SharpMT: FAQ

Welcome to SharpMT 3

"It's deja vu, all over again" [Yogi Berra]

This is the third generation of an application that was created out of necessity over anything else. I write a Blog of my own (RandyRants.com) and I try to get two or three new entries posted to it a week. I currently use TypePad but have historically used MovableType (MT) - http://www.movabletype.org/ - to host my Blog, which provides a number of tools for posting new and editing exiting Blog entries. Thankfully MT and TypePad are completely compatible, so this project can continue to be useful. Anyway, to use these tools, your PC needs to be online - because I find that I write the majority of my new Blog entries offline, I needed something new.

I tried a few different tools out there that promised exactly that: offline authoring. However, most of these applications were written with the most generic set of blog fields possible, to support the largest number of blogging servers possible. I use TypePad/MT and I needed all of the fields that were specifically offered, so these existing tools didn't work for me. Also, I found that when I wanted to link new entries to existing entries, I had to go online and dig through my old posts to find the article link, which was painful at times.

And so I started SharpMT which now continues its evolution.

Product Features

Save drafts locally - save entries that you're working on to your local hard drive
One button posting - send any of your drafts to the server with one button click
Edit multiple drafts simultaneously - a tabbed interface allows multiple drafts to be open at the same time
Multiple categories per post - select more than one category for each draft published to the server
Standard tag support - add bold, italics, underline, and URL tags via tool bar, menu, or keyboard
Download existing posts - download the title and entry of existing blog enties from your server and store it on your hard drive for linking and editing
Shell checking support - built in spell checking module underlines misspelled words in red
Edit server-based posts - download server-based entries, edit them, and then upload the changes to the server
Sync-able links list - advanced download techniques will always minimize data request for new published posts
Sync-able categories list - pull an updated category list from your server at anytime
Sync-able text filters list - apply existing server based text filters for drafts
MT specific creation - use MT's extended fields, such as publishing status, categories, and excerpts
Integrated Preview - built in Previewing allows you to view your drafts based on an HTML template
Upload Images - upload any of your local images to anywhere within your blog
RSS Aggregator integration - start new Blog entries from the most popular RSS Aggregator applications
MP3 Player integration - add "now playing" information into Drafts with WMP9's blogging plug-in
Favorites integration - list of Favorites from IE available as insertable links
Customizable tag support - change the tags generated for bold, underline, italics and ten custom tags
Customizable toolbar images - change the look of SharpMT by changing two images
Shell integration - double-clicking a draft file will open it in a SharpMT window
Bookmarklet support - any URL that starts with sharpmt:// will be inserted into a new blog draft
Updated UI - using the minimizing, docking and floating window suppose of .NET 2.0 for a modern interface
Help system - a standard Windows based help system with comprehensive and detailed documentation
Extendable interface - developers can add their own Plug-In by supporting the ISharpMTExtension

Getting Started

Launch SharpMT, by selecting it's icon from the Start menu. If there are any errors reported, please check the Troubleshooting section below
Set up your Blog's server settings by opening the Options dialog, either by clicking the Options tool bar button or selecting the "Options..." menu item
On the Options dialog, enter your web server's host name, CGI-BIN path, user name and password. This information can be gotten from your MT's administration pages
To refresh the list of available blogs, click the Refresh button. Blogs that are available will appear in the blog list box; after you've selected a blog, click OK to continue
From the main SharpMT window, click you can now download your categories (recommended for draft writing) or links (recommend for using the online editing function)
You can now create a new draft, save it locally and post it to your blog server

Other things of interest:

Blog Links window - you can view any links that you've downloaded in this window; these links are also available when adding a URL for inter-post linking
Edit mode - use this view to edit your draft
Advanced mode - use this view to edit your draft's advanced options/li>
Preview mode - this view will allow you to view your current draft using an HTML template

Troubleshooting

Q: I tried to run your application, but I'm getting a huge message box, with an error that tells me it can't find some DLL files. What's wrong?
Q: I installed SharpMT on my computer and when I start the program up it says it can't find MSCOREE.DLL.

