Deploying gemcast is pretty simple, really. It requires only that you have Ruby installed and a web server that can run CGI programs.

• Create a directory for the gemcast CGI application and copy the *.rb files there.
• Ensure that gemcast.rb has the proper execute privileges.
• Configure your web server with a "script mapping" to the directory under which you've put the gemcast script files.
• Create a data directory somewhere where gemcast will be able to see it. It's probably easiest to just copy the data directory included with the gemcast distro to wherever you want. The data directory should have, at the least, a templates and a css directory, each with their appropriate content (read further).
• Configure gemcast with settings appropriate to your environment. This is done in the config.rb file. The file is fairly well-commented, so you shouldn't have much trouble there.
• Configure your templates. There are currently three templates: body, entry, and box. Each relates to an element of your website's layout. Body represents the overall layout of your site's page(s). Entry and box represent the layout of individual weblog entries and sidebar boxes. Variables placed in the templates are replaced by gemcast when a given page is rendered.

  The following variables are available in your body template:

  • #{log_entry_content} (this is log content after the entry content is generated and the entry template is applied)
  • #{category_content}
  • #{sidebar_content} (this is sidebar content after the sidebar content is generated and the sidebar template is applied)
  • #{breadcrumb_content}
  • #{weblog_title}
  • #{current_day}
  • #{current_mon}
  • #{current_yr}

  The following variables are available in your log entry template:

  • #{entry_title}
  • #{entry_text}
  • #{entry_date}

  The following variables are available in your sidebar box template:

  • #{entry_title}
  • #{entry_text}
  • #{entry_date}