Updated 2006.09.29
Registry hack removed as unnecessary. Monologue also removed.
Note: This is relevant for those wishing to use MoveableType and Windows Live Writer, if you only want to use Metaweblog or Blogger, then you do not need to read these instructions.

Alright, after two days of being stupid and help from the Windows Live Writer (WLW) Forum I've finally got WLW auto-discovering Xaraya/nomoa.com but it requires a few little fiddles to work correctly. Hopefully we can make it fully automated so I can get some users on other sites running Xaraya.

In the meantime, the steps below can help you configure your current Xaraya 1.1.2 site to work with Windows Live Writer.

The key things to getting Windows Live Writer to work with Xaraya/Nomoa.com using Moveable Type is:

1. Use a fake site when creating an account, or
2. Update your server/host and Edit your registry file

1. Use a fake site when creating an account.

Auto-discovery isn't working properly for Xaraya, as far as I can deign for the moment, so don't use it and it will save you a lot of hassle.

Unfortunately, if you put in the proper address for your Xaraya blog, it wont let you edit to a custom installation.

1.1 Wizard Dialog: Weblog Homepage and Login

For Weblog Homepage URL:

specify the non-existent http://www.example.org

For Username/Password:

Enter your correct username/password to use with your proper blog.

We are using http://www.example.org because that is a restricted domain name (i.e. no-one is supposed to be using it) so it should quickly error-out (fail to connect to the website) and let you continue with manually configuring your settings.

Click the "Next" button.

1.2 - Wizard Dialog: Add New Weblog

We now have a dialog box that let's us select the type of server we are using.

For Type of weblog that you are using (Select Weblog Provider)

Select the "Moveable Type" option, although I don't know what the difference is between that, and the [Custom (Moveable Type API)]

For Remote posting URL for your weblog,

Enter your host information with the following format:

http://<<hostname>>/<path>/ws.php?type=xmlrpc

 

For example: to use Nomoa.com, you would enter

http://www.nomoa.com/ws.php?type=xmlrpc

(we don't need to use the <path> option for nomoa.com)

Click the "Next" button

1.3 Wizard Dialog: Detecting Weblog Settings

This screen will show you a progress bar and changing text with a little information of what WLW is doing.

When it is finished. please post articles to your site.

MoveableType 3.3

One too many references to 'tags' that were uncomfortable, so we've looked it up and after reading the first two pages I still can't see how meta data in tags is any different to meta data in keywords (although this may be related to Xaraya which seems to see these as synonyms, aka tags is keywords is tags.)

The full documentation is over at Six Apart's Developers Site, link:

There's still a lot more to read, to understand, but I better put this link here to make sure I remember where it is to read.

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Just a note that at this point of Xaraya 1.1 post release, the shortcut urls correctly 'encode' urls containing "/" and "+" but when you click on it, it doesn't decode it correctly to get the Article ID to display.

What you get is an "Invalid Article ID"

The solution is not to use the "+" and "/" or any other symbol that causes the above error with Shortcut URLs.

[Edit: 2006.10.24, the URL shortcuts also do not behave with "?" question marks. These are 'special' parts of the 'url' that generally signify other things such as:

/ - path delimiter

+ - signififies a parameter value additional item

? - signifies a parameter]

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Keith McCall has a number of reviews of Blog Clients that he has installed.

Very well laid out so you can see what features he's read and what features he's experienced.

If you still wonder about what's available, please visit Keith's website.

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Looks like the new Microsoft Word is getting some blogging features.

Joe Friend blogs to mention that the Office 2007 Beta 2 of Microsoft Word now includes Blogging Support.

As he mentions, a significant benefit is that most people are already 'embedded' in Microsoft Office, so this merely simplifies the whole process of bloggin (no need for using another tool.) He also notes the many tools within Microsoft Office Word that should make life for the blogger easy, such as Background Spell Checking, Thesaurus, Clip Art.

Just imagine drag and dropping, resizing your picture for your blog right on the application and then having Word resize and convert the graphic for later upload to your site.

