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Tense Log Update

It’s been a while since I posted an update… Far too busy working! I’ve had a few inquiries from my last Tense Log update about beta testing, so I thought I’d post a bit more.

First off, although I thought I was close to beta testing back in March, I’m still not quite there yet. I want to be certain the database design is final first (so I won’t have to spend time writing update scripts for any testers!), and there are some changes I’m still thinking about making. Hopefully in the next couple of months, but since I work on this in my free time, I can’t make any promises.

But hey—onto the good stuff. Here’s something I just finished the other day:

Illustration in the middle screenshot by Range Murata.

This Mac OS X Dashboard widget can be used to access the uploads section of any of your logs. It’s a great way to toss some files online without having to open an FTP app and dig through a bunch of folders. Just select a log, select a folder, drag a file over, and you’re done. For image files you even get a cool little cropped preview while it uploads.

As for Tense Log itself, I’ve been working on a ton of additional updates. Here are some new highlights:

• There is now a unified login system that covers both Tense Log and Tense Admin. You have one login to access any number of logs, and Tense Admin as well. Just log in and you get a list of links to it all.
• Even better, you can now have multiple contributors for a single log, and there’s a new author field for each entry that’s filled in automatically.
• You can now set up subscriptions—basically a simple way to take a category from one log and display it in another log. We have a log set up for all Tense Forms reviews, for example, and one for all of our shows. Inside those logs are categories for the Notes and Scratches and all of our other bands. With the new subscription feature we added the appropriate reviews and shows to the Notes and Scratches site with just a couple of clicks. When I first created Andy Wagner’s site, I wrote custom PHP to display shows and reviews from their respective logs… I could easily create that entire site now without writing a single line of PHP.
• I’ve written an AudioScrobbler/Last.fm plug-in using the new plug-in architecture. Just drop the file in the plug-ins folder, and any Tense Log user can add a recently played list with a tag like this: <tenselog:audioscrobbler user="robotspacer" />
• Simple HTML mode no longer adds paragraph tags around block-level elements. If you ever tried to put a list, a table, or even a block quote into an entry, you probably ended up with a bunch of extra space between things. You could solve this by switching to Complex HTML mode, but that means putting paragraph tags around all your paragraphs. Simple HTML mode now works much more intelligently—no extra spaces, no need to add paragraph tags manually, all valid code! This is really tricky to do perfectly, but I’m very very close.
• Private categories really are private. If you create an entry that only appears in private categories, it will not be viewable without logging in. You don’t have to worry about marking each individual entry, that will be done for you.
• Each entry now has separate options for comments. You can close comments for specific entries at will, or hide them entirely. Or if you keep comments off for most entries, you can enable them for specific ones.
• There’s a new “filed under” tag, to show which categories an entry is filed under.
• RSS feeds now use last-modified headers to send the feed only when it has been updated. That means if the feed hasn’t changed, it won’t be downloaded again, or even generated—potentially saving a huge amount of bandwidth.
• Tense Log is now compatible with newer versions of MySQL, and no longer relies on a specific MySQL date format. That means you can use it on DreamHost servers (among others) and take advantage of their amazing pricing.
• Tons of additional bug fixes, security enhancements, and other minor improvements.

Finally, Tense Tools now has its own logo:

That reminds me of another thing I’ve been working on: a Tense Admin module for sending out HTML newsletters with a minimum amount of fuss. Everyone on the Tense Forms mailing list will be treated to a much nicer newsletter come January. It will probably be a good while before I make this module publicly available, but if you’re interested give me a holler.

Again, if you’re interested in beta testing Tense Log 2.0, please let me know. I’m keeping a list and I’ll let you all know as soon as it’s ready.

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