Work is continuing on adding support for image uploads with BloGTK. In addition to the Picasa support mentioned earlier, work has begun on native uploads for blogging systems that support the metaWeblog.newMediaObject method. So far, the preliminary code is working well, although there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure it works right.

The next version (tentatively 2.1) will also hopefully be much better with error handling. Right now, when something throws an error, it’s not easy to diagnose just what happened. The next version should do better, not only giving you a better warning of errors, but also creating an error log that can be used to diagnose problems.

BloGTK is continuing to evolve, and I’m getting more and more assistance in making it better. Again, thank you to everyone who has contributed code and bug reports and feature suggestions. Every little bit helps.

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.

A quick update on the progress of BloGTK 2.0. Right now the focus is on getting the MetaWeblog API support working correctly. So far, so good on that front, although there’s a lot of testing to make sure it all works correctly.

There’s also an article that every open-source developer should read on why Free Software tends to have bad usability. BloGTK 1 could be the poster child for that—it’s UI design was atrocious—and I’ll be the first to admit it. I do care about usability, but developing a usable interface is a difficult skill to learn. BloGTK 2.0 is going to get a lot of usability work as development continues, especially when it gets loosed on the world.

More as development continues.