UserPreferences

BlogToolDateSurvey


Publishing Tools

This table summarizes the dates that already existing Atom/RSS weblog publishing systems are capable of providing.

Below, Change Date refers to a system maintained modification time, no "significance of change" or "visible change in output" is intended or implied. If any of the tools listed have been misappropriately listed as a "no significance of modification" when they actually have some way to indicate significant change, please note or correct the table.

Date Types
Tool Display Date Change Date Creation Date
Blogger PostDate LastChanged DateCreated
Movable Type <$MTEntryDate$> <$MTEntryModifiedDate$> n/a
WordPress n/a <?php the_date('Y/m/d','before','after',display); ?> or [WWW]a plugin n/a
BigBlogTool n/a /.timestamp n/a
ExpressionEngine {entry_date} {edit_date} n/a
JournURL <weblog:date type="published"> <weblog:date type="updated"> <weblog:date type="created">
ongoing {created} {modified} {created}
Roller pubTime updateTime n/a
Macsanomat publication date, modification date also if different modified date n/a, publication date closest
Blosxom Atom plugin n/a $atomfeed::utc_date n/a
LiveJournal ? ? ?
Radio ? radio.macros.getLastUpdate ?

Detailed descriptions

This section contains detailed description about each date in a given publishing system. It should be described what the date is used as in the publishing tool, if and when it's changed, when it's provided, and whether it is objective or subjective.

Blogger

PostDate

The time a User wishes their Post to first appear. Posts dated in the future do not appear until that date. Editable by the User.

LastChanged

The last time this post was modified. Not editable by the User.

DateCreated

When this post was created. Not editable by the User.

Movable Type

MTEntryDate

This date is first provided when the entry is saved. After that, it may be altered by the user. This date is used for sorting entries on the front page of the blog, and in the RSS and Atom feeds. This date is also used in the atom:created and atom:issued elements in most of the existing Movable Type Atom templates. In the default RSS 1.0 and 2.0 templates, this date is used in the dc:date element.

MTEntryModifiedDate

This date is set and updated every time a user presses [Save] in Movable Type. This date is used in the atom:modified element in most of the existing Movable Type Atom templates.

JournURL

<weblog:date type="published">

This date can be defined or altered by the user during the creation or editing of an entry, and is intended to be the author's "official" date associated with an entry. If the field is left blank during creation, it defaults to the creation date. (See below.) The date is used to sort entries in various templates, including HTML and RSS. This is also the date that would be most likely used in permalinks. In Atom 0.3, its closest equivalent is atom:issued. As with all these date tags, an optional type attribute allows it to produce RFC822- and W3CDTF-style dates, as well as human-readable values. Another characteristic these dates share is that they are all converted to UTC before being stored in the database.

<weblog:date type="updated">

This date is machine-generated. Upon creation of any entry, it is set to match the creation date. (See below.) Upon each successive edit, the date is changed to the time of that edit. "Edit" in this context means virtually any change in the status or content of the entry, from significant alterations of text to something as small as toggling one of the entry's attributes. This date is used as the defaukt sort order for entries within the forum interface shared by all blogs within a community.

<weblog:date type="created">

This date is machine-generated, and never changes after the moment of creation. However, due to JournURL's nature, the date doesn't mean anything in the context of an individual blog. It is meant to be primarily used within the community interface, where it is used to fill the dc:date/pubDate elements in RSS feeds.

Blosxom Atom plugin

$atomfeed::utc_date

This date is derived from the filesystem modification datetime of the Blosxom story file. It is output in Atom 0.3 in the <atom:issued> and <atom:modified> date fields. Other modules can extend or change this functionallity:

News reading tools

The following summarizes the dates that are used in existing Atom/RSS reading tools.