Re: (Roller 3.1) Creating blog entry-specific description meta tags

Glen Mazza <[email protected]> Mon, 2 Jul 2012 09:20:35 -0400
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.java.roller.user
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
No, RSS isn't my concern, and I am not referring to Summary (which I 
also use).  For increasing Google hits and making the Google description 
readable, this is something very important that Google's Blogger has 
(and is easy to implement) but Apache Roller seems to be missing.

When you google my blog "Glen Mazza blog", Google reports this:

/Glen Mazza's Weblog/ 
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=glen%20mazza%20weblog&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jroller.com%2Fgmazza%2F&ei=65nxT4C5I6bA0QWJ0rntDQ&usg=AFQjCNFPhltLeUh35nL_hWAq-wBLsDQJLQ&cad=rja> 

www.jroller.com/g*mazza*/
Jun 25, 2012 -- Contains many articles on developing web services with 
Apache CXF and GlassFish Metro.

The "Contains many articles on developing web services with Apache CXF 
and GlassFish Metro." is the description I'm referring to.  That part 
comes from the HTML header:

<html>
<head>
<title>Glen Mazza's Weblog</title>
<metaname="Description" content="Contains many articles on developing 
web services with Apache CXF and GlassFish Metro.">
...
</head>
<body>...</body>
</html>

Which I was able to insert in by adding this Macro to the header template:
<meta name="Description" content="#showWebsiteDescription()">

That works for my blog's main page as a whole (because Roller stores a 
blog-level description field)--but to have a description specific to a 
particular blog entry (which Google also indexes), I need to be able to 
add a blog entry-specific description line when I create each blog entry 
(summary won't do, as it has HTML and can normally be a few sentences 
long).  Right now I have a lengthy if/else on my 10 or so most popular 
blog entries in the header template, adding a blog-entry specific 
description as follows:

     #if ($model.weblogEntry.anchor == 'web_service_tutorial' || 
$model.weblogEntry.anchor == 'java_first_web_service')
<meta name="Description" content="Learn how to create SOAP web services 
and clients with either Apache CXF or GlassFish Metro.">
     #elseif ($model.weblogEntry.anchor == 'junit_web_service_testing')
<meta name="Description" content="Learn how to use JUnit to test your 
Apache CXF or GlassFish Metro-based web service providers.">
     ....

Yes, mega-yuck.  If Roller allowed us to enter a description field for 
each blog entry, all I would have to do is a very simple:
<meta name="Description" content="$model.weblogEntry.description"/>  (we 
already have $model.weblogEntry.title but no .description yet).

Without a description, Google just randomly excerpts text from the blog 
entry when it gives the description.  To be candid, I don't see how 
Roller can compete with other blogging tools unless it provides this 
functionality.

Regards,
Glen

On 7/2/2012 8:18 AM, Dave wrote:
> Roller supports a content field and a summary field. I believe the
> content field is what you would refer to as the "description" field
> and it is what is placed into the RSS<description>  element in your
> RSS feed.
>
> You can also enter a summary if you want a shorter summary of your
> post to appear on the main page of your blog (the content field is
> what will appear on the post's page).
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> - Dave
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 7:49 AM, Glen Mazza<[email protected]>  wrote:
>> On 6/19/2012 8:41 AM, Dave wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 6:59 PM, Glen Mazza<[email protected]>    wrote:
>>>> Hi, my blog is hosted on JRoller so I'm using Roller 3.1.  For URLs which
>>>> point directly to a specific blog entry (such as here:
>>>> http://www.jroller.com/gmazza/entry/cxf_and_metro_team_links, instead of
>>>> a
>>>> day, month, or category, etc.), I'd like to alter the<title>    and<meta
>>>> name="description"/>    tags in the HTML<head>    part to increase hits while
>>>> Googling and also to make the Google title and description more relevant
>>>> for
>>>> the blog posting.  I got the former done fine in the "header" template
>>>> but
>>>> am having problems with the latter:
>>>>
>>>> #if ($model.permalink == false)
>>>> <title>#showWebsiteTitle()</title>
>>>> <meta name="description" content="#showWebsiteDescription()">
>>>> #else
>>>> <title>$model.weblogEntry.title | #showWebsiteTitle()</title>
>>>> <!--meta name="description" content="$model.weblogEntry.????"-->
>>>> #end
>>>>
>>>> <title>    works great now, but description is difficult, I don't know what
>>>> if
>>>> anything I can place in that "????" above.  Within each blog entry, I'd
>>>> like
>>>> to have a field where I can put in the description blurb ("This blog
>>>> entry
>>>> shows you blah blah blah...") that the above template would read in.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas for Roller 3.1?  If not, has this been solved in Roller 4.0 or
>>>> 5.0?  I can put in an enhancement request if it's not already available.
>>> Roller now has title, summary and description for each post, but I
>>> believe that summary was added after Roller 3.1.
>>>
>>> - Dave
>> Hmm, having checked a Roller 5.0 instance, I couldn't see any field on the
>> blog entry form where I could type in the description.  Am I looking in the
>> wrong place?
>>
>>
>> Glen
>>
>>
>> --
>> Glen Mazza
>> Talend Community Coder
>> http://coders.talend.com
>>
>
>


-- 
Glen Mazza
Talend Community Coder
http://coders.talend.com