A: Your PC doesn't have the 1.1 version of the .NET Framework installed on it yet! You can get this from the Windows Update website for Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP (Professional or Home), and Windows Server 2003.
Q: You said you'd never offer online-editing but 2.0 has it - why the change and how does it work?

A: To modify a server based entry, you first must have the Blog Link that represents the entry in your Blog Link list. Once there, double click the Blog Link in question - or right mouse click and select Edit - and a new tab will appear in the SharpMT window. You should notice a couple of things at this point, first being that the icon next to the name of the draft will be a Blog Link icon and the name of the draft doesn't end in .SMT, but other differents apply. First, you cannot save a Blog Entry locally; you'll find on the Advanced tab that there is a Post ID rather than a local file name. Second, you cannot modify the URL's to Ping field of this entry - MT doesn't send it to me! Lastly, you cannot "clear" the categories - you may change whatever you'd like with the categories but you if you set it to "(none)" it will be ignored by the XML-RPC routines. Because of these restrictions, you'll also notice a "Edit in Browser" option when you right mouse click. One more thing: when dealing with multiple Blogs, I strongly recommend making sure that you've refreshed your categories before opening any drafts or server-based entries because MT bases the categories off index values and not names!
Q: I had a number of drafts saved and half of my settings have been forgotten - what's wrong?

A: Odds are you changed from 1.x to 2.x. The drafts structure has changed a great deal, so none of the existing drafts can be loaded the same way. They are still stored on your hard drive in the original SharpMT directory (blogDrafts.xml). You'll also notice that the list of Blog Links is gone - that changed it's location to a more accessible location on your hard drive. The Drafts and Advanced tabs are gone too, replaced with a new dialog and a new tab. You should be able to refresh your blog list, categories, blog links, and text formatting options and be back up and running!
Q: I'm trying to use SharpMT, but it keeps failing while trying to access my blog server. I'm certain that my host name, CGI-BIN path, user name and password are all correct - what's wrong?

A: If your blog server is hosted by an IIS (version 5.x) Server that's running MobileType 2.x, there is a know problem with one of the MT modules, but it is easily resolved. In the MT\ExtLib\XMLRPC\Transport directory, open the HTTP.pm file. Add the following line:
```
undef $ENV{SERVER_SOFTWARE};
```
before this line:
```
@XMLRPC::Transport::HTTP::CGI::ISA = qw(SOAP::Transport::HTTP::CGI);
```
and SharpMT should start be able to access the server. Windows Server 2003 does not exhibit this behavior.
Q: I'm not running IIS and I still can't connect. What's wrong this time?

A: There was a bug with Beta 1 and 2 of SharpMT 1.0 that prevented SharpMT from accessing web servers that host more than one Blog. This was fixed in Beta 3.
Q: I've noticed that there's a number of "Multi" options now for SharpMT 2 - what's the bottom line?

A: A number of things can handle multiple objects while a couple cannot. You can open multiple Drafts at the same time; you cannot open multiple Blog Entries at the same time. You can save all open Drafts at the same time; because you cannot save any Blog Entries locally, these are ignored when you select "Save All". "Close All" will close all open Drafts and Blog Entries. "Delete" will delete all selected Blog Links. Lastly, "Post All Open Drafts" will post new entries of all open local Drafts and post updates to any open Blog Entries; "Post to Server" will add a new entry or update an existing entry for the current selected Draft/Entry.
Q: I had the default text formatting set to "Convert Line Breaks" but after I upgraded to 1.2, it's now set to None - what happened?

A: Support for Text Filters is what happened. Out of the box, SharpMT comes with "no" Text Filters, so you need to sync them up with the server. Click the "Update Text Filters" button and you'll get the list of text filters on your server, which will almost always include "Convert Line Breaks". Once you've updated this list, you can re-set the defaults via the Options dialog. Sorry for the confusion, but this had to be done to add this new feature.
Q: I keep setting the publishing status of my drafts to "Draft" yet when I upload them to my MT server, they show up as Publish - why is this happening?

