Dean Martin once sang “Welcome to my world – Won’t you come on in?” I find this to be a fitting quote, as I release the first beta version of SharpMT. I’ve built SharpMT mostly for my own uses, but I’ve decided to turn it loose on the public, because as it grew in my own hands, I thought other people might have a use for it. Using MovableType and need an offline Blog writer? Keep reading, because I might have built one for you – you can also download it here.
First the Geek-reason for this project: I needed something that would force me to improve my C# skills. I find that I can read a dozen books about a language or new technical platform, but unless I have a project to work on, I’ve learned that I learn nothing. I’m the type of person that needs a finish line – however fictitious it might be – otherwise I won’t bother to run a race. Because of this personal goal, SharpMT is based on the 1.0 version of the .Net Framework. Will it run on 1.1? Absolutely, because I’ve already upgraded my development machines, but because Visual Studio.Net 2003 is backordered, I can’t compile to the newer Framework. Will it run on Windows 95? No, but it will run on Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP, and 2003 – any OS that has the .Net Framework can run SharpMT. Also, because of this architecture, the entire application download is just over 1MB, which is never a bad thing.
What’s it do? Well, that’s a longer story, and I have an FAQ that I’ve started and put into the application, but I also put it up on the web site: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/faq.htm. It gives a general overview of the product and some troubleshooting tips. This is the first beta, so I consider it to be mostly feature completely and mostly bug free. The good news is that almost nothing you do with SharpMT can impact your Blog or server. Only “post” uploads data could do that and I’ve been using SharpMT for the last four or five days without any errors. Just a friendly reminder that it’s a beta.
What’s missing? Two key things, first of which is Spell Checking. As I’ve mentioned before, I can add this with four mouse clicks and some cash. As tempting as it is, I’m having trouble kicking in cash for a side project and beta product. I’ll gladly invest time in such a venture – I’m learning new stuffs after all! – but cash is something I have trouble parting with, especially because my day job isn’t their payroll these days. So I’ll either break down to peer pressure, if enough people ask me for it, or just invest the cash at some point, but for now, it’s a missing item. The other thing missing is strictly eye candy, and it’s in the form of the Magic classes of controls – this missing item will annoy Chris Hollander, but I can promise that it’s coming. I just wanted to hit a milestone and kick this out the door so I can get some end user feedback. I’ll add the new UI classes next week some time.
What’s it cost? Nothing. Especially the beta versions, but the released version will be Donation-ware, as I have been planning to do since I started this project last week. Donations can be sent via PayPal to randy@randyrants.com – there’s also a link on the FAQ and at the bottom of this page. If I get some donations, the first bit of cash goes to the Spell Checker.
SharpMT here. Also, because I’m letting the FAQ cover the features, let me give you two screen shots of what it looks like:
As this is a beta, I’m looking for feedback – feel free to leave me a comment here or an email.
Happy blogging!
Looks great. Hope you are planning on adding multiple categories and pings..
How about keyword support?
Oh, and please make the Main Entry Area a little bigger.. :)
MT-Medic and SharpMT
I discovered a couple of great new tools for use with :mt:. The first is a desktop posting tool called SharpMT. Its a relatively simple tool, and is still in beta, but if you are looking for a quick and dirty was to make, save locally, and post entries…
i would like to see support for Wysiwyg. It can be done though freetextbox. That would be sweet!
Thanks for the feedback!
– WYSIWYG with a free control, I’ll gladly look into… I’ll look into it.
– Main Entry will be bigger in Beta 2 (maybe as early as tonight or tomorrow). The Extended entry will still grow dynamically with the window size.
– Keyword and Ping support, I don’t remember seeing in the MT RPC-API, but I don’t use either field, so I probably just missed it. I’ll look again; if it’s available, I’ll add them to the Advanced pane.
– Multiple categories should be easy to add, but a bit of UI work, so I’ll note it for a future beta.
Thanks again!
HTMLArea might also be worth a look if you are looking at wysiwg editing. There’s another similar tool listed on Freshmeat but I can’t recall it’s name at the moment.
http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/
This looks great. I found it from a link from http://www.promoguy.net . I’d love to use it, but I added an extra field hack (for entry moods). Is there any chance you might add support for additional fields? I’m not sure how much work that would be, so I won’t be pushy… :)
Hello . i am a persian blogger fron iran . excuse me from my bad English . ok? . when I run “SharpMT 1.1” , I give this error : “”The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on Ok to terminate the application .”” i use Windows XP Professional ok? what do i do to slove this problem? please help me … Thanks . if this problem will be sloved , i tell to my friend ( a bout 100 persian weblogger that they use MT ) about this program … Tanx again !
@Amir – Odds are you don’t have the 1.1 version of the .NET Framework installed. If you do and you’re still getting this error, please contact me via email and I’ll get you up and running. Thanks!
Hello!
Does anybody how to ask your C# program if the
.NET Framework exists?
This 0xc000135 error is VERY easy to understand
for really EVERYBODY…. (grrr…!)
Is there any function like
if(FrameWork.Exists(…)))? :):):):)
what does it mean when I get this error message> The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000135). Please click ok to terminate the application. And, what should I do about it? This is the only site I could find that references this message.
what does it mean when I get this error message> The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000135). Please click ok to terminate the application. And, what should I do about it? This is the only site I could find that references this message.
Probably that you don’t have the .NET Framework installed – what are you trying to run?
My user has the DOT NET framework ver. 1.1 installed (and SP1) and he still gets this error.
Application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135)
Any advice?