Book Image

Apache Roller 4.0 - Beginner's Guide

Book Image

Apache Roller 4.0 - Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

Apache Roller enables you to build a fully-featured, multi-user blog server apt for all kinds of blogging sites. It is an ideal tool to create your own blogging network with unlimited users and blogs, forums, photo galleries, and more! While it is exciting to have a list of interesting features it can offer you, it might be a little difficult to get started with it by your self. This book will teach you how to get started with Apache Roller and make the most of all its features using step-by-step, detailed instructions. You will learn how to establish your internet presence with an Apache Roller blog and use the latest web tools to enhance your posts and attract visitors. You will also learn how to promote your blog on popular social bookmarking services and customize it to suit your need. This hands-on and practical book introduces you to Apache Roller. Starting off with the configuration and installation of your own blog, you'll then quickly learn how to add interesting content to your blog with the help of plenty of examples. You'll also learn how to change your blog's visual appearance with the help of Roller themes and templates and how to create a community of blogs for you and your colleagues or friends in your Apache Roller blog server. The book also looks at ways you can manage your community, and keep your site safe and secure, ensuring that it is a spam-free, enjoyable community for your users.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Apache Roller 4.0
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Pop Quiz Answers
Index

Weblogs versus Content Management Systems


When I started looking for open source software to create a blog, there were a lot of choices. I focused on several applications that were considered Content Management Systems (or CMS). At first glance, I thought it was just another name for blog applications, but when I downloaded and installed Joomla!®, it was clear that a CMS is more than a blog. In fact, if you want to use a CMS as a blog, it's very likely you'll need to download additional modules, because a CMS can do a lot of things besides blogging. For example, you can have an integrated forum, the news at the front page does not necessarily have a chronological order, some CMS systems have a chat and a photo gallery, and a lot of other things that were very confusing for me. All I wanted was, a blog where I could start writing stuff about computers, programming languages, and tutorials to share with other bloggers, and who knows, maybe one day start writing the next fiction bestseller!

A blog is not a CMS

In most cases, a blog is considered a CMS because it's used to manage content in a website. However, in my humble opinion, a blog definitely is not a CMS. With a CMS, you can do a lot more than post messages in a chronological order and receive comments. That beats one of the main purposes of a blog—to express yourself in a friendly environment, like a personal diary. Sure, you can use a CMS as a blog, but you'll have to learn how to manage its user interface and maybe add a few extra modules or plugins. With a weblog server like Apache Roller, you're ready to go! In later chapters, we'll talk about templates and how to modify the appearance of your blog's pages by adding video, audio, and images. You'll see how easy it is to manage your Apache Roller server.