SharpMT – 1.1 Release

Announcing the official release of SharpMT 1.1! The 1.1 version adds three major features to SharpMT, all formed from user feedback: a preview mode for drafts, the ability to upload images to your Blog server, and a sharper design for the embedded windows of SharpMT. Some important links for SharpMT:

Product info: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/

FAQ: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/faq.htm

Download: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt.exe (always the latest final version – currently 1.1)

As to what SharpMT is and what it does, check the FAQ as it has a write up about the product – the blog entries here also tell a detailed story as SharpMT 1.0 and 1.1 were built. The 1.1 release not only adds the three features listed above but it also addresses what I always thought was the biggest hole in the 1.0 version: the Add URL combo box, which has been completely retooled – I actually like the way it works now!

Is this the end of the line to SharpMT? Probably not, but I do consider it “done” for now. If the blog server software has a drastic change to it’s XML-RPC interface, yes, SharpMT will probably be upgraded, because I use it myself! If donation money ever reaches critical mass, yes I will include a spell checker. But for the most part, with the exception of a couple of features that I deemed to be overkill, things are working and I’m pretty freakin’ happy with it. I hope you are too!

Now I can get back to Ranting – and raving – about life and step away from the programming babble!

Well, for at least a little while…

Download 1.1 of SharpMT now!

Lastly, some updated screenshots of 1.1:


21 thoughts on “SharpMT – 1.1 Release”

  1. Strange.. Trying to run the app, nothing happens. An error sounds, but now window appears revealing what’s wrong..

  2. @Jason – first I’ve heard of that. Do you have the 1.1 .NET Framework installed? Also what OS are you running? Thanks!

  3. Ahh, my mistake. Failed to read the requirements for 1.1 (i’m running 1.0).

    Off to update I go :)

  4. How do I edit a previously published post in SharptMT?

    In w.bloggar I can just click on the posts button and select which one I want to edit. This is a very convenient feature.

    Your Faq mentions:

    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.

    I still can’t figure out how to d/l old posts and edit them… is it possible to do so in SharpMT 1.1?

  5. @Jason – No worries! I wish there was a way to better trap the “can’t find .NET Framework” messages but the only way to show a message is to have the framework working… no chicken and no egg.

    @KO – These are the “Blog Links” list. It is initially the tab to the right of your screen. You can also download a number of different links (see Options for those settings) and once they are downloaded, they are stored locally. With regards to editing, #MT doesn’t do it on its own. However if you right click one of the links and select Edit, it will open the entry in the MT web pages (which does a better job of managing the Blog and I could ever hope to).

  6. Ok,I got the gist of that… but do you think you would be able to implement previous post editing within sharptmt? It seems #MT does most of the work already. If it has the post along with the post ID, then isn’t it just a matter of posting it back the same way as a normal new post is, except with the ID number of the previous post? w.bloggar manages to do it quite well, and its not even geared towards MT as such.

    I don’t think muuch new coding would be required, though I am not sure.

    Regardless, thanks for #MT, its a great app! I am very impressed with the speed that u whipped it up.

  7. Actually, it requires a lot more coding, if it’s to be “correctly” (it’s been debated in some of the earlier betas’ comments as well). MT, for all tense and purposes is a database. If #MT were to try to keep a running list of posts locally to update the server, it – to me anyway – is akin to trying to keep two databases in sync. The worst thing that can happen here, if for some reason the Post ID’s get screwed up, is that #MT overwrites an existing post – that’s the worst possible error I could think of: data loss. That coupled with these two presumed things: a) MT gives you tools to edit posts when you’re online and they always work, and b) you’d usually only have need to edit an published post when you’re online, which means that the MT tools are available anyway. The only downside is that you’d have to leave the #MT window, but this is also why I have the Edit link… Glad ya like the rest of it though!

  8. Thanks for a fantastic little tool.

    You say that for the moment you consider it done, fair enough, but here’s one small wish, one that actually bugs me most in the native MT interface:

    The “Entry Body” text box is too small and cannot be resized.

    I guess I write about 90% of my posts in the main “Entry Body” text box and only for about 10% of my posts do I need to use the “Extended Entry” fuctionality… I’d love to see a resizable and/or bigger Entry Body text box. For the rest, kudos!

  9. In reference to editing entries locally:

    Yes, it makes no sense to have two databases, especially if you have multipile authors.

    But I’ve been using w.bloggar, and it doesn’t store entries locally. It does, but every time I want to edit a previous post it gets the last 5 or 10 titles (u can choose) and then it downloads the one entry selected. So in the period of time that you edit and post that one entry u do have two copies. To edit that entry again bloggar gets it again from the server.

    I don’t want to bug you about this, but it does make things a lot easier. I am setting up a site for a journalist, and for him it would be a lot easier just to deal with one interface. Most times he will never be editing any entries again, just once in a while right after posting there might be something to add. This feature doesn’t need to be bulletproof either.

  10. @Frank – I’ll look into it. I modelled the sizes off of the MT sizes because that’s how I figured people used them. I actually write my entire draft in the extended window and then copy the bits over that need to be duplicated to different boxes.

