This is an expansion of the elgg core blog plugin. I have integrated a previous blog extension plugin (trackback) and first I want to thank the original developers for their work. Cash Costello (initially) and later Anton Channing for his work in expanding on Cash's initial work. 

Next to Tunist for helping me to test and develop this plugin further and find the bugs. Much obliged!

Ok so to the details. This new blog plugin has the following features that you can benefit from:

• Feature Blog (comes with a nifty JQuery slideshow of the featured blogs)
• Follow Blogger (users can follow other users and receive notifications about their new blog posts)(Similar to BlogWatch plugin but a little different)
• View Count (every blog now counts number of views)
• Trackback (Cash & Anton)(user can setup external blog to send items to river)
• Better Layout (A tabbed layout showing "Latest Posts", "Most Followed", "Most Viewed", "Featured", "People You are Following(called "Watching")
• Maximum Internationalization(almost everything can be edited from the language file)
• Blogextended plugin (80% integrated, so almost obsolete)
• Ajax tabs
• Standardized widget views
• Comment link to comments anchor (not blog post at top of page)
• Related posts: the system will check and list other blog posts with the same/similar tags based on number of matches. (admin backended)

This plugin makes the "Trackback" plugin obsolete so if you have it enabled you can disable it. This plugin might interfere with other blog extension plugins such as BlogWatch and Blogextended. Hopefully not. If you find some quirks let me know.

Installation:

1. unzip
2. backup current blog folder
3. delete current blog folder
4. run upgrade.php (just to be sure)
5. install robust blog
6. run upgrade.php (again to make sure new CSS and JQuery is working properly)
7. Make a cup of coffee
8. Sit back and relax

Bugs: None found yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't lurking in the corners! Tested on 1.7.4 in Chrome, Chromium, Firefox. If you find bugs let me know. Please be clear about your environment. Elgg system, Browser, Other Blog Plugins running etc.

CSS: CSS is setup for Webkit browsers and Firefox (sorry IE users), I will get round to fixing it for everyone. It isn't broken, just not as pretty!

Final Word:If you feel you can add something to this plugin don't hold back. Get in contact with me and we can talk more.

Enjoy and the images shown don't do the plugin justice. Download and test it and feel the flexibility pulsing through your fingers!