Introduction

Each site has a set of options in a file called build.ini, which you will find in your blog directory. You can (and should) edit these options through the Firedrop2 GUI. A couple of the entries in build.ini affect the way pages are built.

1. archive_method

   This option determines how your archives by date are created. It can have the following formats :

   • d:X makes pages per X days, e.g. d:7 for weekly, or d:1 for daily
   • e:X makes pages for X entries, e.g. e:1 for a page per entry, or e:10 for 10 entries per page, etc.
   • m:1 makes pages per month (number is irrelevant).

   Note

   Changing your archive method will change the URL of your archive pages. This is guaranteed to confuse your readers, so make your decision early in the life of your blog.

2. archives_latest_first

   This value should be True or False. It defaults to False.

   If set to True then entries will appear with the most recent first in your archives.

   The entries should appear in the same order in the GUI.

3. num_front_page

   How many entries should appear on your front page.

4. page_ext

   This defaults to .html [1]. I use server-side includes in my pages and so I have to set it to .shtml`.

Full Option List

The full list of options is as follows. Some of these are used (and explained) in the templating page.

• archive_method

• archives_latest_first

• atom_filename

  Use this for the filename for your atom feed. Obviously you will need to provide a link to it on your blog page somewhere.

• author

  This isn't used by Firedrop2 at present, but you can use it in your blog entries.

• autoclose

  If True, status dialogs with no errors are closed if the operation completes without error. Default is False, ie autoclose=0.

• blogping

  This should be 0 or 1. You can use this to ping various services with your new blog entry.

• categories

  The list of different possible categories for your blog. It should look like :

  ['Category 1', "Category 2", 'Category 3']

  Note the square brackets, the commas and the quote marks. This is because it is a Python list. (Note: If you edit this category list by using a text editor on build.ini, you'll notice that the Python list gets converted into a simple comma-delimited list in that file.)

• comments_system

  The name of the comments system you are using. As of version 0.2.2, only 'haloscan' is supported; otherwise, leave blank.

• comments_username

  Your user ID on the third-party (haloscan) comments system. Leave blank if not using a 3rd party comments system.

• description

  A short phrase, or witty saying, that describes your site.

• encoding

  This is an optional option. If you don't know what it means, then don't worry about it. It's only needed if you're using the unicode version of wxPython. It specifies the encoding that entries are output as. If you use the unicode version of wxPython without specifying an encoding, then Firedrop2 will use latin1.

• entry_template

  The filename for your entry template in the site directory. By default this is entry_template.html.

• frontpage_name

  The filename for your front page.

• ftp_login

  If you use Firedrop to upload your blog entries, then this should be the required username.

• ftp_passive

  If True, use passive FTP. Default is False.

• ftp_password

  Your FTP password, if needed.

• ftp_port

  Probably 21

• ftp_server

  The name of the server that hosts your website, and that is accessible by ftp.

• ftp_startdir

  The directory on the server to put the blog in.

• id

  ?? This has something to do with generation of HTML from ReST text.

• indexpage_template

  The filename for your index page template in the site directory. By default this is indexpage_template.html. This template is not used by the Weblog site type, but is by the Article Collection and Item List types.

• macro_filename

  Name of the file containing Firedrop2 macros. No default, but you will usually want to choose realmacros.py

• num_front_page

  Number of entries to put on the front page of your side. Defaults to 20.

• output_dir

  Where to put the files it generates, when it builds. Can be relative to the blog directory.

• page_ext

  The filename extension to use for your web page files. Defaults to ".html".

• page_template

  The filename for your page template in the site directory. By default this is page_template.html.

• plugins

  This is a list of plugin modules that should be loaded for this site. Note that you can specify plugins in firedrop.ini that will be loaded for every blog. Ones you specify in build.ini will only be loaded for this blog.

• root_url

  Basically the full URL to your front page.

• rss_filename

  Use this for the filename for your RSS feed. Obviously you will need to provide a link to it on your blog page somewhere.

• rss_category

  This should be 1 (default) or 0. If "1" then a RSS feed will be created for each category as well as a page listing all feeds called 'rss_by_category'. Each category feed is named 'CategoryName_<rss_filename>'. Obviously you will need to provide a link to it on your blog page somewhere.

• soft_line_breaks

  For entries generated from Sextile, if soft_line_breaks is False, newlines will be converted to <br> tags. Default is False.

• stylesheet

  The name of the stylesheet (if any) in use for laying out your web pages. The default value is 'default.css'. Normally this option will be changed by the Themes plugin, not by the user.

• title

  The name of your website, which will appear as the title in your browser.

• unfiled_category

  In an itemlist, the name of the category for items that have no category assigned. Default is unfiled.

The Archive Pages

Your blog will have several pages. It has a front page, archives by date, and archives by category. It also has two special pages :

• all_by_date.html [2]
• all_by_category.html

These have links to all the entries in your blogs.

File Locations

Firedrop stores its files in a number of locations ,and these locations differ depending on which operating system you are using. In the future, there will be an installer, but for now you'll have to install it manually. So an understanding of file locations will be helpful.

First, the executables, i.e. the progam itself:

• On Windows, these will go wherever you put them. if your Python directory is C:\\Program Files\\Python, then you could put Firedrop in C:\\Program Files\\Python\\site-packages. You can then create a shortcut link on your desktop to start Firedrop.
• On Linux, there can be several variations depending on which distribution you are using, but a typical location for Python is /usr/lib/python, so you could put Firedrop into /usr/lib/python/site-packages. Your distro may have a utility for adding applications to the menu system, or you may be able to add a desktop shortcut as in Windows.
• On Mac OS X, the situation can be a bit confusing. Apple includes a version of Python with the OS (at least, as of Tiger), and this should be in /usr/bin/python. But the version that Apple includes is only 2.3.5, so many users will have installed their own, more updated, MacPython version 2.4.2 or 2.4.3. This user version is likely to be in /sw/bin/python or even perhaps in /usr/local/bin/python.

Next, your data files. These can go wherever you want, so long as it's a location that you have permission to write to. Some examples:

• On Windows, a good location will be C:\\Documents and Settings\\<username>\\My Documents\\firedrop\\<your-site-name> Recall that Firedrop can automatically load a default site; you can specify the location using the Options > Set Default Site menu.
• On Linux, you'll have a home directory, so you may want to put your site in /home/<username>/<your-site-name>.
• On Mac OS X, you also have a home directory, and a Documents folder, so you may want to put your site in /Users/<username>/Documents/<your-site-name>.

Lastly, program options and log files. These are a bit tricky due to the issue of permissions. If you are on Windows, you probably have permission to write anywhere on the hard drive (which is one of the reasons why virus writers love Windows), but on Mac OS X and on Linux you can only write in your home directory and its folders. So, Firedrop will try to make copies of several of its options files (firedrop.ini, .menuhistory.txt, firedrop.log, site.ini, entry.ini) and put them in a special folder, where it can add to them or change them as required.

• On Windows, this folder will likely be in \Documents and Settings\<username>\.firedrop. If you want it to be elsewhere, add the following line to firedrop.ini with a text editor: settings_dir = \Documents and Settings\<username>\.firedrop
• On Linux and on Mac OS X, the folder will be in ~/.firedrop. As with Windows, if you want the folder to be elsewhere, edit firedrop.ini with a text editor. Depending on where you installed Firedrop, you may have to have root privileges to do that. (If you don't have root privileges, you're stuck with the default location ).

Footnotes