It is not that easy to describe what Backbite exactly is. Basically its a system to save any kind of data structured and export it in different ways.
The base idea was to create a controller for multiple Tumblogs. If you know what I’m talking about, you see that a Tumblelog may consist of quotes, images, videos or simply blog Posts. Each of this parts is called Component in Backbite terminology.
Examples
Backbite is highly customizable. During setup, some default files will be copied to your repos, like exporter, plugins and components, so you can edit ‘em for your needs, but only for a single repository. Even the commandline arguments are directly connected to your tumblog.
Once you have a valid repository, it’s like a sandbox which only needs to use the Backbite backend.
Your Tumblelog is basically defined by a single configuration file. It’s totaly open to edit – means, you can add and use options if you need it in your export/component/plugin. The options are parsed within a DSL, so you don’t need much effort to build complex configurations. Examples speak more than words:
Backbite::Config[:name].setup{ bar { b :a}; batz [1,2,3]; qux { anotherbar 3.px; foo[:hihi] = 23} } # => {:bar=>{:b=>:a}, :batz=>[1, 2, 3], :qux=>{:anotherbar=>"3px", :foo=>{:hihi=>23}}}
You are able to control everything in your repos via commandline. You can create posts, list and search in your posts, export your repos, upload it …
You can submit posts from any ruby programm, because Backbite is also a library. Tonight I hacked the mercurial component, and the hook in my ~/bin/hgcommit looks like:
# ~/bin/hgcommit -- executed on `hg commit` # # trival stuff striped to get the mercurial infos by a `hg head`.grep() .... # require '/home/mit/Source/backbite/lib/backbite.rb' # localy not a gem,yet msg, name, author, changeset = retHash['summary'], retHash['name'], retHash['user'], retHash['changeset'] tlog = Backbite.register[:polis] # get the tumblog instance by Register post = tlog.post(:mercurial, :hash => { :hg => msg, :tags => [], # default tags are predefined in component :author => author[1..-2], :changeset => "#{name}:#{changeset}" }) puts post.save
A component is the way to save data in your repos. It is defined by fields and plugins, which are attached to fields. Plugins are completely optional, and modify the data of the attached component. So, if you want to to post images or something, you will create a component named image, with the fields url, url is a attached to the plugin Image, or even Lightbox. If you post data to your Image plugin, the field url wants input, which may modified by the Plugin. So its easy to post/pre process your data. In this case it would make sense to create thumbnails.
Its dead easy:
# image component # image plugin
That’s the other goal. Your repos contains some default ways to export your data. If you’re a ruby hacker, it’s not that complicated to create new ways to export or edit existing. The export variants are directly connected to your repos.
If you just want to manage a todo, or a contact list, there may no need for exporting your repos, but maybe, later you want to put your data in CSV or send it to your cellphone – no problem, just create your export way and mail it to the global repos (to let people know that your variant exists and to share!)