SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.4 – Official Release

The desktop version of SharpMT 2.4 offers some HTML encoding for the upper characters of the Latin alphabet; the mobile version of Pocket SharpMT 2.4 also includes the HTML encoding and a couple of tweaks for the Second Edition of Windows Mobile 2003.

Download SharpMT 2.4: EXE | MSI

Read: SharpMT FAQ

Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3

Download Pocket SharpMT 2.4: ZIP | ARM

Read: Pocket SharpMT FAQ

Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3

What about languages that are not Latin-based? Sorry: I can’t help you… yet. In a perfect world, I could send the characters as is and encoded in UTF-8 format, but either XML-RPC, PeRL, or MT will not allow it. So what I did do is take characters that can be encoded in HTML – like é à – and send them to the server that way. For more on this, please check the Beta 1 information.

Also, for the Pocket version, as I made another revision for Landscape mode and gave the code a look-see on the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition (how can devices this small have names so long?) emulators and it looks OK. Everything but the toolbar paints OK and I can’t tell if it’s the emulator or the code; either way it’s beyond my control because the tool bars work everywhere else…

Future Plans: as I’ve mentioned before I’ve been toying with exposing an interface for plug-ins, but I’m still on the fence about that. My own personal life

has suddenly come alive which means that my personal coding time will shrink a bit: it’s all proportionate. I’m not leaving the project by any means, but the updates will be sporadic and probably clumped together at once.

Also, with regards to Blog engines that say they support XML-RPC, the Blogger API, and any other Interface, I will gladly take a look at new engines as they present themselves. But I do have to state a caveat: XML-RPC is quirky and the Blogger API is even more quirky than XML-RPC. In fact, support of the Blogger API is a completely different format with each new engine I look at – it’s never the same format twice. So, unless a Blog engine specifically states that it supports the MT XML-RPC interface (like TextPad does) I’m pretty sure that it will not work 100% (especially since #MT was designed to be compatible with MT). But I’ll still take a look at it, when asked.

Otherwise, enjoy the new release!

Download SharpMT 2.4: EXE | MSI

Read: SharpMT FAQ

Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3

Download Pocket SharpMT 2.4: ZIP | ARM

Read: Pocket SharpMT FAQ

Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3


31 thoughts on “SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.4 – Official Release”

  1. What’s wrong with the current text editor? What does it no do that you need? Am I missing something here, but the functionality of blogs is limited in text formating so why would there need to be more?

  2. I also would like a deeper undo/redo function in the text editor (undo is available in the context menu — i.e., right click — but not under the Edit menu, so it took me a long time to find it.) I also find the fact that the editor treats ctrl-delete as delete-to-end-of-line instead of delete-word to be a big pain. Putting back the deletions I make that way is what I use the undo function for.

    There is also still a minor problem using SharpMT w/ typepad blogs. On starting up, I get an “unhandled exception” message: “String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.” I can click Continue and go on. But then, if I open a blog link, I get the same error. I click continue, the link does NOT open up, but then if I choose that same blog link a second time, it opens fine. I believe I read somewhere else, perhaps in the typepad user group, that there is some tiny difference in the time format between MT and typepad — one has an extra byte for the timezone or something like that.

    It’s just a small annoyance to me, but it makes it hard to recommend SharpMT to other typepad users who might not be so relaxed about just clicking through errors.

    Other than that, this is a great tool, a hundred times better than any alternative, and the only one that can consistently edit typepad posts.

  3. @Ilya, James, and Mark – Undo/redo is support the same as notepad right now and that’s the best that it can do. If Spellican ever gets around to offering Rich Text control support, I can offer a more robust version of undo/redo – there’s more about that in past version release notes. Right now, given the choice of Spell Checking versus Undo/Redo, I’m offering Spell Checking.

    @Mark – I’d have to debug it under TypePad, which is obviously using a tweak version of MT… I didn’t even know it was at all compatible with it until a user told me about it, so I’ve never tested it with it… I’d have to look into it under an active account.

  4. Randy, editor is fine in that it is simple and with spell checking. However:

    * undo/redo is one-level

    * can’t insert tabs (did you try editing code?)

    Btw, could you please add options to hide Extended Entry panel altogether? It won’t save splitter position as well.

  5. @Ilya – Um, dude, read the above and the other posts about it. I know it only supports one level and tabs in the entire application are for navigation, expecially since HTML ignores them as white space. As to hiding the extended entry panel I will consider it, but it’s not likely to happen, given that the window can be “hidden” by dragging the splitter all the way down… the position saved when I tried it – what is the situation when you close and reopen? Is it maximized or minimized or something?

  6. Okee, forget the editor :) As for splitter, it is not restored correctly when I open existing post for an update. It gets restored in correct position, when I open a new post (Ctrl-N).

