README
------
-Laconica 0.6.4 ("Catapult")
-11 December 2008
+Laconica 0.7.1 ("West of the Fields")
+6 February 2009
This is the README file for Laconica, the Open Source microblogging
platform. It includes installation instructions, descriptions of
group to exchange short (140 character) messages over the Web. Users
can choose which people to "follow" and receive only their friends' or
colleagues' status messages. It provides a similar service to sites
-like Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce and Plurk.
+like Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk.
With a little work, status messages can be sent to mobile phones,
instant messenger programs (GTalk/Jabber), and specially-designed
desktop clients that support the Twitter API.
Laconica supports an open standard called OpenMicroBlogging
-(http://openmicroblogging.org/) that lets users on different Web sites
+<http://openmicroblogging.org/> that lets users on different Web sites
or in different companies subscribe to each others' notices. It
enables a distributed social network spread all across the Web.
Laconica was originally developed for the Open Software Service,
-Identi.ca (http://identi.ca/). It is shared with you in hope that you
+Identi.ca <http://identi.ca/>. It is shared with you in hope that you
too make an Open Software Service available to your users. To learn
-more, please see the Open Software Service Definition 1.0:
+more, please see the Open Software Service Definition 1.1:
- http://www.openknowledge.org/ossd
+ http://www.opendefinition.org/ossd
License
=======
New this version
================
-This is a minor feature and security improvement version from version
-0.6.3 (release 24 Nov 2008). Notable features of version 0.6.4 include:
-
-- "private" installs won't show any data to the outside world; redirect
- non-logged-in users to login. (See "Private" below)
-- Ability to "block" a subscriber, which forces them to unsubscribe,
- doesn't allow them to subscribe again, and doesn't allow them to send
- @-replies
-- Fine-grained control of subscriptions; users can choose not to receive
- notices from other users over SMS, or IM, or both
-- support for Mozilla microsummaries
- (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Microsummaries)
-- more efficient support for blacklisting users from the public page
-- instructions on the public page for people who aren't logged in
-- better registration instructions
-- a check for license compatibility in receiving OMB notices
-- HTML output in RSS 1.0, 2.0, and Atom feeds
-- tuned and more reliable 'rememberme' cookies for username/password
- and OpenID logins
-- a utility for setting user passwords
-- a "ban" configuration variable to ban certain users from posting
- notices
-- an configurable posting throttle to keep any one user from flooding
- the site with messages.
-- fine-tuned url-shortening: only shorten if it's needed, only expand
- certain URLs, and handle failure of URL-shortening services reliably
-- disable Ajax input for notices, subscribe, nudge, while the
- request is processing
-- early implementation of support for Last-Modified and ETag-based
- caching
-- initial microformats support
-- redirect on bad nicknames in URLs
-- correctly send emails in recipient's, not sender's, language
-- correct email content type
-- Change "Most Favorited" page to "Popular"
-- properly support the "since" parameter in API calls
-- Fix for changes in validate_credentials API call for the Twitter
- bridge
-- Fix for fatal error when sending email confirmation on registration
-- Better replies for commands sent through the Ajax channel
-- Add a User-Agent string for OMB requests
-- Upgrade upstream library XMPPHP
-- Upgrade upstream library JQuery Forms
-- Code cleanup: checkboxes have proper <label> elements
-- Code cleanup: consolidated various notice-listing code in one place
-- Better support for unsubscribing from a remote user
-- Stump of experimental Facebook application (not ready for use! code
- review only!)
-- Stump of experimental user account deletion (not ready for use! code
- review only!)
+This is a minor bug-fix release since version 0.7.0, released Jan 29
+2009. Notable changes this version:
+
+- Vast improvement in auto-linking to URLs.
+- Link to group search from user's group page
+- Improved interface in Facebook application
+- Fix bad redirects in delete notice
+- Updated PostgreSQL database creation script
+- Show filesize in avatar/logo upload
+- Vastly improved avatar/logo upload
+- Allow re-authentication with OpenID
+- Correctly link hashtabs inside parens and brackets
+- Group and avatar image transparency works
+- Better handling of commands through the Web and Ajax channels
+- Fix links for profile page feeds
+- Fixed destroy method in API
+- Fix endpoint of Connect menu when XMPP disabled
+- Show number of group members
+- Enable configuration files in /etc/laconica/
+
+Changes in version 0.7.0:
+
+- Support for groups. Users can join groups and send themed notices
+ to those groups. All other members of the group receive the notices.