A: This is by design, accoring to the 2.1 (and later) release of MT: In 2.1 we changed the behavior of the $publish flag. Previously, it was used to determine the post status. That was a bad idea. So now entries added through XML-RPC are always set to publish, *unless* the user has set "NoPublishMeansDraft 1" in mt.cfg, which enables the old behavior.
Q: Why is it that whenever I try to use "Edit with Browser" I get an error or the login screen for my Blog?

A: For the Edit in Browser feature to work, you must a) be online to access your Blog server and b) you must use the Remember Me option when you log in to your Blog. If you don't use Remember Me, then the Blog server will always expect you to log in!
Q: I keep seeing the error message: The Spell Checker cannot be found! when I try to run SharpMT. How can I fix this?

A: Some how one of the files SharpMT requires to run is missing - please reinstall SharpMT and the file will be reinstalled.
Q: How do I change the images that are used in the toolbar?

A: Originally SharpMT had skinable toolbars, but since there was never any adoption of this, and it was becoming a pain to maintain, it was cut from SharpMT 3 (and later).
Q: Why don't you support multiple categories and the keywords or URLs to Ping fields?

A: I do, as of 1.0 Beta 3. Go get the latest version!
Q: I turned on the Tracing Window and now I can't close it. What does it do, by the way?

A: Tracing was added in Beta 4 to help troubleshoot the problems that people are having with SharpMT and their particular Blog configuration. It can be turned on and off via the Options dialog and should only be turned on if you're having problems. The tracing window was purposely built not to close; if tracing is on it stays on for the whole session. This is also why this dialog box opens minimized and is show in the task bar: it should be easy to get to but it should also be easily forgotten, unless it's needed.
Q: I don't like the way SharpMT is display my previews - can I change the formatting?

A: Yes! When SharpMT was installed it included a file named previewHtml.htm - this includes a default template for displaying your drafts in SharpMT. You can edit this file however you see fit - the following optional values are used to reflect the current draft's fields: <MTEntryTitle> <MTEntryCategory> <MTEntryBody> <MTEntryMore> <MTEntryExcerpt>
Q: When I use the Preview mode, I'm seeing "something wrong with line breaks" - what causes this?

A: The Preview mode uses the draft's "Text Formatting" settings, converting line breaks as it would when you posted a draft to your server. If you're seeing strange line breaks, change the text formatting setting for this draft.
Q: Why is every image upload based off the Blog URL and why can I only upload images?

A: These two items are related. The upload of the images is part of the MT functionality exposed via the XML-RPC - it is not an FTP upload! Since MT expects the uploaded file to be an image, it treats it like an image. Can other types of files be uploaded? I'm sure it could, but I don't know what it would look like when it got to the server. As to what the directory location is, that is also part of the specification. If you select a local image called image1.jpg and upload it to the server with the "remote name" of _images/screenshot1.jpg it will be found at [blogURL]/_images/screenshot1.jpg - that root location is set by MT; the file name is whatever you tell SharpMT you want it to be.
Q: I'd rather use strong and em for bold and italics; can I change the default tags?

A: Yes - this was added in version 1.2. To customize the tags that SharpMT generates for bold, italics and underline formatting commands, go to Customize Tags under the Format menu. You only need to change the letters for each tag; the rest of the formatting is still managed by SharpMT.
Q: I have music playing with Windows Media Player, so why does SharpMT tell me that it can't find any music?

A: You need the Blogging plug-in! Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/windowsmediaplayer/downloads/create.asp and download the blogging plug-in. I also believe that the WinAMP 2 and WinAMP 3 plugins from http://www.minimalverbosity.com/2003/April/29/introducing_wmpamplog.htm will work as well.
Q: Does only the Extended Entry window grow automatically? Can't I make the other windows bigger?

