A few bits and pieces from the BloGTK front.

A new Ubuntu package for the old BloGTK 1.1 codebase has been released. This packages fixes a major bug with Python 2.6 and is recommended for all. For details, see the official release message. Thanks to Ralph Taylor for the fix.

Development on BloGTK 2.0 has lulled a little bit this summer, but is now picking back up. The focus right now is on squashing bugs rather than adding new features. Once the system is ready, the code will be moved on to the packaging phase – turning all the code from a bunch of code in one directory to something that can be installed and packaged.

Again, keep on filing bug reports and/or playing around with the source code for BloGTK. Already, there’s been one helpful contributor that’s helped with b2evolution compatibility. The more bug reports or patches, the better BloGTK will be.

Since development on BloGTK 2.0 has restarted, there’s been a flurry of activity, which is pushing BloGTK towards a public beta release. There have been several fixes to the BloGTK backend, some new work on the interface, and some general tweaks along the way. For example, the current codebase now supports saving and opening posts to disk for offline editing. The new WebKit-powered preview system is working quite nicely, and was easy to implement.

However, there are some features that are likely to be left on the cutting-room floor (at least for the first release). For example, custom tags would be a nice feature, but isn’t something that is absolutely necessary for the first release. I would also like to have a much more refined offline blogging system in place. However, that will have to wait for a subsequent release,

It is likely that there will be a preliminary beta release in the near future. BloGTK 2.0 will be a quantum leap forward from the previous versions, with many new features and a much more convenient interface. Keep checking back here for more information leading up to the first public release of BloGTK 2.0.

I apologize for the lack of updates in the last few months. My time, sadly, has been extremely limited, and work on BloGTK has gone to the sidelines.

If anyone would like to help complete BloGTK, please contact me at blogtk at jayreding.com. Or you can contribute code directly through Launchpad. My time will continue to be limited, and getting BloGTK out the door may take a long time at this rate.

Secondly, many have reported problems with commenting on the site. Apparently my anti-spam system was bouncing all comments instead of just spam. I’ve replaced it with another anti-spam plugin that should hopefully work better. If that fails, I will be moving the site to a new server that lets me use Askimet. I apologize for the bounced comments.

The goal for BloGTK is to get the remaining functionality working, get offline editing working correctly, and then concentrate primarily on bug fixes and the like. BloGTK already seems to work fairly well, and rather than keep adding features, I would like to develop BloGTK into a stable product that does a few things, and does them well.

Again, I apologize for the lack of updates. BloGTK is a hobby for me, and I don’t have much time these days. As always, any contributions that anyone has are always appreciated.

BloGTK is still evolving, although at a rather slow pace. The next big step will be better support for offline editing, followed by custom tags for the editor.

Some of the recent changes:

• Now complete is the system for inserting links into posts, as well as some minor backend changes.
• The creation dates of posts can now be altered in the editor. This can be used to set posts into the future.
• The post preview now displays the post categories for a given post.

As always, the development version of BloGTK 2.0 is available on Launchpad is available on Launchpad.

The source code to BloGTK 2.0 is now available at Launchpad. That means that if you’ve been waiting to hack away, you now can do so.

Launchpad has some impressive collaborative features, and while I’m still getting my “sea legs” in terms of how it all works, it seems to be a good way of managing this project in the future.

You will need to install Bazaar to get access to the code. Under Ubuntu, that’s as simple as

sudo apt-get install bzr

in a terminal window. Other distributions can get in on the fun too, but you’re on your own.

Right now, BloGTK needs only two additional packages from a stock Ubuntu install. Those packages are python-gnome2-extras and python-feedparser. Once those are installed, BloGTK should run.

Create a new working directory and run the command

bzr branch lp:blogtk

and the code will download to a blogtk directory.

Right now, BloGTK 2.0 has no installer, and must be run right from the testing directory. It will create a new folder in your home directory called .BloGTK where the config data and cache are stored.

BloGTK is not beta software, this is at best an early alpha. Many features are missing. Some things may not work as intended. Some things may not work at all. BloGTK needs a lot of love, and most importantly it needs a lot of eyeballs and testing.

Feel free to use Launchpad to hack away at the code and especially feel free to contribute patches and suggestions. The more help I can get, the faster BloGTK development will go.

Enjoy your BloGTK hacking, and hopefully as time goes by, BloGTK 2.0 will become one of the best weblog editors out there.

Development on BloGTK 2.0 has been very slow lately as my day job has taken priority and I’ve been dealing with an annoying problem with the account settings panel. The good news is that the code is now working (but needs more testing to be sure), and I can move on to adding more polish.

BloGTK 2.0 will use RSD introspection to try and configure most of the settings to a blog with nothing more than the address. That means that most users won’t have to worry about endpoints, blog IDs, or picking the right API. Even though BloGTK is geared towards more technical users, that saves a lot of guesswork.

In WordPress news, WordPress 2.6 is out. Those of you who are upgrading will not have a problem with BloGTK, but if it is a new install, you will need to activate XML-RPC in the settings to use BloGTK or another remote blogging tool.

Finally, once BloGTK 2.0 is in a semi-feature complete state, I’ll be putting the code up in a public Subversion repository for testing. The old BloGTK was written in a time where version control was a major pain—finally I’ve done the right thing and started using an internal Subversion repository for development.

As before, there’s no definitive ETA for release. I was hoping to have something in time for the Ubuntu 8.10 release, but that looks doubtful. With BloGTK, I pushed the app out the door, and made a lot of rookie mistakes and poor design decisions. I want 2.0 to be more polished and professional. That means taking the time to try to get it right before letting it loose.

It’s only been a few days since the new BloGTK was announced, and already development is continuing at a more rapid pace than I would have expected. For a project being done in my limited free time, BloGTK is moving right along.

No, I don’t have an ETA for the first release. Other than “when it’s done,” of course.

So far, support for creating and editing new posts with Blogger, Movable Type, and WordPress is working. The UI is shaping up nicely—and that means that there will be some screenshots coming in the near future.

What’s left? The configuration system needs to be built, there’s a bunch of tools in the editor that need to be built, and then round after round of testing. BloGTK 1.0 was pretty buggy—I’m hoping that 2.0 will be better and more stable.

There will be more updates as development progresses. The website will also be getting an upgrade (with the old theme being given new life as a WordPress theme) sometime in the near future. Keep checking back here for more updates as BloGTK continues to push closer to release.