+- Laconica-specific extensions to the Twitter API.
+- A Facebook application.
+- A massive UI redesign. The HTML generated by Laconica has changed
+ significantly, to make theming easier and to give a more open look
+ by default. Also, sidebar.
+- Massive code hygiene changes to move towards compliance with the PEAR
+ coding standards and to support the new UI redesign.
+- Began the breakup of util.php -- moved about 30% of code to a views
+ hierarchy.
+- UI elements for statistical information (like top posters or most
+ popular groups) added in a sidebar.
+- include Javascript badge by Kent Brewster.
+- Updated online documentation.
+- Cropping of user avatars using Jcrop.
+- fix for Twitter bridge to not send "Expect:" headers.
+- add 'dm' as a synonym for 'd' in commands.
+- Upgrade upstream version of jQuery to 1.3.
+- Upgrade upstream version of PHP-OpenID to 2.1.2.
+- Move OpenMicroBlogging specification to its own repository.
+- Make tag-based RSS streams work.
+- Additional locales: Bulgarian, Catalan, Greek, Hebrew, simplified
+ Chinese, Telugu, Taiwanese Chinese, Vietnamese,
+- PostgreSQL updates.
+- Nasty bug in Twitter bridge that wouldn't verify with Twitter
Prerequisites
=============
version (patches have been submitted). Upgrading to the upstream
version may render your Laconica site unable to send or receive XMPP
messages.
+- Facebook library. Used for the Facebook application.
A design goal of Laconica is that the basic Web functionality should
work on even the most restrictive commercial hosting services.
1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a
command like this will work:
- tar zxf laconica-0.6.4.tar.gz
+ tar zxf laconica-0.7.1.tar.gz
- ...which will make a laconica-0.6.4 subdirectory in your current
+ ...which will make a laconica-0.7.1 subdirectory in your current
directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you
may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the
files to the server.)
2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root
directory. Usually something like this will work:
- mv laconica-0.6.4 /var/www/mublog
+ mv laconica-0.7.1 /var/www/mublog
This will make your Laconica instance available in the mublog path of
your server, like "http://example.net/mublog". "microblog" or
Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.
Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"
the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be
-converted to a message and stored in the DB.
+converted to a notice and stored in the DB.
For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all
(or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.
XMPP
----
-XMPP (eXtended Message and Presence Protocol, http://xmpp.org/) is the
+XMPP (eXtended Message and Presence Protocol, <http://xmpp.org/>) is the
instant-messenger protocol that drives Jabber and GTalk IM. You can
distribute messages via XMPP using the system below; however, you
need to run the XMPP incoming daemon to allow incoming messages as
Sitemaps
--------
-Sitemap files (http://sitemaps.org/) are a very nice way of telling
+Sitemap files <http://sitemaps.org/> are a very nice way of telling
search engines and other interested bots what's available on your site
and what's changed recently. You can generate sitemap files for your
Laconica instance.
like './sitemapindex.xml'. sitemap-directory is the directory where
you want the sitemaps stored, like './sitemaps/' (make sure the dir
exists). URL-prefix-for-sitemaps is the full URL for the sitemap dir,
- typically something like 'http://example.net/mublog/sitemaps/'.
+ typically something like <http://example.net/mublog/sitemaps/>.
You can use several methods for submitting your sitemap index to
search engines to get your site indexed. One is to add a line like the
You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to
your own directory.
+NOTE: the HTML generated by Laconica changed *radically* between
+version 0.6.x and 0.7.x. Older themes will need signification
+modification to use the new output format.
+
Translation
-----------
-Translations in Laconica use the gettext system (http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/).
+Translations in Laconica use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.
Theoretically, you can add your own sub-directory to the locale/
subdirectory to add a new language to your system. You'll need to
compile the ".po" files into ".mo" files, however.
Contributions of translation information to Laconica are very easy:
-you can use the Web interface at http://laconi.ca/entrans/ to add one
+you can use the Web interface at http://laconi.ca/pootle/ to add one
or a few or lots of new translations -- or even new languages. You can
also download more up-to-date .po files there, if you so desire.
