And so it begins, again: SharpMT 1.2, Beta 1. The 1.2 version adds two and half major features to SharpMT, and again, they’re from user feedback: support for MT’s text filters (I think, anyway!), customizable tags for Bold/Italics/Underline, and new behavior for the Add URL’s link box (that would be the half feature.) If you have been using 1.1 or earlier, please read the rest of this because there’s some important upgrade information – continue, on to download…

I didn’t put the download link on the main page because if you’ve used a previous version of SharpMT, you need to read this:

To support the Text Filters of MT, all of the existing drafts and any new drafts from this point will have their Text Formatting set to “None”. See, MT considered the “Convert Line Breaks” Text Formatting type to be a Text Filter. Until you click “Update Text Filter”, the only available Text Formatting option is “None”. So. The first time you run 1.2, do the following:

1. Update the Text Filter list by clicking Update Text Filters
2. Update your Draft Defaults via the Options dialog
3. Continue on with your Blog writing!

Now that that’s out of the way, on with the rest of the features. Obviously if you have added plug-ins to your server, to offer other text formats besides None and Convert Line Breaks, they will now be available in SharpMT – once you’ve Updated the Text Filter list, you’ll see the options in Text Formatting on the Advanced window. Since I don’t use any extra filters, I’ve tested this as best I can – please let me know if there’s any bugs otherwise they won’t get fixed!

Customizable tags are now an option for bold, italics, and underline. Under the Format menu there’s a new option called Customizable Tags. In this dialog, you can change the letters used for each of these tags. For example, a number of people have asked for “strong” in place of “b” – for this, change the b to strong. You don’t need the < or > as SharpMT will add those automatically.

Lastly, there’s been two bug fixes. One was caused by changing the directory, while browsing for files to upload, and then trying to access a local file… like switching to the Preview view! The other was yet another with the ComboBox and entering in a URL. This has been changed a bit. If you click the arrow, you’ll see a list of URL’s that you’ve entered in this window before. If you start to type a URL, it will be “auto-filled” with URL’s from the IE cache. Should put any bugs that have crept up with this bothersome dialog to rest.

Download SharpMT 1.2 Beta 1 and check the FAQ for more information.

Some last minute thoughts: I’ll update the screen shots with the next Beta; nothing has really changed but for one extra toolbar button. I’ve considered sorting the categories list, but have opted not to – long story short, it would break more things than it would help and I still say that if MT sorted it, so would I. I’ve also considered moving the data files to the Local Application directory that XP supplies, but two things: not everyone uses XP and people would lose their current entries, so I’ve shelved that too. Spell checking is still a feature I enjoy; dismal donations mean that this will get pushed off further still. Otherwise, I think this release addresses the most recent feature requests.