Once you've got germ pointed at the right directory, it knows it's own
name and you've changed the dat directory's permissions to 770 things
are pretty simple.
To write a post, create a file in your favorite text editor. The
first line should be the entry's title, unless you are using tags,
then defer it to the second line and see below. Next hit
return twice to leave a gap between your title and your entry and then
type away. Limit your lines to 65 columns. This way terminal
based clients like lynx and gopher can view your gopherlog.
Links can be over 70 columns.
One tip to help you when posting indented text or source code, be sure
to convert any tabs your text may contain into spaces. Lines starting
with <TAB> characters don't get displayed as inline text by the
gopher server.
To use tags:
The first line can be a list of comma-separated tags, which get
parsed and converted to a link that when clicked, will display all
posts containing that tag. The format looks like this:
#Tags Linux,Sysadmin,Tips
this will also work:
#tags Sysadmin, Tips and Tricks,linux
The space after the '#Tags' and before the list of tags is mandatory.
Tags are not case-sensitive, so "Linux" and "linux" link to the same tag.
Spaces around the commas get stripped. Spaces within tags are allowed,
but punctuation is not.
Tags are also currently allowed in the second line of the post to
maintain compatability with germ 2.0's tag system. Placing tags on the
second line is deprecated and may not be supported in future releases.
Whether you place the tag on the first or second line will not affect
the appearance of your gopherlog. Tags on any other lines will be
treated as normal text.
To shorten posts:
You can also shorten your post, by adding this text on a line by
itself somewhere in your post:
--more--
On the index, archive, and tag pages, anything after this line is not
displayed. This will cut down on the size of the main index page once
you fill it with a lot of posts.
To use links:
Germ will do its best to detect lines with gophermap-style links, and
display them as-is (rather than as inline-text). The server and port
are required. Here is an example:
Where "<TAB>" is the tab character, not spaces. It doesn't work with
spaces.
To save and publish your post:
When you're done, save your entry in your dat directory with a format
like this FILENAME.post. If it doesn't end in ".post", germ ignores
it and your post languishes. Make sure it's readable. A quick "chmod
644 FILENAME.post" can do that for you (You can change this extension
- see the INSTALL document for an explanation, or just change the
$post_ext variable).
After that, you're done. Germ handles the dating, displaying, and
archiving of your posts. It also handles the creation, maitanence,
and dating of your comment files, stored in "FILENAME.post.cmt".
To customize:
To customize your header or divider, simply edit the header.txt or
div.txt file in your dat directory.
You can also customize the text that goes in the link to your individual
posts and the text displayed when you shorten a post by editing the
variables $permalink_text and $more_text respectively which are in
Configurable Variables in the script's header. These texts are generated
dynamically so it will change for all posts, old and new.
You can also customize the divider between comments, and the divider
between posts and tags by editing the variable $cmt_div. Once you
have recieved comments, changing this is inadvisable, as it will
ruin comment counts.