  7. Interesting – I’ll dig into that one too. I didn’t get a chance to look at the minimize icon to maximize icon before I shoved 2.4 out the door, but I’ll tackle both of these for the next release…

  8. Well, if you could make it seamless on typepad, I think you’d find a huge new user base, since Zempt and wbloggar don’t work well on typepad at all. Mainly, they can’t retrieve and edit old posts — maybe it’s the same error with the date, and they just choke on it where SharpMT lets you try again. And they have many other shortcomings as well.

    Typepad is tweaked MT, produced by the same people. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial, or I could probably set up a test blog within my own acct and give you authoring priveleges, if you did want to dig into it.

  9. Sure, I’ll poke around – email with the test account, if you can… I know that if I sign up for a trial I’ll forget about it and get charged!

  10. It is bound to Ctrl-Z – it’s whatever is built in to the text box control that Windows supports. The only thing that won’t undo is the tag inserters because – no surprise – I can’t control that either… spent a lot of time working with it, too, but to no avail.

  11. First of all, great program. The only thing I miss is the possibility to assign a css class to a href in the dialog. w.bloggar has this feature and i’d love to see it in SharpMT, too. BTW: w.bloggar remembers the css.classes that are entered in the dialog and offers the previous entried in a popup.

  12. I’ll consider it, but not likely – I’ve purposely focused more on the offline writing than I have tried to make an HTML editor, but I’ll still think about it…

  13. I took a look at their forum – http://wordpress.org/support/4/3002 – and it looks like they are attempting to offer MT support (and using Zempt to test against it), but that’s always iffy. If you have a test server I can point against, I can see what is (and is not) working…

  14. Hmm, I owe you an apology.

    It actually is working, but it produces an ‘error connecting to server’ error and then posts. However it won’t post images, only text, so maybe that’s the problem? It appears to be trying – and failing – to upload the image to a non existent /index.php/wp/images/ directory (wp/images exists!)

    What do you need me to give you to test out the test server?

  15. Not a clue, then. Epsecially since it’s all still in beta (on their end).

    As for a test account, just an account on the blog, preferably a blog I can post to without messing up your regular work. :)

  16. I can not connect to my server. I get the following error:

    “Error connecting to host!”

    I have gone through your faq, I can not find the file “http.pm” that you suggest to edit though. Please help. I have an iPaq 1910 with Pocket PC version 3 on it.

    Any help is appreciated.

  17. Well, the http.pm only applies to those specific versions of MT and the files are on the server that you’re connecting to. If you’re concerned that your server might not have this configuration set up, you can create a test account for me and email me the info – I can try it from here and see if it’s set up for it. Or you can download the desktop version of SharpMT as that will be lan line based.

    Otherwise, what other info can you offer me? WiFi? GPRS? LAN? the parameters being sent, etc?

  18. This is great software (Pocket SharpMT)

    Exactly what I was looking for.

    There are two things which I kind of see as bugs, and would be indebted further to you if you could address them:

    There is no tab order, so when I hit the tab key to switch fields, nothing happens. (using serial keyboard)

    When i select a field to give it focus so I can type, it brings up the on screen keyboard by default, which would not be so much of a problem if that was what I used, but it would be nice if it could remember its status (open or closed) from the previous field it was in. Basically disable to auto open of the on screen keyboard.

    If these could be addressed I would be more than happy to chip in for beer and pizza :)

  19. Got two answers for ya :) Tab Order isn’t supported in the CF on mobile devices (if I remember that correctly) so tapping (or in this case) pressing tab won’t do anything…

    The auto-pop of the SIP can be turned off on the Options dialog… that I know is in there b/c I hate the freakin’ thing!

    And cheers for the pizza and beer!

  20. That’s odd. I’m using it on TypePad on an almost daily basis. Are you setting the time to something odd or something?

  21. i am using v2.6…

    nope, i havent chnged anythng on my date n time.. i think other users are xpriencing this 2.. i read MARK SCHMITT’s… actually im using zempt, and i dont xprience that prob.. only thing i hate aboout it is it cant load blog entries as good as urs… i luv ur software so much.. im using friendster blog by the way powered by typepad, and i didnt have problems seting it with all desktop clients i tried including urs… the only problem

    is the:”String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.” error.. so ryt now, i cant use ur program…

  22. Then I guess ya can’t use it – I mean I happen to use TypePad, having gotten tired of attempting to support MT in a Windows world… I’ve never seen the message in question. There were a couple of “TypePad” specific things that needed to be worked on, but that was the whole point for 2.6, since that was the point that I changed over :)

    I do always use “Use Server Time” when published (same as you) but I also know I tested putting a date and time value in there, just to make sure it worked… the only thing that looks outta the ordinary is the Friendster layer, which might be doing something that Zempt knows about but I don’t – I’ve never used that as part of my blogging… sorry I can’t be of more help on this!


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