A: Yes! Get the latest version of SharpMT as this was added in 2.1. The Title/Category section and the Excerpt section can be Minimized and the Body and Extended entry sections can be resized using the splitter bar. The most resently saved window positions will be stored by SharpMT to open drafts or create new drafts with, offering as persistant settings as possible: if you minimize the top and bottom sections and close SharpMT any other draft that you open (or create) will start with them Minimize until they are changed. Body and Extended can't have a Minimize option, as they share the same space, but either of the two can be "minimized" by moving the splitter window up or down.
Q: What's the deal with the Insert Image link checkbox on the upload image dialog?

A: This was added in SharpMT 2.1 - basically, if you had your cursor in an edit box and clicked Upload Image, you now have to option of injecting a link, with a couple of image properties, set to point to the image you just uploaded. The tag format that is used is set on the Tag's tab on the Options dialog. There are two values that can be filled in by SharpMT: [IMAGELINK], which is the image's blog based link, and [ALTTAG], which will be filled in with the ALT field on the Upload dialog. For example, if your Image tag was set to <img src="[IMAGELINK]" alt="[ALTTAG]" border="0"> and you uploaded an image (with the "insert tag" check box selected) then that tag would be inserted into your draft with the [] values filled in. If you open the Upload Image dialog and the check box is disabled, you didn't have focus on a control that could accept the created link - put focus on an edit box and re-open the dialog.

Donation Information

Rather than offering this application as shareware, I've decided to make it available as Donation-ware. Use it for as long and as often as you'd like to. However, for there to be future releases, new features and bug fixes, the project will need some form of support, to keep it going. So if you find that you like using SharpMT and would like to see it get better as it evolves over time, please visit our donation page at http://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt.

Support Information

Should you encounter any problems that are not addressed by this FAQ, please contact us at randyrants@hotmail.com. As this is Donation-ware, support requests will be answered as quickly as our resources allow it. Users that have donated funds to this project can expect a faster than average response to their support issues in most cases. SharpMT is known to run with MovableType 2.63; it's compatibility with older MT versions is unknown.

Version History

Most recent:

3.5 - 28-Dec-2011/3.5.0.0

Moved to .NET Framework 4.0

FIX: updated the binaries so they would run correctly on a 64-bit OS
FIX: updated the installer to handle registration of the SpellChecking OCX
FIX: the Minimize links on the main window now display correctly in Vista and Windows 7

3.3 - 9-Aug-2006/3.3.0.0

General code clean up and fixes
Formally includes installation changes for Windows Vista (Beta 2)

Added a new bool variable to the Plug-in interface: developers now have the option of inserting results or replacing results
FIX: When a Plug-in has its own UI and results are returned, focus now returns to the proper Text Box

3.2 - 10-Feb-2006/3.2.0.0

Added shortcut keys for Custom Tags: Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+0
Added shortcut keys for Plug-ins: Ctrl+Shift+1 through Ctrl+Shift+0
Cleaned up the behavior of the Tracing window: it doesn't popup on its own and doesn't have an enabled Close button anymore (you couldn't ever close it anyway)
FIX: Edit menu and toolbar weren't properly enabled when focus was on the Keywords field
FIX: MRU now tells you when it can't find a file and removes the entry, like it used to

3.1 - 6-Dec-2005/3.1.0.0

Updated the "encoding" proc to handle additional characters that are often in web pages but non-ASCII
Moved the Keywords text box to the main tab, to follow the TypePad page
FIX: Menus now work on the initial launch of the application and if there's no draft open

3.0 - 27-Oct-2005/3.0.0.0

Updated to use the official release of Visual Studio 2005
FIX: Toolbars now work if there's no draft open
FIX: The context menu on the Blog Links panel works as intended

FIX: URL's that start with sharpmt:// now start the application properly
FIX: Post to Server will only post the current post, instead of posting all open Drafts
FIX: The "original" preview HTML document is being included again
FIX: Minimize to SysTray Icon works again

