Thursday, January 05, 2006

Just ship it.

For a couple of months now I've been writing, among other things, a Java-based blogging client named Bleezer. Hey, you try finding a domain name that isn't taken.

I've tried a number of blogging clients, but I haven't been happy with them. And the fact that I blog from multiple platforms - I use a Mac but also own several PCs - hasn't helped. So I decided to write my own, just to see if I could. And in the process I've had to overcome a number of problems, especially poorly documented APIs and some multi-platform issues.


I've had a few folks testing it and they've given me some excellent suggestions, which I've implemented. It will continue to grow as well.



I use it myself, and have since the first successful build. In fact, I'm soaking in it right now.



It does some neat things:

  • Blog from anywhere. It's Java-based, completely multi-platform, and tested on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
  • Work with any blogging service, even Blogger. It works with them all. You can even define multiple services, and re-post items or move them around just by selecting from a dropdown box.
  • Add tags for any tag service. Technorati, del.icio.us, or your own, or all of them and more. It's fully configurable.
  • Create custom markup. You can define your own key combinations for your own custom HTML markup.
  • Spell check. Yes you can make sure that everything is speeled spelled ok.
  • Ping. Currently it pings Technorati, weblogs.com, ping-o-matic, and Pingoat, but configurable pinging is coming soon.



And there's more planned:



Though the week of CES is a bad one to announce little things like this, Bleezer will be available for download in a few days as a JAR for Windows and Linux, and as an App for OS X. I hope you'll enjoy it. After all, it's free.



And for those who are interested in what it takes to build a blogging client, it will also be open source.



Technorati
del.icio.us

posted by Larry at 10:50 AM

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