It’s time for another weekly release (yes we just keep going and going!) and we have something special for you today, so prepare carefully. We are introducing two spectacular changes to BlogBridge - one you asked for, the other we think you will really like:
- FireFox integration. Starting with this weekly, you will be able to use the “Subscribe Now” button in FireFox to add a feed to BlogBridge. Lots of you have asked for this, and now we have it.
- Post to Blog: We know that many of our users are also bloggers themselves - they use BlogBridge to locate and learn new stuff, and then often turn around and post links to what they find to their blog. With this weekly, you will be able to type one character (”B” what else?) and do this without ever leaving BlogBridge
Needless to say we are quite excited about this, as you can see because we are posting this on the weekend. Note that this is a weekly release and so both these features are in their zeroth generation. We know there may be some rough edges and we will continue to work on them for the next iteration but in the meanwhile try them and tell us what you think! Here are the details:
FireFox Integration
No, we haven’t integrated FireFox into BlogBridge, but taught the last to understand command-line arguments, which immediately enabled it to be a feed reader in FireFox 2.0.
FireFox 2.0 has a nice feed preview function with a neat blog reader application selector. When you open any feed in it, the preview page opens up with a head section as below:
In the drop-down box you specify the application FireFox is to call when you subscribe to a feed either by clicking “Subscribe Now” or by clicking on the icon at the end of the address bar.
We know many of you tried adding final versions of BlogBridge available as standalone applications to this menu and it didn’t work. The application simply didn’t support the command-line arguments. From now on it does.
I can foresee the question: how is it possible to call the weekly build if there’s no direct executable file, but just a web link. You are absolutely right, there’s no way unless you have an executable launcher for Java Web Start application, and now you have it. Just pick the one you need below, make sure the “javaws.exe” (or “javaws” for our Linux / Mac friends) application is in your executable path and configure your FireFox 2.0 to call them.
It isn’t complicated procedure, but there might be some subtleties. Please let us know if you have any troubles using the launchers or setting up your environment, and we’ll prepare some short FAQ to address any issues.
Post to Blog Command
The command becomes available when you select an article and lets you make a post to your own blog citing it. When invoked, it opens the post editor with all the necessary functions to let you add your own comments, make any edits you would like, and finish your post by sending it either as a draft or as the final version.
What you can see in the picture is the editor screen.
The title of the dialog has the name of the blog you are about to post to. There’s a title of the post, the category, the draft vs. public flag, the quick edit bar and the main area with text. You can see that there’s a quotation which is automatically inserted once you call the command and your own comments below it.
Before the function becomes available, the target blog should be specified in the preferences.
On the preferences page there’s a blog selector and the blog details area. Create a new blog and enter its title first. Then use the Setup button to specify the link to Blog API ( XMLRPC), choose blog type, enter your credentials and test the connection. Note that if you don’t know the exact path to the XMLRPC file on your blog, enter the link to the root of your blog, like ( http://blog.noizeramp.com/ ) and the application will try to guess the rest.
It’s also a good idea to test the connection before you continue.
We plan to add more blog types soon. So far it’s only Wordpress, but if you run Movable Type blog, you can also try to use the feature; however it’s not tested yet.
Again, if you have any questions / comments / suggestions, they are always welcome and highly appreciated. Use our forum, place comments, or send us direct mail if you like.
If you are new to BlogBridge, you can get it installed by clicking on this BlogBridge Weekly Release link.