Added support for sharpmt:// URL types
Minor clean ups for text, labels and version numbers

Migrated to the 2.0 Beta 2 release of the .NET Framework
Migrated to the "new" menu and toolbar controls
Migrated to the built in HTML class
Changed the Add URL drop down to suggest while typing and the drop down shows the last 20 URLs entered
Recompiled all modules, help files, and plug-ins to support new version number
Fixed a bug with Pings not being sent (unless "Allowed Pings" was checked)

2.6 - 20-Nov-2004/2.6.0.0

Better support for TypePad based blogs
Included a TypePad template for Link exports

2.5 - 25-Apr-2004/2.5.0.0

Version number and a couple of tweaks

Added first cut of the Amazon book search Plug-In
Fixed bug that left focus in limbo when closing the Options form

Fixed bug with restoring to a maximized state when using Systray icon
Fixed bug that didn't set the header and footer "hide" links
Fixed bug where a new splitter size wasn't reflected on edit-in-place posts (closing a post or a draft saved the splitter location for the next new one opened (like browser windows))
Updated ExamplePlugIn.dll to support version 0.9.2 of ISharpMTExtension

Added the Plug-In menu and tool bar access
Updated the Plug-In section of the Options dialog to manage Extension Plug-Ins

2.4 - 8-Apr-2004/2.4.0.0

Version number and a couple of tweaks

Drafts are now saved and opened as UTF-8
When submitting to a server, ASCII characts between from 160 to 255 are encoded to HTML's   to ÿ

2.3 - 20-Mar-2004/2.3.0.0

Fixed a couple of more things
Updated help

Couple of bug fixes

Added proxy support (first pass)

2.2 - 19-Feb-2004/2.2.0.0

Fixed a Mutex bug that left an extra (and unused) directory in the Application Data\RandyRants.com\SharpMT directory
New icon and splash screen

Changed custom tag support to be 10 tags
Modified the Tags panel on the Options dialog to support 10 tags
Upgraded the toolbar/menu control to a newer version
Added a toolbar button and modified the Format menu to support the new custom tags

Removed installation enhancement to improve start up times

New help system has been incorporated: press F1

Only one instance of SharpMT can be opened at a time now

Many bug fixes within the new plug-in

Fixed bug with Text Filtering being "ignored" by HTML preview
Added new plug-in for integration with RSS Aggregators that support IBlogExtension (SharpMTPlugIn.dll)
Added new file for formatting the RSS information in the SharpMT working folder

2.1 - 18-Jan-2004/2.1.0.0

Fixed bug with Upload Image being enabled with no draft open
Updated version number

Added a clear MRU button to the Options Dialog
Cleaned up some more Blog Link issues with delete/sorting/counts
Added "draft" default for the Target field in "Add Link"

Added an 8-deep MRU list to the File menu

Oops: fixes to the links list management
Updated the version number

Added support for spell checking
Added sorting support for Blog Link columns
Bug fix to the DateTime value showing on the Links window (now 24-hour format)

Updated the splitter/minimize/restore logic so the panels do not overlap
Added support for Alt in the Image Upload dialog

Image Tag for uploaded images
Custom Tags for editing
Updated interface to include a splitter and some minimize options
Added new draft level default for using server time or a custom Date/Time stamp
Links will now show the date and time that they were posted in the Links window
Install modification - checks for 1.1 of the .NET Framework before installing

2.02 - 28-Oct-2003/2.0.2

Fixed the display of existing server based drafts to retain line breaks
Cleaned up the Upload Media dialog to help save distination confusion
Version number changed

Extended Keywords and Text Filter boxes on Advanced tab
Bug fixes to the MT/RPC communication layer (hopefully extends support to dasBlog)
Version number changed

Fixed bug with the Links column header not resizing itself until SharpMT is restarted; it now sizes as it should
Version number changed

