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WWF as Blog or Article Manager

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URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=21008
Printed Date: 08 April 2026 at 8:53pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: WWF as Blog or Article Manager

Posted By: wistex
Subject: WWF as Blog or Article Manager
Date Posted: 12 August 2006 at 6:14pm

It just occured to me that the only difference between a blog and a forum is the presentation and a couple key features (RSS, pings, etc.).

So I started playing around and realized that it would be very simple to have WWF operate both forum-like and blog-like sections. The blog-like sections could also serve as a simple article manager if you issue articles on a semi-regular basis, but are not as concerned about the order that they appear in. (You could always create a separate page that did a SQL query and ordered your articles how you want them, or modify how WWF ordered the articles.)

The main differences between a forum and a blog:

Forum posts would be in current WWF format, and blog posts would have the first post styled differently to distinguish that it is the blog post (or article) that everyone should be commenting on (i.e. the first post in a thread would look different that the replies).
Forum areas typically would allow people to start new topics, whereas blogs typically only allow authorized people to start new topics, but allow anyone to comment on the post.
Terminology would be changed for forum and blog sections (or made to be neutral). Example: in a forum, all posts are posts, whereas in a blog, the first post is a post, and the replies are called comments instead.
RSS feeds on WWF 8 list all new posts including replies, whereas in a blog, there are separate feeds for the blog posts (first post in a topic) and comments (replies to the initial post in a thread).
Trackback and/or pingback are supported in blogs, but not supported in forums.
Forum posts are typically ordered based on the last reply, whereas a blog is typically ordered by the date of the blog post, regardless of when the last reply was.

Other than that, WWF could easily be converted to a forum/blog engine simply by changing the appearance of certain pages. When I started to play with the idea, I was amazed at how simple it was! (I'll reveal how to do it once I am satisfied with it. Most of the changes were made in forum_posts.asp, leaving almost everything else intact.)

Borg, You may want to consider adding blog capabilities to the forum (i.e. allow certain sections to be a blog, with blog-like styling and terminology). I think it would be a great feature.

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Replies:

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 12 August 2006 at 8:09pm

I have added this into the 'todo' list so that I can have a look into this when I have more time, but it is certainly a good idea.

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Posted By: dfrancis
Date Posted: 12 August 2006 at 9:28pm

I've been working on it for weeks.

Posted By: jsaren
Date Posted: 12 August 2006 at 11:11pm

-boRg- wrote:

I have added this into the 'todo' list so that I can have a look into this when I have more time, but it is certainly a good idea.

This is really a good news!

Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 13 August 2006 at 3:57am

I'm glad you like it.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

http://www.wistex.info/success/article_posts.asp?TID=1 - http://www.wistex.info/success/article_posts.asp?TID=1

The article that you see on that page is actually the first post in a forum thread!

Basically I created article_posts.asp by modifying forum_posts.asp so that the first post looks different than the replies. I then set up WWF so that for non-forum categories (articles and blogs) use article_posts.asp instead of forum_posts.asp.

I'm going to do more tweaking, but this small demonstration shows how easy it is to implement it.

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Posted By: ctscott
Date Posted: 14 August 2006 at 1:58pm

nice job wistex!

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Posted By: dorje
Date Posted: 15 August 2006 at 12:31am

wistex,

Great idea - I too have been thinking about this as a possible solution to a requirement for Blogs and News items (articles to you I think)

My questions to you is with the MOD you're working on
- Have you considered META information for articles e.g. publishFrom, publishTo and audience or key word
- My thought is to record the meta information in the RSS output, and then use the RSS to build a news listing with a link to the full 'article', thus avoiding the database hit each time the news listing page is loaded.

Many thanks

Posted By: Mikey
Date Posted: 15 August 2006 at 9:56pm

I am looking forward to how this pans out, i have been using Webwiz to deliver the front page news before but it took a substantial amount of fiddling and was very basic.

Thumbs up and keep up the good work!

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Handyman man?

Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 16 August 2006 at 12:41am

dorje wrote:

wistex,

Great idea - I too have been thinking about this as a possible solution to a requirement for Blogs and News items (articles to you I think)

My questions to you is with the MOD you're working on
- Have you considered META information for articles e.g. publishFrom, publishTo and audience or key word
- My thought is to record the meta information in the RSS output, and then use the RSS to build a news listing with a link to the full 'article', thus avoiding the database hit each time the news listing page is loaded.

Many thanks

At this point, I only use this for simple articles/news/blog entries that I want posted. If I want something more, I create my own CMS outside of WWF. The reason being that making too many MODs to Borg's scripts makes it hard to upgrade WWF.

For example, you will notice that I do not use forum_posts.asp for articles but have created article_posts.asp instead. Then in forum_posts.asp I determine whether or not the post is in forum format or article/news/blog format, and redirect to article_posts.asp if article/news/blog and use forum_posts.asp if a forum post. This way it cuts down on the number of files I need to update every time Borg comes out with a new version. If I didn't have to worry about upgrading WWF, I would have implemented it a different way.

Although I am playing with the idea of creating alternate "list" pages for articles and blogs that would order the information how I want, and then having a different table hold additional information about a post. The goal being to touch Borg's code and database structure as little as possible, while adding as much functionality as possible. Not always an easy task.

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Posted By: dorje
Date Posted: 16 August 2006 at 11:16pm

wistex,

Many thanks for your reply.
I figured upgradeability was the reason you were running things through the article_XXx.asp files

As you say ensuring that upgrades are as painless as possible isn't always that easy.

DM

Posted By: cbr600
Date Posted: 13 October 2006 at 1:13am

did anyone went through with this idea and finished it?

Ive been thinking of a blog that every forum member could create theirs, adding a sort of blog engine type mod, and this could be useful if your forum is a large community, because it concentrates more content and funcionalities in one place, contributing for it to grow even more.

If anyone intends to deliver this mod, i could try and adapt its graphycal look to something like http://www.goldblog.info/ and post here.

Posted By: jeffdaro
Date Posted: 13 October 2006 at 4:22pm

I love the forums as a blog idea. I've been kicking this around for a couple of weeks as a MOD. My line of thinking was to create a new post type called BLOG entry, like the calendar entries.

So a user could post to any thread, and mark it as a blog entry, so the same post would be part of their blog, which would be accessible via their profile.

Posted By: cmeurer
Date Posted: 16 October 2006 at 5:18pm

I would use this feature for SURE!