dec 2002, 22:14 Not sure how much I will get done over the festive season so here are some bug fixes before my off.
See version history in the main article for more details.
...
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Re: Would port forwarding break layout?
That's an easy one. You need to change the base href in the $$HTMLHead field to include the port number if you use anything other than 80.
base href="http://www.rfdinc.com/rfd/domblog.nsf/"
needs to become:
base href="http://www.rfdinc.com:8086/rfd/domblog.nsf/"
Jake
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Preview Ease
I do a simple little preview with javascript that seems to please most folks. You can get as creative as you like with it but the basic concept, I'm sure anyone can figure out on their own, is to open a new window;
var preview = window.open('preview',url, options);
By naming it, you can reuse it... but more importantly...
preview.document.writeln('<html>...');
I have a demo of this, free for the asking (just email me), that could pretty much be copied and pasted in -- offering some configurable variables for color and such. Simply putting such a function behind a 'preview' button would allow someone to see the content of the text box... which you push by concatenating your window.document.forms[0].inputname.value over with the above .println( command.
Once you push the value to a (scrollable) pop-up window, folks can see what their text looks like outside the box, as it were. Handy for a clean reread. Since you're pushing html, you can write an OK push button right into it, or a print button, or include stylesheets... fun and easy.
Jerry
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Unable to open database
I am unable to open that database... Any suggestions ?
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Re: Unable to open database
Because it's a Domino 6 DB (ODS43) ?
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Re: Unable to open database
hello sir, some of the website i can't see. they unable to open message come in. how to i rectified tell me. thank you.
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allow html in responses - working?
I just downloaded 1.5.1 and tried it out on my R6 server. Looks great, but I encountered a problem: if I change the App Setting "Allow HTML in responses" from 0 to 1, comments are not saved. Where should I begin to look for a fix?
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Re: allow html in responses - working?
Also just discovered that comments, though not being saved in the post document, do show up in the mail sent on posting (!).
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future enhancements
Beauty...actually what you should think about it is might share the development of DomBlog, like a community. You could coordinate it.
cheers, Tom
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Re: future enhancements
It's a nice idea Tom but I don't have the time to coordinate it. Although, if you have any improvements, you're welcome to send them to me and I can put them in the template.
Best bet for this kind of approach would just be to give it to OpenNTF.org but they already have a blgo template...
Jake
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Is there a R5 version file?
I have only R5 Domino server.
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Re: Is there a R5 version file?
Sorry, YiMing, there I don't have an R6 version.
Your best bet is to get a hold of the R6 client and use this to save the NSF file as a new copy with the extension .NS5.
Hope that helps. Sorry to be so version specific but sometimes you just have to move ahead...
Jake
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Don't get admin options
Hi Jake
I downloaded the latest DomBlog Template, just to 'have a look'. I put it on my local server, signed design elements and agents, added my user to ACL as manager with Admin role, accessed it from my browser... but I didn't get any admin options. When I try to use w.bloggar I get a message Your blog server returned the following error message:
org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcException: Supplied user id and or password incorrect.
Any guidance?
Cheers Neil
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Re: Don't get admin options
When you say local server, what do you mean? If you simply mean it's "local" then you can't authenticate with Domino and you will be always be the user known as Anonymous.
In order to use w.bloggar you will need to edit the XML-RPC agent and make sure you've set a username and password.
Jake
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MetaWeblog - very powerful!
Jake and others - the metaweblog concept is very powerful. I want to be able to use .bloggar to allow people to author ANY Domino document (as in, not an actual blog) that has BODY, AUTHOR, and CATEGORY fields. Ideally, the document could have several category fields (ie. TOPIC, KEYWORDS, SECTION, etc).
Anyone does any work here with the metaweblog structs? Any leads? Seems like you guys are way ahead of me.
This is an excellent opportunity to make Domino the excellent publishing repository it is capable of being... again!
Please advise!
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Re: MetaWeblog - very powerful!
I any working on a revised version of the RPC Bloggar code which will be included in my ddcTagTemplate project. It will allow for the inclusion of field and values in the body text. These are then extracted and created as fields in the document. I just need to decide on a synatx for the field definitions. I am open to any ideas.
reagrds john marshall http://swapcode.com
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Don't see user options
Hi Jake
Firstly, sorry to bother you with support for your cool template.
I can't see admin options either. I have signed the db, added myself as Manager with the role, added my server, Manager with role, and replicated it to my server. I open the blog ok, but am not challenged for username/password.
Maybe this is the reason for the admin options not showing? Any help appreciated.
Regards Paul
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Re: Don't see user options
You need to tag &Login to the end of the URL.
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Search function not working?
Hi, I'm a newbie to Notes and I have installed the Blog. It's Beautiful!! However it seems the search function is not working. Or do I have to 'set' something first or activate an agent or something?
Thanx!
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Re: Search function not working?
It's most likely that you need to index the database (from the DB Properties Box).
Jake
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Calendar
Hmm Designer after a long time without designer is rather tricky , I finally decided to use your template instead of making a new one , but I think I might improve it with some snipplets I used to use on my "last" version of surfbymail before I switched back from Tomcat, I'll start working on the Dynamic JS Calendar feeded with a Lotusscript Agent to provide Dynamic JS Arrays (such big words for my little head ) , Expect something by tomorrow evening (hmm if I manage to buy some more caffeine and pour it in my veins :)) hmm that's was not the point I did want to make, what I wanted to Say was : Merci Jake :)
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domblog 1.6 template forbidden access
Hi Jake. I am interested in the DomBlog Template v1.6, but I continue getting the 403 error, forbidden access. Is the template still available for download? I have been stuck doing R5 client development, and would really like to start learning how to use Domino for web site development.
Thanks, Gary
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Thanks for this template
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Not able to modify the App settigns document
I am having all the roles and manager access. But I am unable to change the app settings document via web like base url, blog name etc.
Every time when I edit and modify the content and save. The modify content doesn't displaye it retains the old value.
When I create a new app setting docmuent, It shows the value as blank after saving the document.
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Re: Not able to modify the App settigns document
Sorry for the post: I am able to modify there was some misunderstanding
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Is FireFox Browser Supported?
When you click the add button the text below is outside of the gray box when you use Firefox:
[a [href]http://www.codestore.net[/href]link to
codestore[/a]
I opened the database in the IE browser and all text is within the gray box. It appears that the gray box is too short for Firefox.
So, extending the gray box, by making it longer, say adding four or five lines would be nice. Tell me where to do it and I'll be happy to test it for you.
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Any Ideas
It does nto seenm to be working for me. I do not see this: "Once logged in you will see a red box section with all the options you need to administer the site - creating new blogs and adding new image resources etc."
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
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password protection
Hi Jake,
I've downloaded the template but when I tried to unzip it..it asks me for a password.
Can you help?
many thanks
Ajaz
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