Wish I had those for bTonga, but alas.

Inking seems to be one thing I'd been hoping for, even though I don't ink because I don't have a TabletPC.

One interesting request is the ability to queue the posts while offline, similar to sending email when offline. Outlook just queues it in the outgoing mail and pushes it once you log in.

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Oooops, the function already exists, and has been for a long time.

bTonga fails, refuses to use it, because (at least up till 0.7.0.2) bTonga expects that mt.supportedMethods actually exists (and will return newmediaobject as one of the supported method apis)

Now that I look at it, this is a pretty stupid assumption since supportedMethods is a MoveableType API whereas newMediaObject is a MetaweblogAPI.

Why use newmediaobject ? Security ?

One advantage of the Xaraya implementation of the newmediaobject method is that the file is stored "off the grid." The image is not directly available through a standard file URL. The file, as is in my nomoa.com configuration, stored outside the webserver document path and accessed through a module call.

This feature has some security benefits for multi-user sites. Unfortunately, everything gets dumped into a single directory and can get real messy if you have a lot of images being published through this methd.

Windows Live Writer supports NewMediaObject (like a lot of other blog clients, except mine) and has a nice rich environment for touching up your image before uploads (like a lot of other blog clients, except mine)

The big selling point for WLW ? It's FREE as in beer.

Now, that's asking for getting used, but unfortunately my main squeeze blog engine (actually its an Application Framework or something like that) is using Xaraya http://www.xaraya.com and as yet we're still not upgraded to supporting NewMediaObject.

What's new media object ? no, it's NewMediaObject or newMediaObject or mt.newMediaObject or something like that (but without the spaces.)

NewMediaObject is an MT (MoveableType) xmlrpc function/method call that allows you to upload files through your xmlrpc and not requiring FTP. It's great, but it misses a few issues like how to manage the sprawll of those files on your server once you get to the 100th image or the 10th all on your kid, i.e. kid1, kid2, kid...

Now, if only I could pack the wife and kids away for a couple of days (and all those annoying realities of life) I could probably refresh that VMWare image I had around here somewhere to try and get NewMediaObject supported in Xaraya. Unfortunately, there's only 24 hours in a day and we can just pray and hope (or was that hope and pray ?)

Go Nomoa!!!

Of course, I could just get my backside up and fix the FTP server on nomoa.com. Nomoa.com got moved to a new machine (actually a 5 year old one) and we haven't got that FTP server installed/working as yet. Maybe tomorrow ...

Just realised, for some unknown reason, that when you GetRecentPost, GetPostByPostid the MoveableType/Metaweblog APIs do not returned the state of the PublishAs (i.e. is it "Draft" or "Published."

I thought I could trust my interface to maintain that 'state' between my sucking things down to edit and re-posting it. I guess that was a mistake.

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Seems to work fine inside my WYSIWYG controls, but need to take a look to make sure it is going to work in the Title and other text fields (e.g. keywords, urls)

Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn

Before we can talk about HTTP content types, or about URL escape sequences, or about XML encoding, we need to tackle the topic of what exactly a character is.

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Ecto 2.0, an update to another successful blog client over at http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/ has been released.

The ecto 2.0 is officially released and available for download! It has been a long development process, far longer than I anticipated or wished, but I think the result is pretty good. Although the application does not look much different outwardly, there are many code rewrite under the skins.

This upgrade is free for all registered users.

• What's new
• WYSIWYG editing.
• Spellcheck as you type.
• Upload caching and setting presets.
• Find & Replace.
• New installer which will automatic download and install the new .Net Framework 2.0 during ecto's installation if required.
• Better font scaling for those who use the Large Fonts settings.
• Many other UI improvement and bug fixes.

...

purchase
To purchase a copy of ecto, visit the eSellerate online store or click on the image below. A registration code will be sent shortly after the purchase is completed. You can also use PayPal in this store.

A copy of ecto costs $17.95. We also offer volume discounts and if you purchase a copy for MacOSX, you can purchase one for Windows for 50% off (and vice versa, obviously).

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