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 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.

Development on BloGTK 2.0 is nearing public release, but before BloGTK 2.0 is ready for primetime, it needs testers to put it through its paces. So, if you are feeling adventurous and want to give BloGTK a spin on your distro and blog, here is how to do it.

Getting Started

First of all, you will need the following packages for your system:

• bzr
• python (2.6.2 recommended. BloGTK is not Python 3 compatible.)
• python-gtk2
• python-gnome2
• python-gnome2-extras
• python-feedparser
• python-gdata
• python-webkit

On Ubuntu, you can add them all by going into a Terminal window and executing the command:

sudo apt-get install bzr python-gtk2 python-gnome2
python-gnome2-extras python-feedparser python-gdata python-webkit

On other distributions, follow the instructions for your particular distribution. (For RedHat-based systems, you should be able to replace “apt-get install” with “yum install”. Some distributions may have slightly different names for these packages (such as “python-webkitgtk” instead of “python-webkit”)

Once you have the required packages, you’ll be able to start testing BloGTK.

Getting the Code

The next step is to get the code for BloGTK from launchpad. Go to the directory where you want the BloGTK code to be located. Next, you will use Bazaar to get the actual code. In your Terminal window, execute the following command:

bzr branch lp:blogtk

Bazaar will then download the BloGTK code to a “blogtk” directory.

Right now, BloGTK is run from its own directory. When the program is ready, it will be installed for all users. For right now, you can install the development version without disturbing any older version of BloGTK on your system.

Using BloGTK

Go to the newly-created “blogtk” directory in your Terminal and execute the following command:

bin/blogtk2

BloGTK should open up and prompt you to configure your first blog account. From the configuration screen you should be able to add as many blog accounts as you wish. From there, you should be able to play with BloGTK to your heart’s content.

How to Create a Helpful Bug Report

The goal, of course, is to get as many people testing BloGTK as possible, and for them to find and help squash as many bugs as possible. To do that, I need bug reports. You can either submit a bug report through Launchpad or leave a bug report right here on the blog. (I would prefer bugs to be put into Launchpad, but will settle for blog comments.) Here are the things you should include to make your bug report helpful:

• Your Distribution (i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Arch, etc…)
• What Version of Your Distro? (i.e. Fedora 11, Ubuntu 9.04, etc…)
• What Blogging System? (i.e. WordPress 2.8, Movable Type 4, Blogger)
• What Error Did You Get? To find out what errors may have occurred, look both at any printed message in the Terminal window and any messages in the status bar of the application. If there’s an error message in the Terminal, try copying it into the bug report.
• What Were You Doing When You Got The Error? For instance, something like “I was editing a post on my Blogger blog in the editor, and then tried to insert a new blockquote by hitting the toolbar button, and then I got the error.” The more details, the better.

Again, the more bugs that can get squashed, the better. Also, if there’s a feature you want added in a future version, feel free to bring that up as well. However, at this point the focus of development will be on getting rid of bugs and fixing code before adding something new.

A hearty thank you in advance to everyone who helps in testing BloGTK. This program has taken a long time to develop, and I hope that the wait will have been worth it. Each bug report will help make BloGTK better.

UPDATE: Added python-gnome2-extras to the list of required packages.

UPDATE: Changed instructions to reflect the change to the folder structure in the newest revisions.

I’m proud to announce that BloGTK 2.0 will now be using WebKit as its rendering engine for HTML content. WebKit is an ultra-fast rendering engine used in Apple’s Safari browser as well as Google’s Chrome browser. With the very nice and easy-to-use pywebkitgtk bindings, adding WebKit to BloGTK took almost no time at all.

What does this mean for you? For one, WebKit is a much better HTML rendering library than the old GTK html viewer. It’s much faster, much nicer, and is generally easier to use.

The other possibility is adding WSIWYG editing to BloGTK. I’m not sure that will appear in 2.0, just so I can get 2.0 out the door quicker, but it’s something that is now possible to add and have it work right. It’s definitely part of the road map for the next release after 2.0.

Development is continuing on BloGTK 2.0, and the addition of WebKit makes BloGTK 2.0 are much better blog editing platform than before. It will open up a whole bunch of new avenues for working with HTML in the application. It’s the sort of thing that makes a humble app programmer very happy…

The latest release in the old BloGTK codebase is now being hosted on Launchpad. This release fixes many outstanding bugs from 1.1 and includes new code to bring it up to date with new versions of Python and PyGTK. This version will likely be the last update to the old BloGTK codebase, as 2.0 is back in development.

Some of the fixes include a modern file chooser for opening and saving files, and improved security for saved passwords.

BloGTK may be tested by getting the code from the BloGTK 1.2 page on Launchpad. Don’t forget to file bug reports for any bugs you see.

Hopefully, BloGTK will be finalized and available for packaging shortly.

UPDATE: Preliminary Ubuntu packages can be found here.

As you may have noticed, BloGTK 2.0 hasn’t been worked on in a while. That is due to the annoying thing called “real life” getting in the way.

Thankfully, I am hoping to have some free time for the first time in years, and may be able to work on BloGTK 2.0 again in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I have moved this site to a new server, since Sourceforge and WordPress tend not to play too well together, especially since I couldn’t use Askimet for spam control. The good news is that this server will not have the problem with comments that existed before.

The current code for BloGTK will need some updates for newer versions of Python and libglade. For one, the current Glade file crashes the Glade editor. This is, needless to say, a major annoyance.

As always, I would appreciate help, especially help in the form of code patches and development help. Bug reports are nice, but patches that fix the bugs are even better.

More when development continues.

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.

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.