Quick Blog 1.2.8 Remote blogging feature (metaWeblog API)

We've just released Quick Blog version 1.2.8

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention, though not by me, I’ve met the other members of the family. I’d like to introduce you to her sisters; Annoyance and Aggravation, but don’t pay them too much attention. They’re not staying long, as they are heading out to Sloth’s, their brother’s, house.

We’ve increased the number of ways you can connect to and manage your blog entries.  We’re using metaWeblog API, which most of you would likely be happy going through life without hearing about. But if you could indulge me for a few seconds you may find that we’ve solved many of the posting annoyances and aggravations while expanding your choices. An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of instructions that allows third parties to present information to a program for it to act on. In theory, any service that supports this API will be able to interact with QuickBlog. This feature is included on the paid version of Quick Blog.

 

For example if you’re a user of  Flickr™   or Google® you can now post directly into Quick Blog from those services. You can also take advantage of desktop blogging clients like EctoSM , Microsoft Windows® Live Writer and the upcoming Word 2007 to create your posts directly from your computer as well as  programs that  allow you to blog from your PDA.

With minimal setup users of Quick Blog can create and manage their blog articles using a variety of tools and services that utilize metaWeblog API.

I’ll follow up with other examples on how you can use the new remote blogging feature but first we have to enable Remote blogging.  Remote blogging can be found under “Manage Blog” > “Settings” and select the “Remote blogging” tab.   Now create a username and password that’s different from your main blog login (we’ll remind you if it’s not) and save these settings.  This user name and password applies only to the main blog account. Sub Authors can use their existing log in and password. Your blog is now able to receive posts remotely.

 In many cases all you need to do is provide your blog’s address and the service can “auto discover” how to post to your blog and will usually require just your username and password. If the service doesn’t support this, you have to provide the address to post to it in the following form:
 
http://Your.blogname.com/metaweblog.aspx, your username and password. 

Specific examples for Ecto, Flickr, Google Docs and Live Writer follow.  I hope they illustrate the ease of creating blog content from many of the services you already use.

Posted by Blogcast Admin at 10/16/2006 3:46 PM
Categories: Release Notes
 

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  • 10/17/2006 2:04 AM Midge Baker wrote:
    This is great! I must set this up with all speed. I have Live Writer on my computer. It occurs to me that one could possibly post to a free-blog by using RSS from a paid one. Would this work?
    Thanks,
    Midge
    1. 10/17/2006 4:40 PM Admin wrote:
      Greetings,

      Glad you are enjoying it.  While there are services that can  reblog the feeds from  others it's currently not a feature of  the free blog. You could use the manual import to read the RSS feed from the paid  blog  but ithat would likely be  time consuming on a daily basis.

      Regards
      John
      Quick Blog Team
  • 10/30/2006 10:49 PM Alexander Wunderlich wrote:
    Thanks for the update, it has made life a little less tedious.

    I want to add a small block of sript to the main page of my blog for google analytics and technorati. Scince you guys dont want the client medding with his purchased product, can you guys add it for me? or show me a work-around pehaps?
    1. 10/31/2006 8:04 AM Bill wrote:

      This is a piece of cake. Since you're a paying customer, you can just drag a "Custom Text" sidebar item into the Active list on the Sidebar page under the Design Blog menu. It'll open up and you name it something so you know what it is, paste in the code that Google Analytics or Technorati provided you, and uncheck the checkbox labelled "Show on blog." This includes the code block in the page but hides it using CSS.

      Thanks, Bill


  • 11/11/2006 12:22 AM Nicole wrote:
    You guys said in earlier postings that you ping Technorati and lot of other blog services automatically, but a) they can't find me after 9 months of blogging and b) I can't "claim my blog" with Technorati. I am using the free (ad supported) service and I am wondering if this is the problem. I am very frustrated because none of the documentation online seems to address this (and when I contact customer support, contrary to the usual excellent service, I got complete cluelessness!) If there is a difference this big (i.e. you either CAN or CAN'T be tracked by the blog tracking services) it seems this should be up front and well described. Support should also understand this immediately.

    Please advise if there is a solution for the ad supported version.
    Thanks, Nicole
    1. 11/11/2006 10:53 PM Admin wrote:
      Nicole,

      Thanks you for your comments regarding Technorati and claiming your blog with them. Presently  the only way you can claim your blog with them is by  using their "post claim"   method  since the template embed method is not going to work on the free account.

      I've  claimed two free blogs myself by this method and it appears to work,  by this method.  With regards to a lack of documentation I think we should address that here on the blog in a future post.  Meanwhile  what stage are you getting to when trying to claim the blog through Technorati? 

      While I am not 100% sure that we ping Technorati after each post (I'm pretty sure we do)  you can manually ping them on the post  using the  urls to post  on the bottom right of the write entry screen.

      Regards
      John
      Quick Blog team,

  • 6/21/2007 7:38 PM Davud wrote:
    How can I get my blog to look like this format ... I am getting those outline boxes and it doesn't look the same.

    David
    1. 6/25/2007 1:53 AM Bill wrote:
      I'm glad you like it! If I remember correctly (and I may not since we set this up at least a year ago and haven't revisited it since), this theme is a standard one with a custom header graphic. It's definitely one of our old table-based themes, so it's entirely possible that it just isn't available any more. I can say that this ol' blog's style is changing soon and there's some exciting new development surrounding that. And that's all I can say.

      Thanks for the compliment, Bill

  • 7/5/2007 9:00 AM Bill wrote:
    I'm trying to setup w.bloggar for remote posting to my account (you listed w.bloggar as compatible with your system on your site)

    I'm getting the following error message:
    Unable to parse th XML response. Parser Reason: End tag 'body' does not match the start tag "div".

    my settings are:
    +
    blog tool: (custom)
    +
    posts: metaWeblog API
    categories: metaWeblog API - single
    templates: not supported
    title, category & more tags: [defaults]
    +
    path: /metaweblog.aspx
    port: 80
    +
    where am I going wrong?

    thanks for you help!
    ..Bill..
    1. 7/7/2007 10:10 PM John wrote:
      Greetings Bill,

      It looks like the API endpoint is incorrect in being too short.    try the full path  http://www.yourblog.com/metaweblog.aspx  within the path , chance categories to multi  and see if that gets you there. If not I'll see what further I can  do,

      Regards
      John
      Quick Blog Team

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