I just released a new version of ecto. The changes are listed in the included History file, but I wanted to explain one change in more detail. I have added an option not to convert line breaks in Rich Text mode. In previous versions, ecto would generate XHTML from the Rich Text contents and have that posted to the blog server. I assumed that the blog server would take the entry and deal with it appropriately, but I found out that not all blog systems handle line breaks smartly. Blog systems that support and use text formats (in particular, MovableType) treat the ecto generated XHTML as is, but other systems (e.g. Blogger, WordPress) convert the linebreaks without even considering the contents of an entry. So, you'd have a string such as “</li>\n” and it ends up as “</li><br>”, which is not only stunningly pointless, but wreaks havoc on the rendered blog entry. Some of these blog systems may have an option in their control panel to turn off line break conversion, but instead of hoping for that I vote for giving the user more control over this via ecto.
By default, ecto converts line breaks in Rich Text mode if you are using a blog system that supports and uses text formats. In all other cases, ecto will not convert line breaks. You can set your desired setting by selecting Weblog → Edit Settings... from the menu bar. In the window that opens, and going to the Preprocessing pane (see screenshot below). Note that this setting does not have effect if you're using the HTML mode.
Let me digress a bit. Writing a good desktop blog client is not easy. I've been at this since I conceived Kung-Log, which is already a long three years ago. Initially, I wrote it with only MovableType in mind. That was easy, because all I had to care about was how the MovableType implementation of the XML-RPC API worked. As soon as I expanded my horizon to other blog systems, I ended up having to deal with a variety of quite frustrating issues. For one thing, not every blog system uses the same API and not every blog system developer follows specifications to the letter, choosing to implement the API a bit more liberal. To deal with those quirks, I have quite a few work-arounds in my code. As a result, I'm a fanatic proponent of a standardized, but extendable, weblog API. Atom is a good step in that direction, but even there several developers are again not always following specs. I'd go deeper in these kinds of issues, but that would make this end in a rant that will likely bore the readers. Instead let me hint at a new app I wrote and which will be out as a beta later this week: 1001.
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'ecto 2.0.5 for MacOSX and line-breaks' from ecto.
Excerpt: [IMG] It was subtly hinted here and there , but I wrote a new app. 1001 is a desktop client to be used in conjunction with Flickr, the online photo-sharing website. 1001 not only uploads photos (includes iPhoto import) to your Flickr account, it notifies you anytime new photos from either your
Excerpt: [IMG] It was subtly hinted here and there , but I wrote a new app. 1001 is a desktop client to be used in conjunction with Flickr, the online photo-sharing website. 1001 not only uploads photos (includes iPhoto import) to your Flickr account, it notifies you anytime new photos from either your
Excerpt: allows you to step into the stream of photos passing through Flickr and to quickly see what's new at the moment. Just run the app in the background and if triggered, 1001 pops up a small unobtrusive window to notify you of new photos. Apparently, there is a new version of ecto as well. The auto-update feature hasn't notified me of this. Strange.
Excerpt: is that it doesn't support all HTML tags. While understandable, it'd be nice if there was an option to ignore HTML tags it doesn't understand (or define new tags, or something other than to strip out tags it doesn't understand). I see from this post that the developer of ecto is running into the same problems using the various blog APIs I've been running into (though I'm only frontending MovableType these days). My biggest problem: getting content entered by users converted into clean UTF-8
Excerpt: 事の発端は、ectoオフィシャルを覗いた事から始まります。英語は何となくわかる程度の僕でも、" ecto 2.0.5 for MacOSX and line-breaks
TrackBack URL for this entry is http://www.kung-foo.tv/movtype/mt-tb.php/507
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'ecto 2.0.5 for MacOSX and line-breaks' from ecto.
Excerpt:
I upgraded my copy of ecto over the weekend...the new version supports a rich text editing mode (sort of like using MS word instead of typing in raw HTML). I haven't used ecto much lately but it is a nice frontend to MT.
Weblog: ed costello: comments & links
Tracked: October 28, 2004 03:27 AM
Excerpt: A new application has been released: A Flickr client.
Weblog: chaotic intransient prose bursts
Tracked: October 29, 2004 12:48 AM
Excerpt: No. I haven't reached that many posts yet. It's a name for a piece of software that could be cool. From the creators of the cool and useful ecto comes... 1001 1001 is a desktop client to be used in...
Weblog: Sharp-eyed Blog
Tracked: October 29, 2004 09:23 AM
Excerpt: Ecto, a blogging tool to make blogging from your desktop easy, is out in a new version. The author of the software has implemented some very nice design desicions too. That means I like Ecto on two levels: (1) on the functional level ecto is extremely ...
Weblog: ABSCONDITUS.COM BLOG
Tracked: November 1, 2004 12:08 AM
