Project Antville: Features of Antville

Wednesday, 30. April 2003

Features of Antville

robert, 13:33h

The list below is obsolete. A newly compiled list is available at the new development site.

There are various ways to install and run Antville: starting with the all-in-one package AntClick which contains everything you need (Webserver, Application server, embedded database) up to the "industrial strength" setup using Apache Webserver (or any other capable of running servlets) and an external relational database (MySQL, Oracle). Basically all you need is an operating system that supports Java 2 (any *nix operating system, Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX or the like) and the Java installation of course.
simple and fast creation of weblogs (it really takes just two clicks!)
numerous defineable weblog preferences
- title, tagline, number of days to show on frontpage
- free language and timezone definition (weblogs can be "placed" in any timezone)
- date and time formats
- weblogss can be either publicly accessible or private (accessibly only for owner/administrators or privileged members of a weblog)
- limit the creation of stories/polls to privileged members or allow for every registered user
- notification to weblogs.com about updates (switchable)
- definition of colors using a popup color chooser including preview (no need to remember those hex codes)
- central font family and size definition
fully customizeable layout
- site and system administrators can create any number of different layouts and exchange them between different installations (read more about layouts)
- every weblog consists of numerous skins (html templates) for certain page parts, lists, editing forms etc.
- users can choose from a rich set of macros (special tags that can be embedded in skins, stories, comments etc) to further customize the layout and structure of a weblog
- each skin can be modified to the personal needs using a web based skin manager and editor (there is also a diff function which clearly displays which lines have been altered (compared to the default skin)
- calendar based or page navigation (or both)
easy and flexible story management
- stories can be extended freely: by default a story/comment consists of "title" and "text", but one can easily add eg. a lead text, summary or the like.
- stories can be filed in an unlimited number of "topics"
- stories can be saved offline, published just in a topic (if defined) or also on the frontpage of a weblog
- creation date of stories can be modified (allowing eg. stories about upcoming events)
- collaborative story editing: authors can decide who is allowed to edit a story written by them
- backlink logging (referrers) for each story (can be displayed publicly)
user comments
- by default any story can be commented by registered users
- can either appear as flat discussion (non threaded), two level deep ("simple threading") or with unlimited levels (the slashdot way)
- can be disabled for the whole weblog or for single stories
advanced image handling
- images can either be uploaded or "grabbed" by entering the URL of an image
- automatic resizing and creation of thumbnail images
- organized in a separate image pool for easy maintenance
- images can be embedded in any story, comment or skin (template) either in full size or as thumbnail linking to a full size popup (the necessary javascript code is generated automatically)
easy file handling
- upload any type of file (eg. mp3, pdf, doc)
- files are organized in a separate pool for easy maintenance
- download counter for each file
- files can be embedded in any story, comment or skin (html template)
polls
- online polls can be created and managed in a separate pool for easy maintenance
- polls can be embedded in stories or skins
- only one vote per poll for each user, but users can change their vote in a poll as long as the poll is open for voting
- public list of all polls created within a weblog
registration, login and subscription
- users just have to register once within each Antville server
- every public weblog can be "subscribed" by any number of users
- password reminder function in case a user has forgotten the credentials
- automatic login using cookies ("remember me")
email notification
customizeable referrer/backlinks spam filter
multiple usergroups: owners/administrators of a weblog can grant special rights to subscribers by simply assigning them to one of the usergroups "administrators", "content managers" and "contributors".
top list containing most read stories of a weblog (the length of the list is freely defineable)
fulltext search functionality
full support of XmlRpc API: users can use eg. w.bloggar to post to their weblog
RSS feeds (rss1.0)
- every weblog has its own RSS feed containing just stories or stories and comments
- Antville offers a root RSS feed containing a list of the last updated weblogs (the length is defineable)
system management
- web based system setup: define the language of an Antville installation, system email address etc.
- creation of new weblogs can be allowed for every registered user or limited in various ways:
  - "trusted users" (system administrators can define who is a trusted user)
  - users who have been registered longer than 1 to 90 days
  - users who have registered before a freely defineable date
  - if desired Antville can force users to wait a definable amout of days (1-90) between the creation of two weblogs (to prevent "name grabbing")
- web based management (including search) of weblogs: grant "trust" to weblogs, block or remove weblogs
- user accounts: grant "trust" or system administration rights to users, block accounts
- system status page shows detailed information about requests (both http and XmlRpc) and errors, thread and memory consumption, uptime
- automatic system cleanup and logging
- watch for weblogs being private for longer than a defineable amout of days
- automatically block weblogs that are private for too long (defineable period, weblog owners are notified by mail)
- automatically remove weblogs that are inactive for too long (dto.)
- weblog creation/deletion and all automatic cleanup tasks are logged in database an can be viewed/searched in system management area

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Last update: 2007-09-25 11:46

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