Sunday, August 5, 2007

The Libyan Bloggregator

For the past week I have been secretly working on my own equivalent of a Libyan Blogroll that some other Libyan bloggers have, which I've called the Libyan Bloggregator ( Blog + Aggregator ) :p. Except I've added a twist to mine, which is that not only do I list all the blogs; but you can also see the last three or two posts (depending on the activity of the blogowner ) made on that blog. I managed to do that using RSS and by playing around with the template it looks like a website that presents links to the latest posts on the Libyan Blogosphere . I also tried to add summaries of the posts under each post link; but it seems blogger widgets still don't support that feature so we will have to wait for that :(.




Of course to be honest it wasn't originally my idea, you see my sister frequents the Blogosphere now and then and she got tired of having to go through the blogs to see who has made a new post and who hasn't and she was thinking of something that would summarize all the new posts in one page, which led me to this solution; so she gets part of the credit :P . I would also like to thank Misratia for providing the link to the cool website I used to generate the website logo and Highlander, Anglo-Libyan and Libyano for providing me with the links from their Blogrolls .

In ending, any recommendations, ideas or feedback would be more than welcome so feel free to criticize ( not too much though :P ).

37 comments:

a_akak said...

its a very good idea :) and it would benifit many bloggers who dont have RSS background ...... tell me does it update automatically? or does the modirator update manually?

Thanks

Fe Aman Allah

Highlander said...

PH :) I echo A_Akak great idea, plus you know what you have just made my dream come true!

PH said...

@ a_akak :

Yes a_akak it does update automatically so you don't need an RSS reader at all .... reduces the number of programs :P .

And I'm glad you liked the idea, it is a bit geeky mind you :)))).

LOL@modirator :))))))

Where's my pictures of food you know if you don't post any soon you are going to end up with a Libyan "7a9" and end up buying me a "7owli" ......

@ highlander :

"I echo A_Akak great idea"

I'm glad you liked it sis ..... :)

"plus you know what you have just made my dream come true!"

Was it a dream of yours ? Well I'm glad I fulfilled one of your dreams ... any other dreams you care to share? maybe I can work on them for you :D.

salaam both of you

piccolina said...

OMG that is sooooo great ,, thank you :D

PH said...

You're welcome piccolina, now how about you updating your blog for us so we can test it on your blog :P.

salaam

StarLit said...

that is a great idea, i really liked it.
but i noticed something, we can't click on the blog's name (they're not hyper linked to the blog), i think it would be better "sometimes" if we can go directly to blog, don't u think?
it's just an opinion.

mani said...

dude.. that is awesome!!!!!

Anglo-Libyan said...

ph, wowy :o)
MashalAllah 3alaik, what a secret mission.
I like it a lot and cant wait to include the Libyan Bloggreator on my page.

well done

Anglo-Libyan said...

salam mani

where is your blog?? what happened??

Brave Heart said...

well done man
i have two points
1- u forget to include ibee on the list, i think she is libyan now more than me.
2- i think if u arrange the names according alphabet, it will be more professional.

we waiting for more nice secrets to come

PH said...

@ maiuna :

"i think it would be better "sometimes" if we can go directly to blog, don't u think?"

Yes I totally agree with you, actually I even thought about it among other things; but by default Bloggers widgets don't support that functionality so if it I could do it, I think it would require some widget hacking :P ..... I'll give it a try though to see if I can come up with something :) ... in the mean time once you click on the post you can just click on the blog title and your on the blog's homepage :P.

"it's just an opinion."

and a good one too .. your opinion is always welcome sis :D.

@ Mani :

Dude I had to add and remove your blog and that of fatboy ..... glad you liked it though :P.

@ Anglo :

Allah Yebarik fiek and thanks for the compliments :) ... and thanks for adding it to your sidebar .. I just noticed it ;).

@ Brave Heart :

Didn't you read this part of the post :

"not too much though :P"

You always like controversy don't you :))))))

"1- u forget to include ibee on the list,"

Actually I thought about that a lot, and there are many other bloggers who have been frequenting the Libyan Blogosphere long before her even though she is more Libyan than most Libyans :P. With that in mind if I added her I would have to add many more and we aren't going to be the only people using the bloggregator so it could cause confusion to new bloggers.
I was thinking of creating another bloggregator for adopted Libyans; but I need to get another template that would be more diverse and appropriate .... maybe if somebody had some free time on their hands they could help me me out with another template ?

"i think she is Libyan now more than me."

There is an easier solution to that ... we could remove you :))))(j/k).

"i think if u arrange the names according alphabet"

That is true .. but there are many bloggers who are inactive so I put them lower down as the list is pretty long, I tried to keep the most active/frequented bloggers at the top and gave them more visible posts ... :P

salaam

white african said...

funky idea, im liking it, thumbs up ph :0)

Brave Heart said...

:(( :(("There is an easier solution to that ... we could remove you :))))(j/k)." :(( :((

u r devil man :-P :-P

what about wasta for ibee

PH said...

@ white african :

Thanks for the compliments WA and glad you liked it :D .

