A new release of the BlogEngine.NET Extension Pack has just been released on CodePlex. This pack includes a total of fourteen extensions, including six new ones from contributors:

• DotNetKicksOnTheFly - Adds a DotNetKicks button to a post where the token kickit is found on the fly.
• GoogleAnalytics - Adds Google Analytics code to BlogEngine.
• SEOPack - Optimizes your BlogEngine blog for Search Engines (SEO).
• TranslatePost - Automatic translation for your blog post by using Google Translation Services.
• TypograFix - A typographic reformatting extension.
• WowLinkItem - Creates a link and mouse over for World of Warcraft Items.

Check it out.

I was so impressed with the iTheme theme that Nick La created for WordPress that I decided to port it to BlogEngine.NET.  So if you have an iPod, iPhone, iTouch, or even an iMac, this theme is designed for you (even if BlogEngine.NET currently only runs on Windows and Linux platforms).

The only feature not ported yet over is the drag and drop side bar feature - however, it will be coming once the BlogEngine.NET new Widget support is completed.

Nick has release the theme to the public under a very generous license, please check his blog for details.

Download: iTheme.zip (143.78 kb) Updated: 5/23/08

It's been over a month since my last project update and we are due to give out another update.

First, we are slightly behind on the release. We have been trying to coordinating with the core BlogEngine.NET team regarding some changes we would like to see in the core, so we could release the Photo Gallery Project as more of an extension rather than a whole new project. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, this has been slower than what we had originally anticipated.

Some of the design challenges of implementing a Photo Gallery within BlogEngine.NET is re-using the existing code base as much as possible. The good thing is BlogEngine.NET is very well written and can easily be extended and re-factored to fit other, similar purposes, like re-using the Comments implementation for Albums and Photos. The bad thing is if we extend or re-factor code within any of the core classes, the core BlogEngine.NET teams needs to incorporate and merge them into main source code tree.

And sometimes even a small re-factoring change can have a large impact on the code base in terms of the number of files affected. This leads to increased dependency and communications with the core team, and they have their own priorities and vet process prior to incorporating it. All this, unfortunately, slows down the overall process.

In the mean time, we have not stopped working. In fact, we have been looking ahead and trying to determine how we want to installation and deploy the Photo Gallery Extension.  We would like to make this as simple as possible. So we have decided to go ahead and add one additional item to our to-do list prior to our first release - we are going to separate Photo Gallery business logic into it's own .NET assembly. Basically from an end user perspective that means we will wrap up most of the core functionality (excluding web pages) into a dedicated DLL. Then end-users would have the option to download and deploy just the DLL and not the full source code, similar to how BlogEngine.NET is distributed today.

Since the PhotoGallery project adds several new web pages for the Photos, Albums, and the Gallery, and associated administration pages, the process would involve copying those files to their appropriate directories within the BlogEngine.NET virtual directory. We are still working on a way to makes this as easy and seamless. We are very open to guidance and suggestions in this area.

One of the new exciting features of the next version of BlogEngine.NET 1.4 is the widget framework. Widgets are similar to existing components, except that widgets can be dynamically added, configured and positioned on blog pages. And unlike components, widgets can be added without modifying the existing theme!

This means that users can download and install new widgets simply by copying them to the widgets sub-directory. And once installed, widgets can then be added and configured from the blog web page. Widgets can also be arranged on the web page simply by dragging and-dropping them to their new location.

Mads Kristensen released "proof-of-concept" code and a video earlier this month and I decided to learn how to write my own widget by putting one together that can display a configurable list of current stock quotes.

For this widget, the Yahoo! Financial quote service is used to pull 15 to 20 minute delayed stock quote information. As far as I understand, this is a free service that anyone can use. However, use at your own risk.

To use this widget you must first download and install the latest BlogEngine.NET source code from CodePlex. After which, download the zip file below and unzip it into the widgets directory.

Next, open the web site and sign in as the administrator. Find the widget control that allows you to add widgets to the page. From there, select "StockQuotes" and click the "Add" button.

