RBlog

A simple JavaEE blog.

Configuration Options

All configurations either have a default or are optional.

Name	Default	Description
rblog.category.defaultColor	#000000	default color for a new category
rblog.pagination.max	100	Max page size
rblog.categories.autoCreate	true	should categories be created on the fly if missing when creating a post
rblog.posts.top.size	3	how many posts are shown by category for top endpoint (home page)
rblog.sitemap.pingUrls	http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap=%s,http://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=%s	ping url(s) when the sitemap is generated and updated
rblog.visitor.pageSize	20	page size used to generate the sitemap and RSS feed
rblog.visitor.base	-	site root url used to send to the ping urls (sitemap) and to create the rss feed.
rblog.security.password.hash_algorithm	SHA-256	algorithm (MessageDigest) used to hash the passwords
rblog.security.password.round_trip	3	how many time the hash_algorithm is used to compute the password representation used in the database
rblog.token.eviction	PT720H	how often token are evicted (old ones are deleted making them inactive). Default is 30 days, it uses java.time.Duration syntax.
rblog.analytics.code	Google Analytics code to use for the website.	rblog.provisioning.defaultUser.active
true	Is a default user provisionned at startup if the database has no user.	rblog.provisioning.defaultUser.name
admin	Default username/password if a default user is created.	rblog.twitter.token
-	Twitter token to use for notifications.	rblog.twitter.tokenSecret
-	Twitter token secret to use for notifications.	rblog.twitter.consumerKey
-	Twitter consumer key to use for notifications.	rblog.twitter.consumerSecret
-	Twitter consumer secret to use for notifications.	rblog.twitter.api.update.url
https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/update.json	Twitter endpoint to use to send the notification.	rblog.bitly.url
https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v3/shorten	Bit.ly endpoint to shorten urls.	rblog.bitly.token
-	Bit.ly access_token. If not set Bit.ly feature is not active.	rblog.backup.work
${openejb.base}/work/rblog	Where to dump the blog when a backup is done.	rblog.backup.mail.sessionJndi
-	Session JNDI name to send mails on backup.	rblog.backup.mail.from
rblog@rblog.com	FROM address used to send mail on backup.	rblog.backup.mail.to
-	Recipients address for backups.	rblog.backup.mail.subject

Configuration location/format

Configuration uses properties format (java.util.Properties). Read locations are (sorted):

• rblog.properties in the classloader of the application

• ${rblog.base}/conf/rblog.properties or ${openejb.base}/conf/rblog.properties if exist

Attachments

By default RBlog tries to embed as much as possible but there is an attachment service you can use for custom files.

In that case you will need to activated on your server the multi part without an explicit configuration. For tomcat/tomee just add/create a context.xml:

<Context allowCasualMultipartParsing="true" />

Max text size

Fe things will limit the max size of the content of a post depending where you deploy. Here are few hints to check:

• MySQL: by default OpenJPA would use TEXT which limits the size to 64k which would be quite small if you embed images in the posts. To fix it alter the column:

alter table rblog_post modify content mediumtext;

• TomEE: by default tomee 7.0.0 johnzon setup will limit JSON string content to 4k so ensure t adjust it (7.0.1 will accept a bit more):

# whatever fits your need, number of chars
org.apache.johnzon.max-string-length = 655360

Social networks integration

Today RBlog supports Twitter integration. When you create a post you can define a tweet and schedule it to be posted when the post is published.

Bit.ly integration

If you configure Bit.ly (token property, see configuration) you will be able to hit a Bit.ly button on the post form to automatically retrieve a bit.ly url.

Mail backup

Often for small or personal blogs the best backup is a mail box (avoid to need a custom server).

When activated configuring sessionJndi and to properties, that’s what will do the backup feature.

Note	it needs a valid session configuration, here is a sample for gmail:

<Resource id="mail/gmail" type="javax.mail.Session">
mail.transport.protocol = smtp
mail.smtp.host = smtp.gmail.com
mail.smtp.port = 587
mail.smtp.auth = true
mail.smtp.starttls.enable = true
mail.smtp.user = xxxxx
password = xxxxxx
</Resource>

Then on tomee you can set rblog.backup.mail.sessionJndi to openejb:Resource/mail/gmail.

Possible Enhancements

(feel free to PR ;))

• [enhancement] write endpoints should use a nested tx to ensure to commit before returning a value

• [feature] theme/theming (hardcoded today)

• [feature] Support of Markdown and potentially Asciidoctor (optional and async start cause JRuby by default would be a pain) syntax

• [feature] Attachement GUI and linkage in the content

• [feature] TomEE Embedded fat jar (java -jar rblog.jar or java -jar rblog.war or java -jar tomee-embedded.jar --path rblog.war)

• [feature] TomEE distribution (pre-packaged rblog zip: unzip rblog.zip && cd rblog-version && ./bin/startup.sh) or openshift setup

• …​

Build

Don’t forget to setup chrome and chromedriver and point chromedriver through the maven property chrome.driver (can be done in a activated by default profile in settings.xml):