wxBlogger Designed and Implemented by Casey O'Donnell http://homepage.mac.com/codonnell/ http://homepage.mac.com/codonnell/wxblogger/ Splash-Screen and wxBlogger Mascot Design by Tyson Stecklein http:// Extensive Use of wxWindows http://www.wxwindows.org/ RSS Specification Courtesy of Dave Winer and Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss/ XML Generation via Xerces C++ http://xml.apache.org/ http://xml.apache.org/xerces-c/ XSLT Transformations via Xalan C++ http://xml.apache.org/ http://xml.apache.org/xalan-c/ ---------------------------------------- wxBlogger is a blogging/journaling application designed to be both cross platform, and user extensible. I designed wxBlogger hoping that people would take the initiative to develop their own XSLT transforms, for customized output. I've also made it easy for people to include extra information about these transforms, so that they can recieve credit for those. wxBlogger can output text, XML, RSS (Dialect of XML) and XML transformed by XSLT (typically used to export HTML). Resrouces for creating your own XSLT transforms can be readily found on the web. I have produced three example transforms, and included them with wxBlogger. Anyone producing an XSLT plugin that they would like to have made available on the wxBlogger website may feel free to contact me. wxBlogger makes use of an ODBC database as it's primary sorce of data storage. This makes it very scalable, and able to handle large amounts of data without necissarily consuming a large amount of resources. It also means that if you'd like to develop another program or web-based-interface to interact with wxBlogger's database, you are free to do so. Anyone interested in the database schema should contact me for the information. wxBlogger supports both multiple users and multiple identities per user. This can be used as a method for grouping entries, as well as in the future providing an interface for customization. When publishing your entries either to TEXT, XML, RSS, or HTML (via XSLT Transforms), you can apply filters based upon identity, and entry date. This allows you to group your journal entries however you like. If enough people are interested in other methods of filtering their entries, then it is possible that I could expose more filtering methods in the future. wxBlogger can "attach" files to entries, so you can either save these for later use (they are archived in a way allowing you to store as many documents as you like, and as many "versions" of that file as you like). These documents can be later exported along with your published entries. This makes it easy for you to share files with the readers of your blog. wxBlogger now has support for internal "tags" that can be used to add data to an entry. This data is interpreted later by the XSLT transforms, allowing you to format it however you like. wxBlogger's currently supported tags are: * [emphasis:"Important"] * [link:"Description","http://www.wxwindows.org/"] * [insert:"myfile.jpg"] * [quote:"I'm quoting someone"] The formating is pretty important. Don't use "[" or "]" in your entries for the time being. You can view your formatted text in the "Render View" tab . This will let you determine if your tags are being correctly identified. If they are not, then you probably have something goofed-up. wxBlogger has a companion application "wxBlogger Db Update.exe" that can be used to migrate your old wxBlogger databases to the latest version. My recommendation is to re-name your older database, then run the program and have it create a new database with whatever name your older database was using before you re-named it. ---------------------------------------- First Run-Time Instructions: The first time wxBlogger launches, it will ask you for a user name and password. However, you don't have one yet. Click Cancel and then under the File menu, select, Add User. You can then create your new user account, and your first identity. After the creation process, you will have to login. ---------------------------------------- RELEASE HISTORY ---------------------------------------- Release: ?? Release Build: 0.8.0 (Fifth Beta Release) What's next: Finish Identity Icon support, as well as the other identity tags being added. We're getting to the point where the only missing feature seems to be WebDAV. Uh oh. Our LOGO/Mascot is currently in development. Should be cool when it's all done! New Features: Identity Icons! - I'm not exporting them yet, but the interface is in place, as is the database layer behind it. I'm also going to add some settings for your identity to default certain data when doing the RSS export, as well as some additional tags in the XML. Not done yet, but on it's way. Database Creater/Updater - This application has been updated for this release, as well as for previous releases. Bug Fixes: Looks like we still had a problem with the base DB being distributed not having all of the fields it needs. Unfortunately it seems like I didn't get the ZIP file updated correctly, so the current distrobution might have had the same problem. ---------------------------------------- Release: ?? Release Build: 0.7.5 (Internal Release Only) What's Next: New Features: Created stand-alone database updater. This application can create new empty databases, as well as migrate older database versions to newer versions. This is the "wxBlogger Db Updater.exe" application that you see. This application is still under testing, so please backup your old database before using. Let me know any bugs you encounter using this application. Added RSS export plug-in. The data being exported here is still in flux. If people would like to see other data added to the RSS export, let me know. Added an ascending/descending sort order for blog entries. "Render View" now correctly displays an approximation of the formatting done by wxBlogger's tagging function. Bug Fixes: Fixed an error in generating XML that caused some "returns" in the formatting to be lost. Fixed an error in HTML generation (for the preview window and RSS) that caused some text to not be exported or displayed. ---------------------------------------- Release: Thursday, July 17, 2003 Release Build: 0.7.1 (Fourth Beta Release) Bug Fixes: Apparently I managed to include the wrong DB with this version. Ooops. I'm looking for a method to migrate old wxBlogger databases to new wxBlogger databases. Still haven't figured it out yet, but will hopefully get it taken care of soon. ---------------------------------------- Release: Friday, July 10, 2003 Release Build: 0.7.0 (Third Beta Release) What's Next: MD5 Password Encryption - "RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm." I have to have this clause in here. I'll need if I add WebDAV support, but I figure I can put it in right now. So I don't forget. WebDAV Support User Icons New Features: Added file attachments for entries. This allows you to attach files to an entry, and have those files stored in the database for later retrieval. These files can also be published along with your blog entry. FTP export has also been integrated, but probably needs a bit more testing. I've only used it on a couple of the FTP servers that I have access to. "Tags" have also been added to entries. This allows you to use these tags, while having the power to customize the final appearance with XSLT. The currently available tags are: [link:"Link Name","http://www.url.com/"] [quote:"A Quote..."] [insert:"filename.jpg"] [emphasis:"This is important!"] Currently the parser for these tags is pretty unforgiving. Don't put white-space out side of the quotes. The insert command is supposed to be used with images and in combination with the ability to attach files to a blog entry. This means if you have an image, and you attach it to an entry, you can use the [insert] tag to have that image displayed within your blog. Bug Fixes: N/A ---------------------------------------- Release: Monday, June 30, 2003 Release Build: 0.6.1 (Second Beta Release) What's Next: Same as below. New Features: Added automatic FTP based publishing. The application will upload an HTML file to the specified server. Bug Fixes: N/A ---------------------------------------- Release: Thursday, June 26, 2003 (Internal Release Only) Release Build: 0.5.1 (Second Beta Release) What's Next: Same as below. New Features: No more need to create the DSN yourself. The app will attempt to create it for you if it has not been created yet. If it fails creating the DSN, it will notify the user accordingly. Bug Fixes: N/A ---------------------------------------- Initial Release: Thursday, June 19, 2003 Release Build: 0.5 (First Beta Release) What's Next: I'd like to add FTP and WebDAV (.Mac users out there) support. This would allow people to directly publish their blogs to the web without using a separate application. I'll see if anyone actually likes the application first, I'm certainly content to use it just as-is. I'm also interested in making the app interface with other online journaling tools, but again, that's something that I would add in the future. If there is interest, I'd like to make sure this app is up and running on MacOS X machines soon. New Features: N/A Bug Fixes: N/A