There is no built-in system for doing backups in Laconica. You can make
backups of a working Laconica system by backing up the database and
-the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump (http://ur1.ca/7xo)
+the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <http://ur1.ca/7xo>
and to backup the Web directory, try tar.
Private
If you've been using Laconica 0.6, 0.5 or lower, or if you've been
tracking the "git" version of the software, you will probably want
to upgrade and keep your existing data. There is no automated upgrade
-procedure in Laconica 0.6.4. Try these step-by-step instructions; read
+procedure in Laconica 0.7.1. Try these step-by-step instructions; read
to the end first before trying them.
0. Download Laconica and set up all the prerequisites as if you were
of the defaults are defined), you will lose your configuration options
in any upgrade, and you will wish that you had been more careful.
+Starting with version 0.7.1, you can put config files in the
+/etc/laconica/ directory on your server, if it exists. Config files
+will be included in this order:
+
+* /etc/laconica/laconica.php - server-wide config
+* /etc/laconica/<servername>.php - for a virtual host
+* /etc/laconica/<servername>_<pathname>.php - for a path
+* INSTALLDIR/config.php - for a particular implementation
+
Almost all configuration options are made through a two-dimensional
associative array, cleverly named $config. A typical configuration
line will be:
--
This section is a reference to the configuration options for
-DB_DataObject (see http://ur1.ca/7xp). The ones that you may want to
+DB_DataObject (see <http://ur1.ca/7xp>). The ones that you may want to
set are listed below for clarity.
database: a DSN (Data Source Name) for your Laconica database. This is
the client to speed up page loading, either with another
virtual server or with an NFS or SAMBA share. Clients
typically only make 2 connections to a single server at a
- time (http://ur1.ca/6ih), so this can parallelize the job.
+ time <http://ur1.ca/6ih>, so this can parallelize the job.
Defaults to null.
public
---------
You can get a significant boost in performance by caching some
-database data in memcached (http://www.danga.com/memcached/).
+database data in memcached <http://www.danga.com/memcached/>.
enabled: Set to true to enable. Default false.
server: a string with the hostname of the memcached server. Can also
You can get a significant boost in performance using Sphinx Search
instead of your database server to search for users and notices.
-(http://sphinxsearch.com/).
+<http://sphinxsearch.com/>.
enabled: Set to true to enable. Default false.
server: a string with the hostname of the sphinx server.
source: The name to use for the source of posts to Twitter. Defaults
to 'laconica', but if you request your own source name from
- Twitter (http://twitter.com/help/request_source), you can use
+ Twitter <http://twitter.com/help/request_source>, you can use
that here instead. Status updates on Twitter will then have
links to your site.
T_STRING") in the browser, check to see that you don't have any
conflicts in your code.
-If you upgraded to Laconica 0.6.4 without reading the "Notice inboxes"
+If you upgraded to Laconica 0.7.1 without reading the "Notice inboxes"
section above, and all your users' 'Personal' tabs are empty, read the
"Notice inboxes" section above.
If you're adventurous or impatient, you may want to install the
development version of Laconica. To get it, use the git version
-control tool (http://git-scm.com/) like so:
+control tool <http://git-scm.com/> like so:
git clone http://laconi.ca/software/laconica.git
* There is a mailing list for Laconica developers and admins at
http://mail.laconi.ca/mailman/listinfo/laconica-dev
-* The #laconica IRC channel on freenode.net (http://www.freenode.net/).
+* The #laconica IRC channel on freenode.net <http://www.freenode.net/>.
* The Laconica wiki, http://laconi.ca/trac/
Feedback
* Erik Stambaugh
* 'drry'
* Gina Haeussge
-* Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town)
-* Tiago 'gouki' Faria (entrans)
* Tryggvi Björgvinsson
+* Adrian Lang
+* Ori Avtalion
+* Meitar Moscovitz
+* Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town)
+* Tiago 'gouki' Faria (i18n managerx)
+* Sean Murphy
Thanks also to the developers of our upstream library code and to the
thousands of people who have tried out Identi.ca, installed Laconi.ca,
projects / quix0rs-gnu-social.git / blobdiff