SimpleBlog no longer addable

For a while now the University's Plone site has been using a blogging tool called SimpleBlog. Without going into specifics the tool has had a number of issues and its developer has now ceased any further development/fixes on it - as a result we have taken the decision to stop using SimpleBlog. What this means in practical terms is that from today (26th Feb 2010) a SimpleBlog will not be addable from the add new menu. Those people who are still using SimpleBlog will continue to be able to use their blogs (add entries, etc) - but will not be able to add new ones.

New blogging functionality added to Plone - Scrawl

In the place of SimpleBlog we have added new blogging functionality to Plone called Scrawl. Scrawl behaves differently to SimpleBlog.

Instead of being a distinct addable item in the add new menu, Scrawl blog creation works as follows:

• Firstly you create a normal folder
• Then you add your Blog entries into that folder by going to the add new menu and choosing the Blog entry option. It's helpful at this point to tag any new entries you create with keywords that describe the content so that if you later opt to use a tag cloud portlet then the portlet will have some tags to pick up and display.
• Then you create a collection that looks at the folder you created earlier and shows anything of the type 'Blog entry'.
• Then using the display menu, you change the display view for your collection to 'Blog view' and the items will display themselves like a regular blog.
• Once you've created your Blog you can add additional functionality to it by using a tag cloud portlet.

One positive side effect of this change is the permanent addition of the Blog view to collections which gives users more options in terms of displaying their collection content. Other collections could be presented in the style of a blog.