Zomplog Tips and Tricks
Zomplog has a some hidden features, and things you never knew you could do with Zomplog. This document lists those tips, howtos, etc, so you can get even more out of Zomplog! Feel free to add your own tips and tricks (login using zomplogguest, zomplogguest).
Note that the following tips and tricks have their own dedicated pages:
Thumbnails and enlargements
For each post you can decide if the images you upload should be displayed as a thumbnail or (semi-)full-size. Click on the "options" link just below the upload field, and select or deselect "create thumbnails". The width of the thumbnail AND the enlargement (from version 3.8.1) can be set through the system settings-panel (look for "thumbnail width" and "maximum width"). The advantage of setting the maximum dimensions for the enlargement is that you don't have to resize your image at all before uploading: Zomplog does that for you! This way you can choose the best dimensions for display in your layout, and when users click on an image to see the enlargement, they won't have to scroll to see the full image. Your originally uploaded image is not saved, saving space on your server.
Embedding or linking to external files
By default, the built-in Zomplog upload tool handles many document types automatically: when you upload a quicktime, wmv or realplayer movie, Zomplog recognizes it, and automatically generates the embed code needed to display it in your post. The same goes for mp3's, word documents, and many more filetypes (see FileManager for a full list). But sometimes you want to embed a file which is already online. So instead of using the uploader, you want to embed an existing link. That's easily done using Zomplog!
When you create a new post or page, just below the file upload field, there's an "options" link, and if you expand it by clicking on it, you'll see there's whole list of options. On the right side, you can input a link to a quicktime, wmv, realplayer movie or mp3. Just fill in the direct link to the file, and select the correct filetype. You're done!
A lot of sites offer a so called "embed-code" for your site or blog, to enable you to embed content you've uploaded elsewhere into your own site (sites like YouTube?, Myspace, Vimeo, Flickr, etc.). If you want to embed such a file, just copy the embed code from your site of choice, and paste it into the "embed code for YouTube?, Vimeo, etc." field. That's all, the file should now appear embedded in your post!
Automatically creating podcasts and video podcasts
Zomplog can automatically generate a podcast or video podcast from any mp3 or Quicktime movie you upload! Just click the "options"-link just below the upload field (posts only), and select "create podcast". Zomplog will generate a podcast feed for you, so others can subscribe and tune in to your show through Itunes or any other podcast enabled software package! Easy, isn't it?
Not sure what a podcast is? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting
Friendly URLs
Starting from version 3.8.1 Zomplog supports search-engine friendly urls! No more intricate urls link ?content=detail&id=10, but nice, clean, user-friendly urls like /zomplog/posts/1. Here's how to activate this feature:
Open config.php, and change define(ROOT, ""); to define(ROOT, 'http://www.yoursite.com/zomplog_folder/'); (note: the slash at the end is important!). Re-upload config.php.
After that, rename the file htaccess (in your main zomplog folder) to .htaccess. This might make the file invisible on most computers, but most FTP-clients can still see the file, so use your FTP-client to upload the renamed file (or rename it on the remote server).
That's it! Browse to your site, and enjoy all this url goodness!
Extending the rich text editor (TinyMce?)
Zomplog comes with a quite fully equiped rich text editor, but there's so much more features you can add with a little tweaking. The rich text-editor that Zomplog uses is called TinyMce? and has an active community and very thorough documentation. You can tweak the behaviuor of the rich text-editor in various ways, and there are loads of plugins to drop in. See http://tinymce.moxiecode.com for more info.
The tinymce editor can be found in: admin/jscripts/tiny_mce_new and, the main configuration file can be found at: admin/tinymce_config.php
Changing the menu in the sidebar
To make it easy to switch on and off menu-items in the sidebar, Zomplog has a built-in menu-items cotrol-panel, which you find at settings -> menu settings (settings_menu.php). For most common purposes this will all you need to know.
If you still want to manually tweak specific aspects of the menu, here's some hints:
The menu itself can be found in: zomplog/menu.php (version 3.8.1 and later, in earlier versions it is found in themes/your_theme/index.php)
The functions used in the menu can be found in: admin/functions_menu.php
