New subject: [patch] blog thru User_talk and enchanced rdf feed

12 Sep 2004

A relatively small set of changes allows users to use all
of mediawiki's great formatting and hyperlinking capabilities
to blog thru their User talk page.

The following patch provides the capability to blog through
Mediawiki's user talk page by providing a simple option to
post new sections to the top of the user talk page, and 
providing a SpecialTalkfeed.php page, based on SpecialRecentchanges.php
which includes the section content in the RDF feed so that
the blog may be nicely aggregrated by tools like PlanetPlanet.
(See http://www.planetplanet.org/)

Changes in patch
--------------------------------------------------------
1) Adds a new special page, SpecialTalkfeed.php 
2) Adds new preference, "Add all new sections to the top
of the page by default"
3) When adding a new section, and only then, adds option
to "Add this new section to the top of the page".
4) Adds a "rdf feed" hyperlink when on a user talk page.

How do you run a blog out of the User Talk page?
--------------------------------------------------------
1) Under editing preferences, turn on "Add all new sections 
to the top of the page by default".
2) If a Sysop, protect the page. (It would be nice if non-sysops
could protect their User_talk pages)
3) To make a new blog post, click "+" for "add new section".
NOTE: If you didn't change your preferences above, be sure to
select "Add this new section to the top of the page" at the 
bottom of the page before saving.
4) Thats it! The "rdf feed" option at the top of the User talk
page gives a link to a feed that should be used for aggregators.

Limitations
--------------------------------------------------------
1) Section titles must be unique for SpecialTalkfeed.php to
find the proper section content to place in the RDF feed.

2) No automatic expiration or archiving of older posts/sections.

These limitations could be fixed in a future patch if need be.

This is my first mediawiki patch, so a review of SpecialTalkfeed.php
would be wonderful.

jr
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Joel W. Reed                                    412-257-3881
----------   http://home.comcast.net/~joelwreed/  ----------