Announcing VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 1

OK guys, here it is. The moment one or two of you have been waiting for. The VisualBlogger 2004 Beta is finally available for download.

PLEASE Read the readme.txt file in the zip archive first. You have to unzip everything and set up some options in the config file. You can't just run it right out of the ZIP, it has too many dependencies.

Also, please use your real e-mail address. We won't be able to communicate updates to fake addresses. If I get too many fake addresses, I'll take it offline and make it a private beta by invitation only.

To make sure we're all on the same page, VisualBlogger 2004 is a blog editing tool for Windows. It doesn't need Visual Studio .NET, only the .NET Framework 1.1 and a .Text blog engine to post to. Sorry guys, you won't be able to post to LiveJournal, Blogger.com, etc until Beta 2. Here are all the features that are working/need to be tested:

  • Full WYSIWYG Editing
  • Raw HTML Editing
  • Blogging ScratchPad
  • Post To Mutliple Weblogs
  • Post To Multiple Weblogs with Categories
  • Blog Credential Hashing in Local Store
  • Save Posts
  • Load Posts
  • Clipboard Access
  • Code Formatting
  • Provider Model-Based
  • 2 BlogProviders
    • .Text Simple (SimpleBlogService.asmx)
    • .Text 0.95 (AspNetWeblog.asmx and BlogContent.asmx)
  • Abstracted object model mapped to provider-specific objects
  • Central Bug Reporting / Feedback System
For Beta 2, I'm going to finish the reorganization I started on Tuesday. I'm going to move a good deal of the actual posting framework to the VisualBlogger.Framework.dll file, so that I can expose some of the API to the public. Anil Dash (how frickin cool is that?!?) offered to help me implement the AtomAPI. So that will be in there. Plus all of your feedback. So make sure you use the built-in feedback mechanism (last button on the toolbar) and help me make this tool kick BlogJet's butt.

4 Comments

  • Hi Robert,



    your built-in feedback mechanism doesn't work (at least for me); I got the following error message:



    Server was unable to process request. --> SqlDateTime overflow. Must be between 1/1/1753 12:00:00 AM and 12/31/9999 11:59:59 PM.

    at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReadResponse(SoapClientMessage message, WebResponse response, Stream responseStream, Boolean asyncCall)

    at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)

    at Interscape.WebServices.Feedback.Defects.DefectHandler.AddDefect(Defect defect) in D:\Vault\VisualBlogger\UserInterface\Web References\WebServices.Feedback.Defects\Reference.vb:line 42

    at Interscape.VisualBlogger.Forms.Feedback.ToolBar1_ButtonClick(Object sender, ToolBarItemEventArgs e) in D:\Vault\VisualBlogger\UserInterface\Forms\Feedback.vb:line 364

    at TD.SandBar.ToolBar.OnItemActivate(ToolbarItemBase item)

    at TD.SandBar.ToolBar.OnItemRelease(ToolbarItemBase item, Point position)

    at TD.SandBar.ToolBar.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)

    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)

    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

    at TD.SandBar.ToolBar.WndProc(Message& m)

    at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

    at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

    at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)



    =============================================

    Anyway, this was my actual feedback:



    Subject: Layout issues (Toolbars, Post title input field, Tab sheets)



    Description: Your app has some layout problems when moving the toolbars (e.g. when having two rows of toolbars at the top of the window, the second row is covered by the post title input field).

    Having done some WinForms programming myself, I'd guess you used anchoring to position the main elements (post title input field, tabsheets, link to your home page) of your GUI, while the toolbars are docked. Try to move all the main elements to a panel (keeping their anchor settings) and then set the docking of the panel to "Fill". Maybe this fixes all layout issues.



    Steps to reproduce:

    - Drag toolbar at the right border to top border of the window, so you have two rows of toolbars at the top border of the window

    - The post title input field covers the second toolbar row

  • Roland,



    Thanks. The issue is a known one, and I'll be looking at ways to fix it. The toolbars were not really meant to be moved. As to the datetime error, I'll look into it. I know that the feature request service works, so you may try that one instead in the meantime.

  • Great work Rob! You rock !



    Sudhakar

  • Downloading .... :) Sudhakar thanks for the update...



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