Who am I to decide that Serendipity is totally most effective weblog computer software on the planet? Properly, I will admit I’ve only been applying weblog computer software for six months. I’ve only attempted Serendipity, Word Press and Nucleus. On the other hand, I have developed more than 20 complete internet websites applying computer software from all locations. I’ve applied Mambo, Joomla, Nucleus, Word Press, Serendipity, Java Servlets and JSPs’, plain HTML pages and Serendipity is my favourite.
I have worked as a experienced programmer for 15 years and with Java (as a computer software engineer) for the final 10 years. I’ve spent most of that time dealing intimately with many internet technologies. Definitely I am no weblog specialist, but I have a bit of expertise with computer software. Serendipity is excellent computer software.
Serendipity is a weblog engine. A weblog is just a series of postings to a internet internet site, often organized and often random. They are meant to swiftly gather ones thoughts, but far more not too long ago whole internet websites are becoming developed out of sophisticated weblog engines. I think the weblog engine and complete fledged CMS options are converging. If what you require is a very simple menuing method and a way to get content material up on the net, then maybe a weblog engine, particularly Serendipity, is what you want.
Installation of Serendipity was a breeze, each on GoDaddy and HostGator. The default set up went nicely, with the exception of course that GoDaddy does not place your MySQL database on “localhost”, but on an additional server. As soon as you know the name of that server it really is all excellent.
As soon as installed, altering types is also simple. Serendipity comes with a quantity of constructed in themes/templates which are a snap to set up. Generally you just go to Handle Designs in the administration menu and select your new theme. It could not be simpler.
Modifying templates is also pretty very simple. Most customers just want to modify colors or graphics and this can all be carried out inside the style.css file for your template. I chose to make a copy of the “competitors” template and modify my copy. All I had to modify was the information.txt file and style.css, add my photos to the img directory and I was excellent to go. Of course, it is not important to do this, just if you want a far more distinctive appear to your internet site.
Adding content material is exactly where Serendipity shines. I identified the interface simple and intuitive, particularly for media management. Visualize that you are adding an item and you want to add an image. Just click on media, place in the URL of the item you want to add and serendipity goes out and pulls it down and puts it in it really is personal directory. Then you can select how you want it to seem in the text (left, correct, on it really is personal) and no matter if or not you want the complete image or thumbnail. Outstanding!
Defining and applying categories is equally simple and you can nest categories if you’d like. Every single category can have a description and image. The description displays when the user put’s their cursor more than the category, I am not certain when/if the image gets displayed.
Serendipity has selections to use search engine friendly URLs, but for some purpose I wasn’t capable to get these functioning appropriately on GoDaddy. I am certain there is an simple repair, I could ask at the Serendipity forum, but have not however. Adding a trailing slash to the rewritten addresses appears to bring up the web page, but my “.htaccess” expertise is not excellent adequate to repair it myself. The URL rewriting functions just fine on HostGator. Try to remember, applying the non friendly URLs does not imply you will not get indexed, just that it may perhaps take a small longer. Also, the Search engine marketing friendly URLs have a tendency to increase your ranking a small due to the fact they have the topic matter correct in the URL.
What about integrating Advertisements in Serendipity? Serendipity has a option for that also. There is a plug in (comes with Serendipity) known as HTML Nugget. It enables you to add arbitrary HTML to 1 of the sidebar columns, great for these tower Google Advertisements or hyperlinks to affiliate applications. It requires me all of five minutes to set up the advertisements on 1 of my websites. Nucleus took me pretty a bit longer, I had to manually edit some of their files. Not quite friendly.
All in all, I like Serendipity, it is correct up there with Joomla as my favourite piece of open supply computer software. The improvement group has carried out a great job and I appear forward to far more wonderful releases from them.