Added a check via Internet for new version

Fixed bug for XP's Styles not being shown in all controls
Corrected spelling type for "Previous Draft"
Fixed Minimize to Tray bug; it now restores when clicked
Draft now resaves itself after a successful post
Categories are now sorted alphabetically

Added multi-post for any/all open drafts; single post only posts the currently selected tab
Fixed bug with Draft switching and closing via the X button
Fixed bug with the wrong "filename" being shown when prompting for saving on close
Fixed bug with multiple categories being set multiple times in Drafts
Double clicking a Blog link opens it for editing
Post will now post a new entry for Drafts and update Blog Link that's open for editing
Delete now deletes one Blog Link from the list (local item management - not a server delete)

Multiple Drafts can be opened at the same time - each tab has one draft, reflected by the Draft file name
Drafts are now stored one to a file
Saving Drafts attempt to use the Draft title as a filename - reserved characters are converted to _'s
Drafts panel is now gone
Drafts are stored in a customizable directory (defaults to \My Documents\My Drafts)
Save Draft will prompt for a file name (defaults to the Draft Title)
Save All walks through all tabs and saves accordingly
Close Draft will close the select draft
Next Draft/Prev Draft well scroll through the open drafts
The Advanced Panel is now a tab of the main draft window
The Mode tabs are now at the bottom of the Draft
Drafts are stored with a .SMT extension (and in XML)
"Sent to Server" is now on the Advanced tab
Command-line parameter for a "open" filename is now support
A Draft converter is included to move from Sharp 1.x to Sharp 2.x
New default path option for uploading images

1.3 - 23-Aug-2003/1.3.0

Version number changed

Added new tab for Favorites on Add URL dialog

Bug fix for Delete (Menu/Toolbar) not deleting select Drafts
Added support for "title" in Add URL dialog
Added support for Music plug-ins
Moved customize tag options to the Options dialog

Bug fix for duplicate/extra categories when opening posts
New look for Options dialog
Added "Published" flag for Drafts List
Added "Authored On" field (Advanced Panel)

1.2 - 15-Jul-2003/1.2.0

Version number changed

Added customize tag support; added new menu item under Format menu
Added support for Text Filters
Changed the behavior of the ComboBox in AddURL; it works like the IE URL box
Fixed a bug in the handling of local directories, when uploading files
Clean up the Tracing window with better scrolling

1.1 - 5-Jun-2003/1.1.0

Version number changed
Cleaned up the FAQ file

Uploading images to the Blog server is now supported
Confirmed that this release works with MT's 2.64 release

.NET Framework 1.1 is now required!
Preview mode is now supported
previewHtml.htm is now included with the installation as a default Preview Template
Fixed bug with new .NET Framework while reading existing drafts and links via XML (this may resent some of the "Comments Allowed" settings for existing drafts the first time this version is run)

Added a new set of classes to offer docking/floating windows

1.0 - 6-May-2003/1.0.8

Added shortcut command for Post
Final release of 1.0

Bug fix for ComboBox in AddURLs
Added extended fields for AddURL
Added Edit Link to ListView

Fixed the URLs to Ping/TrackBack problem
Confirmed the Windows 2000 bug with saving the registry

New version number (matches Beta rev)
Huge bug fix for Apache hosted Blog servers while posting
Bug fix for a problem with too many items in the URL drop down
Tweaked Options Dialog
Better formatted tracing
Minimize to System Tray (Options dialog)
New menu item on the Blog Links right mouse click
Splitters for both details windows

Added tracing support
Added "New Draft" options via the Options dialog
Made a small, small tweak to the registry settings
Started to investigate why post will sometimes fail on Apache hosted servers

Bug fixes for Blog Listreading on multi-Blog servers
Bug fixes for other navigation issues
Added Keyword and URLs to Ping fields
Added support for multiple categories per draft

Added new Toolbar and Menu classes for richer UI look
Added some additional threading support for a cleaner UI during network calls
Added a progress bar to prove that network activity is commencing
Request: Making the Entry Box larger

Initial release

Thanks for the interest in SharpMT and happy blogging!