This will add a new widget called "New Widget" to the web page. Find it and click on the "Edit" link. This will bring up the configuration page for the widget. Hopefully in the future, new widgets will be intelligently named.

From here you can add new stock quotes to the widgets simply by entering their stock symbol and clicking the "Add stock quote" button. Stock quotes can also be removed by clicking the "Delete" link next to the stock symbol.

To save all the additions and deletions, if any, click the "Save" button.

That's it! Go ahead and try it yourself. If you encounter any problems or issues, please let me know.

Download: StockQuotesWidget.zip (4.28 kb)

The latest release of the BlogEngine.NET Extension Pack has just been released on CodePlex. The pack includes a total of eight extensions, including three new ones:

• FeedFlare
• Mp3Player
• Odiogo
• PostTemplate
• QuickLinks
• QuickerLinks
• SnapShots
• YouTube

Check it out.

Joe Kaiser, the project coordinator for the BlogEngine.NET Extensions project hosted at CodePlex, asked me if I would like to take over as the new project coordinator. Joe no longer had the time to maintain the project. I have been excited about the BlogEngine.NET project for quite a while now, and so I was delighted to accept the position and responsibility.

With the recent release of BlogEngine.NET 1.3 and with it the new Extension Manager, it's time for a new extension pack release. So in the next few days, I will be creating a new extension pack for the BE 1.3. The release will contain a few new extensions: SnapShots and Odiogo, in addition to updated extensions: Mp3Player by Ruslan Tur and QuickLinks by Clarence Klopfstein.

If you wish to make any contributions to this project, please feel free to upload your extensions as patches to CodePlex or e-mail them directly to me. I will incorporate them into the pack.

The Photo Gallery addition for BlogEngine.NET is moving forward. We are in the final stages of wrapping up the first release and hope to release it in early January 2008. Here is our list of remaining items:

1. Move all photo settings to the Photo Gallery Control Panel.

2. Write web interface for the Photo Effect extensions.

3. Add option to delete a photo album.

4. Document the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

5. Add photo gallery web pages to the themes that ship with BlogEngine.NET.

6. Create new theme to highlight the features of the Photo Gallery.

7. Invalid the photo cache when Photo Effects are added or changed.

8. And finally, find and fix any remaining bugs.

If you wish to help out, download the latest source code from CodePlex and try it out. The more developers and testers that participate, the better the release will be.

I wrote a small SnapShots extension for BlogEngine.NET 1.3.

To install it, download and copy the SnapShots.cs file to the App_Code\Extensions directory.

To set your SnapShots Key, go into the Extension section of the Control Panel and click the edit hyperlink for the SnapShots extension. Enter SnapShot Key on the next page.

You can download the extension from the link below.  

Download: SnapShots.cs (2.00 kb) Updated 12/25/07

Update: There are two bugs in the BlogEngine 1.3 release related to Scalar Values in Extensions. I have submitted the patches to the BlogEngine.NET team. In the mean time, you can download the fixed files below:

Download: ExtensionParameter.cs (2.97 kb)
Download: Settings.ascx.cs (10.76 kb)

This is an upgrade to the Odiogo Extension by Mads Kistensen that uses the new ExtensionManager in the BlogEngine.NET 1.3 release. You can download it by clicking the link below.

Odiogo is a service that reads your RSS feed and creates an mp3 file for each of your blogs. This extension adds the Odigo's Listen now icon to the top of your blog posts.

For more information see Mad's Make your blog talk post.

Download: Odiogo.cs (2.89 kb) Updated 12/25/07

Update: There are two bugs in the BlogEngine 1.3 release related to Scalar Values in Extensions. I have submitted the patches to the BlogEngine.NET team. In the mean time, you can download the fixed files below:

Download: ExtensionParameter.cs (2.97 kb)
Download: Settings.ascx.cs (10.76 kb)

The fourth version of BlogEngine.NET has just been released. You can download it here.