Time for another round of work towards a “final” release. As near as I can tell, this round of SharpMT is just about feature complete – the latest thing added to 1.1 Beta 3 is the ability to upload images to the Blog server. I can also confirm that this release works with the 2.64 release of MovableType. There’s a couple of caveats with the Image upload feature, so if you’re interested keep reading – if you’re just looking to stay up to date, download Beta 3 here.
First the silly stuff. Still running on the trial compiler, but I don’t think it matters to the code, so that’s good. Microsoft finally got me the proper upgrade today – long after this build was done – so the final release will be compiled on a production compiler – yay! I’ve also upgraded my own server to the new MT version – nothing had to change in my code to support it, so that too is good. Lastly, I’ve expanded the About box to reflect some of the other people that have contributed to this project, mostly in the form of controls and components. They’re URLs are in there so if you plan to do your own C# work, I recommend checking out their controls… they’ve helped to make this project a better one.
And now the upload image news. When you try to upload an image, you have two file names to fill in. The local file name (which is what you Browse for) and the remote file name. The local file name is expecting an image because MT tells me it can only handle images. What happens if you upload something else? I have no idea, because I didn’t try it, but I know that Bitmap and GIF’s worked without a problem. The remote name can be whatever you want it to be – useful if you have a “current photo” link that is always the same URL – and it will always be relative to the Blog URL. This is another rule from MT – I added the “relative to this path” link on the dialog because personally I would forget if I needed the / or not between updates, so there ya go. Lastly, the “remote name” will default to the current file’s name only when the remote name is blank – safer than making people retype a unique name just because they changed the file name.
I think this might be it, for this project. As I’ve mentioned before, WYSIWYG is out for the near and distant future. I was planning on incorporating an RSS Reader’s interface, but I’ve been sorta slacking on that. Other people want to know when the writer will support other Blog engines, and I have to be honest about that: not likely – I’m more inclined to offer the source code to developers than I am to ripping out the MT specific functionality and trying to make a generic UI out of it… sorta goes against the whole reason for the Blog writer in the first place. I am still pipe dreaming about offering an interface that would extend the UI of SharpMT, but that will be a lot of work and I think I’m due for another break. Beyond that – aside from a Pocket PC version, which I’m still bluh about – I’m not sure what else could be incorporated into the project. Of course, every time I say that, I get a bunch of email with new ideas (which are always welcome!) and the cycle begins again so maybe I’m just not looking outside the box today :)
Anyway, this is Release Candidate 1. If I don’t hear about any bugs and everything goes off well, there will be a “final” release next week. If bugs come in – or really cool new stuff to push through – then there will be an RC2.
A RSS reader with easy posting abilities would be awesome!
Um, maybe, but this isn’t an RSS reader? :)
Any chance that a future release will be able to read and use the text formatting plugins on our servers? I kind of like the Textile plugin, but I can’t use it except with the web interface right now.
One other feature I’d like would be the ability to edit old entries. I tried and ended up with two copies. :-)
Great tool. Thanks for your efforts.
@Gary – Often lamented is the edit feature. My response to that is “no” only because MT offers you editing tools and they work while online. Basically – my thinking here – is that if you are working on Draft, you can edit that as often as you like before posting. Once posted, it will add a Link to the Blog Link list – in that window, if you right mouse click and select Edit, it will take you to the Entry via the MT pages… the caveat there is that you have to be online and MT has to be set to “remember me”.
As to the Textile plug-in, this is a first to me. What’s it do in the pages that it doesn’t do, via the SharpMT post, exactly? I’ve never used them so I can’t speak for them, but basically, when I post a draft, I simply tell MT: here’s a post, go post it. If there’s something I’ve missed on the interface I can check that out… otherwise, I’d have to get some more info on the plugin stuff… thanks for the feedback!