@ brave heart :

Never heard of free wasta's ? and my moral values are very dear to me, so bribing me would really cost you :))))))))))) .(j/k)


salaam

Anglo-Libyan said...

ph, witness is Tunisian :o)

a_akak said...

i found 1 flaw...... tadaaa

The "Libyan Bloggregator" needs to be check and cannot be RSS-ed thus you dont know that any updates have been added unless u manually check the whole page

Alway have a good eye :P

Fe Aman Allah

PH said...

@ Anglo :

"ph, witness is Tunisian :o)"

hehehehe .... I didn't notice that, I just copied that blog from your sidebar but I took him off now :P .... tell me if there is anyone else I might have mistaken for a Libyan ? or if there are any Libyans I may have forgotten :)

@ a_akak :

Are you trying to find an excuse for not using it :p.

"you dont know that any updates have been added unless u manually check the whole page"

Its true you have to scroll through it; but thats why I added the dates of the posts so you can tell which ones are new and I also changed the color of the links to the visited posts so after a while all the posts you have read will be colored in dark green while the new posts will be colored in light green ..... so its just a quick skim through, you don't even have to read the posts titles to know which ones are new :).

You officially owe me a 7owli now given your last comment :))))))

salaam

Brave Heart said...

if there is any HOWLI involvement, plz dont forget me

PH said...

@ brave heart :

Oh don't worry we won't forget you. You can buy us one too :P.

salaam

duniazad said...

@_@ that's awesomely impressive

tislam PH, and ur sister for suggesting it :)

PH said...

"tislam PH, and ur sister for suggesting it :)"

Allah Yesalmek and I'm glad you liked it :).

salaam

Anglo-Libyan said...

ph, how long after posting a new entry does the bloggregator pick it up?

mani said...

salam anglo sorry for not seeing your comment on here :).. well.. its just gone.. but im still here.. :)

Anonymous said...

thanks it makes my life much easier

PH said...

@ Anglo :

It depends, but when I tested it it at most took half an hour .....

@ rein :

your welcome, hope it does.

salaam

Anglo-Libyan said...

salam ph

i published a post at 10:30 this morning, its now 1:30 pm but still not showing on the bloggregator :o(

PH said...

@ Anglo :

It is showing Anglo, I got to your post from the bloggregator :P ... maybe you just need to close all instances of your browser for it to get refreshed ? try that ?

salaam

PH said...

@ Anglo :

"It is showing Anglo"

Sorry, I meant it is showing to me :p . Thats without me logging into blogger :).

salaam

Anglo-Libyan said...

refreshing the page didnt work!
it only showed up after i deleted browsing history.
thanks ph :o)

Anglo-Libyan said...

sorry one more thing :o)

Libyan Violet has asked if she can be included, I saw her comment on highlander's blog :o)

you can find her link on my blog

PH said...

@ Anglo :

"it only showed up after i deleted browsing history."

Sorry about that I don't know the exact reason behind that :(; but if you are using Internet explorer go to tools->"internet options" then click inside "browsing history" "settings" change the default option of "check for newer versions of stored pages" to either :
"every time I visit a webpage"
or
"every time I start Internet Explorer"

If you use the latter you will have to close all instances of IE every time you want to get a refreshed copy of the page.

I used to get the same problem when I had cached pages enabled ( I would only see comments after I visited a page a number of times even though they were there the first time I visited but then I changed the settings to the second option :p).

"Libyan Violet has asked if she can be included, I saw her comment on highlander's blog :o)"

Just added her as well, thanks for reminding me :P .



salaam

ibeebarbie said...

Salam PH,

WOW! This will make life much easier, alhamdullilah.

Thanks to your sister posing the suggestion and for you implementing it, alhamdullilah.

PH said...

@ ibeebarbie :

"WOW! This will make life much easier, alhamdullilah."

Yes, inshaa allah it will I'm glad you liked it. I'll be sure to pass our thanks on to my sister :)

salaam

Anglo-Libyan said...

I couldnt see Ambition (loza) on your list :o)

http://loza-ambition.blogspot.com/

and Libyan mental TV

http://lmtv.wordpress.com/

and our favourite recipes centre
http://favorite-recipe.blogspot.com/

and Tripoli nights (Beacon)

http://tripolinights.blogspot.com/

thank you ph :o)

PH said...

Thanks Anglo I completely missed them :P. I just added them except Tripoli Nights, he was already there between Ghazi's and Benghazi Citizens's blogs :).

salaam

mani said...

salam there ph.. 2 suggestions

1- could you add the thumbnail images next to the respective blogger

2- cant the list rotate automatically by putting the latest updated blog at the top of the list and sorted by latest post? :)

PH said...

"1- could you add the thumbnail images next to the respective blogger"

Thats a good idea Mani never thought about either :p ....I'll see if I can do it during this weekend ... it would make it easier to spot each blog. Maybe I can even attach a link to the blog ( not individual post in the image ) .. I'll try it.

"2- cant the list rotate automatically by putting the latest updated blog at the top of the list and sorted by latest post? :)"

This I thought about :) but the thing is what you're asking for is a dynamic page that would require a scripting language instead of the widgets ( Java or php ) and blogger makes that hard, you can insert a script as a widget; but you can't manipulate a widget with a script :(.
Thats the downfall of using a free website ... If we were to do it we would have to subscribe to our own website and it would take a lot of time to write the code from zero.

salaam and thanks for the ideas ;)