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

Creating a Roller theme from scratch


Now things are going to get a little rough; just kidding! In Apache Roller, it's very easy to create your own themes, and in this section I'm going to show you how.

Note

For the following exercises, you'll need to download Chapter 7's support code from the book's website. Extract the chapter07.zip file's contents into a directory in your hard disk. For example, I used Ubuntu Linux in the exercises, created a chapter07 directory inside my Desktop directory, and copied the mytheme directory inside Desktop/chapter07. All the steps in the exercises are based on these assumptions.

Creating a directory for your theme

Every Roller theme has a directory and some required files such as weblog.vm, _day.vm, and theme.xml. The next exercise will show you how to create a directory for your new theme inside Roller's themes directory, and how to copy these required files from the support files.