For those of you using BloGTK 2.0 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic, you’ve probably noticed a few problems with crashes. Like, a lot of crashes.
From what I’ve been able to tell, BloGTK will crash when more than two windows have been opened. Why, I’ve no idea. My guess is that there’s some garbage collection problems that are causing problems. Whether that’s due to something in BloGTK itself or the underlying Python libraries isn’t known yet. Given that BloGTK works just fine on Jaunty, my guess is that there’s a bug with one of the libraries.
I apologize for the problem, and hopefully the bug will be fixed as Karmic heads towards formal release.
UPDATE: It appears that the crash is related to the WebKit bindings. Investigation into this bug is continuing.
UPDATE – Sept 24: Some more digging has revealed that the crash happens when one editor window is closed and then another is opened. There is a bug report filed with the pywebkitgtk package that seems to deal with a similar issue, if not the same one. I will continue to see if there’s anything I can do with the BloGTK codebase to prevent the crashes.
I apologize for the problems, and hopefully this issue will be resolved before Karmic is formally released next month.
UPDATE: Nov. 5: Still testing this crash on Karmic. I’m hoping to be able to either find a fix or a workaround shortly. Thank you for your patience.
Also, keep the bug reports coming—there are definitely outstanding issues that need to get fixed with the 2.0 codebase, and the more that get squashed, the better BloGTK 2.0 will be.
At long last, BloGTK 2.0 is here and ready for download. BloGTK 2.0 is a major step up from prior versions, and features a completely new codebase and tons of modern features.
Getting BloGTK 2.0
Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty
If you’re running Jaunty, using BloGTK 2.0 is a snap. You can install BloGTK 2.0 from my Personal Package Archive. Just follow the instructions under the “Read about installing” link to get going. Then, you may use Synaptic to install the new version.
BloGTK 2.0 will first uninstall previous versions of BloGTK before installing. Your individual configuration files will remain, however, and if you wish to downgrade, you’ll be able to. (Why you would want to is beyond me, though.) Unfortunately, your old configuration won’t transfer over, but BloGTK makes it much easier to get up and running than before.
Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic
Packages for Karmic are now available in the BloGTK PPA. Be sure to select Ubuntu 9.10 in the drop-down box before entering the repository information.
Other Linux Distributions
If you’re running something other than Ubuntu, then you’ll need to install from source. To do that, go here to get the archive. Download the tar.gz file to a temporary folder and unpack it.
In the Terminal, go to the folder where BloGTK has been unpacked, and type:
sudo make install
BloGTK will then be installed.
BloGTK 2.0 has been very heavily tested, but it is possible that there are bugs, and there will be updates to deal with them. If you notice a bug with BloGTK, please file a bug report so those bugs can be squashed.
Development on BloGTK 2.0 is continuing, with a formal release getting closer and closer. Here’s what’s been done lately:
The MetaWeblog API routines have been patched to allow for better compatibility with b2evolution.
Coding on offline editing has been started.
The beginnings of internationalization (i18n) support have been added. BloGTK 1.x was not build with internationalization in mind. BloGTK 2.0 will be much easier to translate into other languages.
The file structure for the app has changed for packaging. It is now possible to install BloGTK into the system. Packages for Ubuntu can now be built from the source.
However, there are a few things that need to be done:
There are several bugs with BloGTK in Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic”. For example, there are some visual bugs with the progress indicator in the settings dialog and the editor preview system tends to segfault.
Offline post editing support needs to be finished. BloGTK 2.0 will not have the most robust offline editing features, but I hope to improve on them in subsequent releases.
Adding full support for the old Blogger API as a fallback. (Although this may be left out—is there really a need for supporting this depricated API?)
The biggest task is ironing out the remaining bugs. BloGTK 1.x was somewhat flaky. BloGTK 2.0 should be much more stable. While it is inevitable that bugs will crop up, BloGTK 2.0 has been more heavily tested than its predecessor.
As always, the source code can be downloaded from Launchpad. Keep those bug reports coming, and with luck, there will be a release soon.
To give you a look into the the future of BloGTK 2.0 and how it works, I’ve created this short screencast demonstrating how BloGTK works:
This screencast shows BloGTK 2.0’s new category selection system, some of it’s HTML tag insertion features, the new WebKit-powered preview system, and support for Blogger.
This is the first screencast that I’ve ever created, and not a bad effort for the first time out. As development continues, look for more screencasts showing even more of the application over time.
UPDATE: Apparently, YouTube was eating my screencasts, so I’ve uploaded this new copy.
It’s been a while since there was an update to BloGTK. During the last period of development for BloGTK there were so many frustrations and so little time that I had to give up.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago when I’m putting together my new Ubuntu box—I notice that there’s a Python library for Blogger’s GData system installed. And it even has a nice system for interfacing with Blogger. When I last did work on BloGTK 3 years ago, I had a lot of the app built. Maybe it was time to take another shot?
This entry is being created in BloGTK 2.0. The build is nowhere near complete, but there has been enough progress that it’s safe to announce its existence to the world.
BloGTK 2.0 will add some great new features like:
A completely revamped interface designed for multiple blogs
A new editor, with integrated spellcheck, HTML syntax highlighting, and undo/redo.
Autodiscovery of weblog settings (if your blog template supports it
And much more…
There is no release date for BloGTK 2.0, as it all depends on finding programming time in my busy schedule. However, this time the technical hurdles have been surpassed and it is possible to deliver the kind of program that users have been asking for.
There will be much more coming as development continues on the next generation of BloGTK.
