using scripts for the blogrolls

I have good news and I have bad news as far as creating a script for the AW Chain blogrolls is concerned. But first, I think I'll provide a bit of an explanation.

A script such as I'm talking about would look something like this:


To be used, it would need to be placed on a user's blog or website.

When that page is accessed, the script sends a command to the location mentioned, ie http://www.lmashton.com/scripts/ to access the script called awchain6.php.

That script will (depending on what's in the script, of course, but we're going with this for an example) then fetch the contents and display them on the page where the script exists, ie your page. It displays a blogroll of all participants in the AW Chain #6. If someone new joins the blogroll, the person in command of that script, me, updates the script to reflect the new person. As each person in the chain does their post and provides a permalink, the person in command of the script, me, updates the script to reflect the permalink. You, the one who's using that script, can watch the blogroll update itself with no further intervention on your part. You pasted the script on your page once, and that's all you had to do.

Every time that page is accessed, the script accesses the information and provides an up to date blogroll.

Scripts can do other things as well, but those are beyond the scope of this discussion.

I offered, once upon a time, to see what I could do about putting together a script for AW Chain #6 to make it easier for our less-tech savvy participants.

The good news is that I can, and very easily.

The bad news is that, if your blog is hosted by a blog hosting company, such as blogspot or WordPress or LiveJournal, the chances are that it wouldn't work for you anyway if you wanted to put it into the body of a blog entry.

The good news is that you could add it to your sidebar.

The bad news is that if you participate in 20 chains, you've got a very very very long sidebar.

The possibly good news is that I might be able to figure out how to do a compact scrollable list. In reality, this probably involves bribing Fahim, but that's doable.



To me, a simple solution is for those of you who are on hosted blogs to move those blogs to your own domain. But hey, I'm biased.

The more I learn about the limitations within the hosted blogs, the more irritated I am by them. OTOH, I don't actually blog with any of them, so I won't be pulling out the knife any time soon. But I do feel really really bad for those of you who are using blogging solutions that restrict you so much.

That is all.

Feel free to discuss.

Flooble? Is that a technical term?

Actually, it was yours that made me think of compacting them.

What I'd like to do, though, as well, is have the technorati tag in it plus have the option of having other text/graphics in it.

If you want to see what I mean by the type of scripted blogroll I'm talking about, go to http://lmashton.com/2006/09/the_totem.html and scroll to the end of the entry. You'll see the Flash Fiction logo, the complete blogroll, a comment about commenting on everyone's blog, and links back to me (cuz hey, I do all the work! )

Looking more closely at yours, yes, I can probably do it all. I'll have to get the code to be able to do it (oh, Fahim!!!). I'll have to compact the banner and possibly change a few other things to take up less real estate, but probably.


Now then. About your post at http://kellycurtis.blogspot.com/2006/09/mother-of-all-meme-posts.html - do you use any scripts near the bottom of that post? If so, I'd love to see the scripting code. Because it looks scriptalicious to me...

Gillian, unfortunately it doesn't appear as though LiveJournal allows scripts in the body of the blog entry. Neither does WordPress or Blogspot. That's the problem.

The script doesn't lower ratings. Let's see if I can clarify this for you...

The script retrieves the data on my server, the data being the URLs to the blog posts. The script then deposits the URLs onto the page, wherever the script was placed.

If you were to look at the html code of that page (the generated page, as in the page as your blog visitors see it), you would see the html code for all the URLs. You would actually see no evidence of a script - only the result.

If you were to look at the html code of that page as you saw it in html view from within your dashboard of the blogging program - as in, where you go to edit or write your post - if that script were in your post, you would see the script code, not the URLs. If you were to look at your template code where you go to edit your template, you would see the script code.

When the script is executed, it leaves the URLs in its place, so the URLs are now a part of your page as if you had hand-coded them in. That's why it builds technorati rank and improves search engine rankings, and that's why they can be valuable tools to use.

Does that make sense?

I forgot to add - doing a compact expandable sidebar thingie is so easy it's funny. I'll add instructions and point to an example as soon as I've got it on my own website. Thanks for this goes to KellyC who uses it herself, which is where I got the inspiration from, and also because Kelly gave me the vital piece of information I needed that threw me over to the website where the script exists.

It's up to you, and it belongs in the other thread.

Basically, follow what rules are there, and if it's not explicitly stated, then you have free rein to interpet or execute how you like. Permission is not required or even asked for.


(This isn't school. You aren't getting marked on this and you won't fail anything. This is also not a job. No one's going to get fired, lose their benefits, or have a raise rejected. This is, however, for fun, and there are no rules nazis here. So, you know, even if it says "This must be between 500 and 600 words", if you're at 450 or 800, no one's gonna boot you. That's there as a way to help you stretch your writing ability. It's an exercise. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Just, you know, do your best in a way that works for you and have fun while you're doing it. )

Bk - Uh, yeah, I know. Confusion can be easy.

Talia - I agree and understand. I don't want eight feet of blogrolls in my sidebar. I don't see the point. But a few inches of expandables -well, that I can live with. I've been going with what I don't want and guessing that other people probably wouldn't want the same things, ya know?