    @KO – Sorry, but it’s beyond the scope of what #MT was done for… the most I’m willing to do at this time is the Edit right mouse click. I know how w.Blogger handles existing posts; I actually really disliked having to always pull down the posts. To me it eats bandwidth and time, so that’s what lead me to start keeping them locally, when dealing with linking old entries. As to it not having to be bulletproof, that’s the farthest thing from the truth and the absolute worst case of all scenarios! We’re dealing with published data – if an edit munged itself, it could kill the existing blog. Not only that, but for every tech support complaint I get, I feel obligated to answer them… if I put out something buggy, I’d get bombarded with emails… if I was charging for it, sure, no complaints, but this is and should always be free/donation. Sorry, but it’s staying as is for the longer term, I think. Besides w.Blogger, you might also want to check some of the other offline blogging projects like http://www.zempt.com/ or I think Jeremy is working on one (http://www.eskimo.com/~jeremyk/)

  11. Randy- Very handy software; thanks for making it available.

    I had two minor issues in the “nice to fix” category that I thought I’d pass along:

    1. Categories should probably be sorted alphabetically in the category combo box and multi-category selector dialog.

    2. With MT 2.6x supporting different text filters, it would be nice to retrieve and use this list (mt.supportedTextFilters method). I’ve been using Textile lately and have really found it useful, but SharpMT doesn’t yet show it as a choice.

    thanks!

  12. @Brian – you’re actually the second person to ask about the filters, but since I know nothing about them, I haven’t been able to code for them. As to the category list, I’ve kept it in the order that MT sends it to me – it’s stpred internally the same way… in a future release I might switch it to a hash table, but it’s as is for now… thanks for the support!

  13. Just downloaded and fired up this neat little tool. Thanks for your work on it.

    I’d concur that the lack of sorting on the categories is highly distracting. Definitely at the top of my list (so far) for v1.2.

    I look forward to putting #MT thruogh its paces.

  14. @Dave – thanks for the support. As to the categories see the other comments… it’s acting the same ways as MT’s entry page right now, but I’ll take it under consideration!

  15. security_zealot

    I tried this application out and was greeted with an ugly UnauthorizedAccessException with it trying to write to the program’s directory (mgcState.xml) ;) This is because I run my computer securely. Please consider treating per-user settings as per-user settings and placing them under the user’s Application Data\SharpMT directory where they should be stored. (I haven’t diagnosed this further, maybe something else is going on, regardless… it’s trying to write to a restricted location)

    Off the top of my head you’d be looking at System.Environment.GetSpecialFolder(enum) or something along those lines. VS.NET’s auto complete really spoils the memory doesn’t it? :)

    I don’t mean to come off rude in this comment! I’m just a zealot about lockdowns and the state of Windows security being horrible without apps considering that scenario. I just figure you’d probably listen and it shouldn’t be too much trouble. As a bonus, it also assists the scenario of a shared computer, everyone gets their own seperated config files isolated from everyone else’s :) And if your Application Data is redirected, it will follow that redirection. I keep my apps installed locally but I keep as much as possible up on the server getting backed up regularly. Every app that stores settings in the Program Files dir is another app I’d have to set up again if I reinstalled and didn’t remember to hunt for config files.

    &lt/security_zealot

  16. @teeb – I’ll consider it, but in all honestly, I’d rather have all of the data files in one centralized location (for application, support, XML, etc. files) for two reasons. One is for my own versioning and testing – it makes my life easier knowning that I can have a released and debug directory while I’m working on new versions… since I use the application for my own blog writing, I keep the environments separate. The other is for “portability” between machines, in my case notebook to desktop. One of my pet peeves with Windows over the years is that when you install an app, it throws files all over the PC. Windows, Windows\System, Program Files, Application Data, etc. – drives me insane when moving stuff from machine to machine. Also, FYI, the registry settings are currently per user account (being stored under “CURRENT_USER” rather than LOCAL_MACHINE”)… with this particular application, if it works for me, I usually leave it alone – if it were a commercial product, then there would be more user testing, etc. Anyway, like I said, I’ll consider it for future releases. Thanks for the interest!

  17. Randy, Thanks for your reply!

    I see what you mean about your scheme of doing things. hmm how about this for a compromise. Since you’re already doing a little storage in HKCU:

    Catch the UnauthorizedAccessException. This would say, I don’t have access to the normal location. At that point present a choice to the user… saying something like “it looks like you don’t have write access to where the program is, do you want to use your personal profile directory”. If they say Yes switch over to profile mode and flag that in their registry for future usage, if they say No say “well, fix your permissions sparky!” and give a clean exit ;)

    Or perhaps even make it automatic. Either way it assists both situations without too much work, granted that the routines writing the datafiles are nicely encapsulated.

    As it stands now, you do have an untrapped exception… if that’s motivational enough. ehhe :)

    For the time being Ill copy the program into my network home directory although it’s not my preference and give it a shot.

  18. @teeb – One unhandled exception on a completed project out of about 9 thousand downloads? Not sure if that constitutes motivation or not, but it does get my attention all the same. Like I said, I’ll add it to the list of things to work on. Believe it or not, you’re the first person to have this particular problem, and right now I’m not coding anything for #MT; I’m just keeping a running To Do list for when (or if) I start working on a 1.2 version. Ironically, Donation-ware has amassed even less money than my Shareware products, which is something that I never thought possible… I at least thought there would be enough cash to buy a license for a shareware module! And while I didn’t release #MT for cash (obviously) when I have to choose between working on a the free project and getting my manuscript ready for publishing, it makes for a very easy decision for me. All the same, if I start working on a new version, I will certainly address some of these things, including a bug that I found myself when working with the file-based, local-directory depended routines… odds are I’ll end up using the MS sanctioned directory (which will clear up your first issue) and go against my own personal preference for data storage. But that’s going to be at least a number of weeks out. Thanks again for the digging on this, though – I’d rather know about these issues than NOT know!

  19. Randy, sounds good. I do understand your views and motivations on this project. Frankly, I neeeeeever get anything done to even release it in the first place if it’s not for work, so you’re way ahead of me ;) Take it easy.


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