README
------
-Laconica 0.6.4 ("Catapult")
-11 December 2008
+Laconica 0.7.0 ("Rockville")
+30 January 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
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 major feature release, and includes some bug fixes from the
+previous version (0.6.4, released December 14 2008.)
+
+- 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-0.7.0.tar.gz
- ...which will make a laconica-0.6.4 subdirectory in your current
+ ...which will make a laconica-0.7.0 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-0.7.0 /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.
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
-----------
=========
If you've been using Laconica 0.6, 0.5 or lower, or if you've been
-tracking the "darcs" version of the software, you will probably want
+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 0.7.0. 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:
authentication will require it. Note that this does not turn
off registration; use 'closed' or 'inviteonly' for the
behaviour you want.
+notice: A plain string that will appear on every page. A good place
+ to put introductory information about your service, or info about
+ upgrades and outages, or other community info. Any HTML will
+ be escaped.
db
--
separate logfile. This is probably the first place to look if you're
getting weird behaviour from Laconica.
-If you're tracking the unstable version of Laconica in the darcs
+If you're tracking the unstable version of Laconica in the git
repository (see below), and you get a compilation error ("unexpected
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 0.7.0 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 darcs version
-control tool (http://darcs.net/) like so:
+development version of Laconica. To get it, use the git version
+control tool (http://git-scm.com/) like so:
- darcs get http://laconi.ca/darcs/ mublog
+ git clone http://laconi.ca/software/laconica.git
-To keep it up-to-date, use 'darcs pull'. Watch for conflicts!
+To keep it up-to-date, use 'git pull'. Watch for conflicts!
Further information
===================
* 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)
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