SharpMT 3.2.1

A smaller update this time, but an update just the same: this one relating to Plug-ins.

Download SharpMT: EXE | MSI

View SharpMT FAQ: FAQ

Download: .NET Framework, version 2.0 (required to run SharpMT 3.2.1)

With regards to the Plug-ins, there’s two different audiences for the changes…

Developers: I got a request for better control over the TextBox that is selected when a Plug-in is called. Part of that request was that when a Plug-in had its own GUI that focus be returned to the TextBox when the Plug-in was done: this works now, and I think of it as a bug fix. Another part of that request – the request for better control – couldn’t be done: the TextBox is disabled while a Plug-in is running, but there’s a workaround… the Interface for SharpMT Plug-ins now has a new property: ReplaceSelectedText. If this is true, any selected text in the active TextBox will be replaced; if false, new text will be inserted into the TextBox… so, if you’re writing SharpMT Plug-ins, you will need the new DLL with the updated Interface for your Plug-ins to run in SharpMT 3.2.1.

End users: Having said the above, as a user of SharpMT, you shouldn’t notice a big difference with the current application. The Plug-ins that I include will insert text, just like they always have… but what the new property will do is allow other Plug-ins some more freedom when it comes to text manipulation. For example, a Plug-in could now take in some selected text and replace it with a complete URL based off the selected text. In some cases, this can be set up by an end user using the custom tags, but if other data needs to be collected (via user or from another server) then a Plug-in has to be used.

For the most part, these were things that should have been behaving this way all along, but I never got around to it. Well that and I’m guessing you’ll see a new Plug-in announcement in the near future… nothing drives features and bug fixes like an active user!

It’s available for download now: EXE | MSI

Screenshots: One | Two | Three


19 thoughts on “SharpMT 3.2.1”

  1. @Cain – that’s pretty much it: a blog is a certain kind of web page that gets updated often. The blog engine takes the entries and publishes them for you, so you often don’t have to worry about HTML tags…

    @Corbin – That’s because no one has written one yet. :) I know of one that someone is working on, but I don’t think he’s done with it – when he is, I’ll be posting it to my blog.

  2. FINALLY FINALLY an app that works with MT/Typepad and is user friendly and does what i want …

    i was going crazy with wbloggar and blogjet and Typepad.

    i have had a blast today redoing my blogs and posting new posts – so much fun and a breeze. (and well so what if i have to learn some html – its time anyway).

    i LOVE your product and am going to donate NOW.

  3. so i have one question – most of the time the focus doesnt work when in the PREVIEW window – in that CTRL E will not work – unless i click in the bloglinks window. and then it will work.

    is that an issue? or a problem with something in my copy?

    still love it – although cant wait for the “future” publishing feature to be added.

    thanks!

  4. Glad it’s workin’ out for ya – another app you might want to look at is ecto – in the past (when it was first started) it has had good support for MT/TP and has Mac support as well.

    Anywya, as for Ctrl+E not working, I’ll take a look. For 3.x I started using a new method for exposing the IE control, so something very well could be wrong… I’ll take a look at it.

  5. Thanks. btw i tried ecto and really didnt like it. i LOVE your product. its changed my blogging to being very pleasurable and i love the way it interacts with Typepad. so once the Ctrl E thing is fixed ….

  6. Would you believe it’s a one bit fix? The Web Browser control as it was dropped into the application is eating all of the accelerator commands. Things like Copy/Paste don’t work either.

    I’ve fixed the switch, but I’m not really ready to do a new release: I can give you a private build if you send me an email… just an EXE that drops over the current EXE. Aside from that, if Ctrl+E doesn’t return to the Main tab, hit TAB and then Ctrl+E: it takes focus off the IE control.

  7. thanks … i just sent you an email with some other quirks… if you want to send me the EXE i would love it as its a bit annoying as it is.

    thanks.

    e

  8. I’m searching DESPERATELY for an MT blog client that will allow me to use the ‘scheduled’ status of MT. I write most of my blog entries once a week and want them to pop up on specific days. So far I don’t see a single MT client that supports the ‘scheduled’ post status.

    Any chance I’m missing something in SharpMT and it’s hiding somewhere?

    Thanks!

  9. You’re not missing it – it’s just currently unsupported. Right now, the time flag has two states: Use Current Time or Use Specific Time. When I looked into adding support for the Future option – that is “post on this date” – I had expected there to be a new value to select from. After all, the status didn’t appear be boolean and when set to “Use Specific Time” I’m already shuttling a DateTime value to the server. However, in SixApart’s infinite wisdom, they went ahead and added a NEW call and a new function that would need to be supported. In short, they took a seemingly simple change and made it into an entirely new feature call.

    Which would cause great pain from my side of the whole process… whenever I have to add a new call, it usually takes weeks to debug b/c XMLRPC sucks and I haven’t had that kinda time over the last few months… It’s on the feature list of “things to do” but I have no idea when it will be added – recently I’ve only been doing UI things and bug fixes.

  10. Hey, just started running into a weird problem. Happens on both SharpMT and ecto (but not if I post directly from the MT screen).

    When I publish a new post, the process aborts in mid-stream with “The underlying connection was closed. A connection that was expected to be kept alive was closed by the server.”

    The entry has been in fact been posted (shows up in the Entries listing), but no categories are assigned, pings aren’t issued, and the rebuild of the indexes hasn’t occurred.

    Poking around on Google seems to associate this error with .NET 2.0 (lots of “this never happened under 1.1, but now I’m getting this all the time”) — and, coincidentally, I started seeing it when I upgraded ecto to 2.0 (which uses the new .NET) and updated SharpMT, too.

    Any thoughts, or any settings or anything I can do about this?

  11. Actually, it’s not .NET. I’ve had it happen with 1.1 and 2.0. It’s happened on two different network types (home and work) – I don’t remember if it happened when I was running MT, but it definitely happens with TypePad. …and it eventually goes away on it’s own. Lame, I know, but I can’t seem to find any timeouts to increase or anything wrong on my end… very odd, just the same.

  12. I have a question about pings. How do you set ping URL’s by default. Right now all I can see is to set them on each post, and since I ping several URLs that can get old real fast.

  13. Actually, you can’t – the only default concerning Pings is whether or not they are turned on for new posts… the Trackback field for any new post is always blank, like the majority of text boxes are…


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