Robblog – A robot blogging tool¶
Robblog is a tool which converts entries from the mongodb_store into blog posts for Jekyll. It runs as a ros node and provides its own web server, binding to a host and port of your choice.
Installation¶
Robblog currently uses Jekyll (version 2) to generate pages. To install the dependencies under Ubuntu 14.04 do:
sudo apt-get ruby1-dev nodejs
sudo -E gem install jekyll -v 2.5.3
On OS X do:
brew install ruby nodejs
gem install jekyll -v 2.5.3
Usage¶
Robblog has two parts: clients which add robblog/RobblogEntry
entries to mongodb_store, and the blog engine which creates blog posts
from these entries.
Running the Robblog engine¶
The configuration information that you need to run Robblog is as
follows: mongodb_store collection to monitor for new entries; the path
on the system where Jekyll will create your blog; and the hostname and
port to server the webblog at. The code snippet below shows how to
create and configure your blog. In this example mongodb_store
collection is provided as an argument EntryConverter
('robblog'), the system path is the blog_path variable which is
defined relative to the y1_interfaces package
(roslib.packages.get_pkg_dir('y1_interfaces') + '/content'), and the
host details are obtained from local parameters if provided.
#!/usr/bin/env python
import rospy
import roslib
import robblog
import robblog.utils
from datetime import *
if __name__ == '__main__':
rospy.init_node("robblog")
server_host = rospy.get_param("~host_ip", "127.0.0.1")
server_port = rospy.get_param("~port", "4000")
# where are the blog files going to be put
blog_path = roslib.packages.get_pkg_dir('y1_interfaces') + '/content'
# initialise blog
robblog.utils.init_blog(blog_path)
# and start serving content at this place
proc = robblog.utils.serve(blog_path, server_host, server_port)
try:
converter = robblog.utils.EntryConverter(blog_path=blog_path, collection='robblog')
while not rospy.is_shutdown():
converter.convert()
rospy.sleep(1)
except Exception, e:
rospy.logfatal(e)
finally:
proc.terminate()
Adding entries¶
To add entries to robblog, clients should add instances of the
robblog/RobblogEntry message type to mongodb_store (usually via the
message store proxy). The message type is simply:
string title
string body
The title is translated into the title of the blog post and the name of the markdown file containing the post in the Jekyll install. The body should be Markdown.
Rules for creating entries¶
Title choice¶
To march Jekyll’s structuring rules, each entry is converted into a file which is named using the date (YYYY-MM-DD) plus the title (with spaces converted to hyphens). If you create two entries on the same day with the same title this will only create one blog entry in Jekyll, despite their being two different entries in mongodb_store. Until Robblog is updated to fix this, if you do plan to create muliple entries with the same title on the same day, it might be worth adding a counter or some other unique characters to the title.
Illegal characters¶
As titles are turned into filenames, you need to avoid illegal characters. Currently no sanitisation is done. As far as seen, characters within the body of the entry are fine.
Images¶
Images can be included in entries. To include one, you must add the
image to mongodb_store, retaining the object ID you receive in
response. You can then use standard Markdown image inclusion, but
replace the image URL with the object ID wrapped in ObjectID(), e.g.
This ID is used to automatically create a jpeg image to include in the blog post.
Example¶
The following example (also available in full here) adds a few entries to mongodb_store then serves them. Once you’ve run this go to http://localhost:4040 and you should see the blog entries.
#!/usr/bin/env python
import rospy
import roslib
from mongodb_store.message_store import MessageStoreProxy
from robblog.msg import RobblogEntry
import robblog.utils
import cv2
from sensor_msgs.msg import Image
from cv_bridge import CvBridge, CvBridgeError
from datetime import *
if __name__ == '__main__':
rospy.init_node("robblog_example")
blog_collection = 'example_blog'
# Create some blog entries
msg_store = MessageStoreProxy(collection=blog_collection)
create_entries = True
robblog_path = roslib.packages.get_pkg_dir('robblog')
if create_entries:
e1 = RobblogEntry(title='Test Title 1', body='blah blah')
e2 = RobblogEntry(title='Test Title 2', body='blah blah')
e3 = RobblogEntry(title='Test Title 3', body='blah blah')
msg_store.insert(e1)
msg_store.insert(e2)
msg_store.insert(e3)
# add a complex markdown example
with open(robblog_path + '/data/example.md' , 'r') as f:
e4 = RobblogEntry(title='Markdown Example', body=f.read())
msg_store.insert(e4)
# print e4
# add an example with an image
cv_image = cv2.imread(robblog_path + '/data/rur.jpg')
bridge = CvBridge()
img_msg = bridge.cv2_to_imgmsg(cv_image)
img_id = msg_store.insert(img_msg)
e5 = RobblogEntry(title='Image Test', body='This is what a robot looks like.\n\n)' % img_id)
msg_store.insert(e5)
serve = True
if serve:
# where are the blog files going to be put
blog_path = robblog_path + '/content'
# initialise blog
robblog.utils.init_blog(blog_path)
proc = robblog.utils.serve(blog_path, 'localhost', '4040')
try:
converter = robblog.utils.EntryConverter(blog_path=blog_path, collection=blog_collection)
while not rospy.is_shutdown():
# supply True convert to force all pages to be regenerated
converter.convert()
rospy.sleep(1)
except Exception, e:
rospy.logfatal(e)
finally:
proc.terminate()
Original page: https://github.com/strands-project/robblog/blob/hydro-devel/README.md