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This really has the "woooow" factor.

I tested it using Windows Live writer and it worked first time.

Just a question about when to use such a facility, because one can also grant a user sufficient permission to log in on the Website in order to write an article (moderated or not).
So, in what circumstance would one use the standard article piublishing facility (after all, J! is a CMS!) and otherwise when to use the xmlrpc blogging facility.
The only difference IMHO is that for the blogging function you need no direct access to the respective website.

I am curious at your reactions

Hey Justo

I have been having a play around with the last and this version and everything seems to work great

I have been testing out some posts of various lengths and have found a problem with how the post is generated. I dont know if this is an issue with your plugin or the template I am using...I suspect it is the former but without looking at your code in detail I can't say for sure.

It seems as though the div wrapper, or whatever is used to contain the post, doesn't have a 100% width. It only streches as wide as the content it holds, i.e. if there is an image that is 500px then the width of the entire post will only be 500px instead of 100% (or the entire width of the content area).

I have taken some screenshots which should explain what I mean:

Still some unused space:


All the space used:


The second thing I have noticed is that, while in the second picture the text extends the width of the post, when you post a second blog entry the width of the first one is reduced without reason:




In reponse to your previous post:


Is getTemplate() implemented in the 0.9 release? I have setup a new blog but WLW doesn't seem to pick it up in the initial setup. When you select Web Layout from the View menu, you get a layout similar to the template with everything seeming to be there, however there are some things missing like CSS background images and width/height settings for some elements. If you havent included it them my bad 

It is a very useful feature in WLW, especially for our College, as it will allow staff members to see what the post will look like as they type it.

I have been doing a bit of research into it and from the looks of it on MSDN you need a manifest to create a layout?? http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb463263.aspx

Anyways...

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. As I said I want to implement this onto our College website so I can test it daily

Thanks again,
J

I was able to replicate the behavior on J!'s default template (no sample content loaded) with 'overflow' as well. Then I was able to reorder the posts which corrected everything except the overflow caused by image sizes being forced into a smaller col. width.

Looking at the source code for the page output, the widths are set at 100%... so they seem to be dependent on where they are placed. Images are not automatically resized but the text cols are through the css. I may be wrong, but my experience with Live Writer so far is; it fills the space that it publishes to.

One of the strengths of J! is its ability to handle a variety of formats within the framework...at the same time, it can get pretty complex under the hood The XMLRPC function is fairly new...  Hopefully we will get some input from devs and designers who can make the tweaks and/or create some new innovations to make it easier to deploy... or point out where we are not configuring it properly.

IMHO, the plugin is pretty solid beta ... we need to look at the other variables for a while so that we can understand the design/formatting challenges... and then put together a wish list for additional features for the plugin. Make sense???

Absolutely...I wasn't sure what was causing the issues I mentioned before as I am not a skilled CSS developer, however if it is something the the devs need to look at then I guess that is something we will have to ask nicely about   Unless Justo has any ideas??

I think getting a wish list together is a good idea, although I'm not sure the best way to do that. Perhaps if we just mention some features as we post and Justo can take a note of them? Just an idea...

As far as I am concerned I would find the following features useful:

Configurable Per-Post Author
I would really like to see the ability to specify who posted to the blog. I am planning on rolling Windows Live Writer out to all staff in the College, however I don't want to create a username and password for each one of them as there are hundreds of them. If it is possible to create a custom field that is editable in the blog software/apps that would be very useful.

WLW Blog Template
As mentioned before I would like WLW to pickup the template more effectively than it does at the moment (I know its something that is being worked on)

Configurable Image Location
I would like to see the location where images are uploaded configurable in the plugin settings.

A few things to keep in mind -

- IMO, wish list items that deviate from how Joomla! functions or how the MetaWeblog API functions are the type of thing that should be customized by the individual. That's the benefit of the GPL - you can take the work accomplished so far and adjust it for the needs of your organization.

I see the the "Configurable per-post author" falling into that category. If you want to avoid Joomla!'s security, that's cool, but I don't see the value in introducing that complication in a common extension. (You might also look at Joomla!'s OpenID and LDAP capabilities to solve some of these issues, still working within the J! framework.)

- Let's try to get some community synergy going here! I love this interaction, but, let's remember that Justo is not our code slave and let's be really sensitive to that. Especially considering his age, but also because we can contribute, too, towards the things we want for the common good. Let his work be the impetus for the contribution of others, as well.

Case in point - Justo provided us with an RSD extension. It appears Microsoft wants to use a different path. What a big surprise!  So, someone could take Justo's RSD extension and tweak it for the Microsoft approach if that is what they need.

Consider how quickly we can advance in this area if everyone does a little piece. I am not suggesting someone work on something that another person needs, either. But Justo gave a HUGE start here. If there are additions *you* require try to do that piece and share it back with the community. At least, try and ask questions along the way. Or, if that is completely impossible, at least spec it out completely. Or, PM Justo and offer to pay him for his work, then he can share it with the community.

Sometimes, we take advantage of our open source developers and we don't have to do that. We can contribute ourselves - and we can pay for some of this extra work, too.

Thanks for considering what I have had to say, I mean it with respect.
Amy

You might want to try a different tool and see if that works.



I've tried ScribeFire (which I use a lot with Wordpress and TypePad), but can't get it to work.
I wonder about Ecto http://infinite-sushi.com/software/ecto/developer/
I'll go try Flock

Cheers,
Ivan

Amy, I agree with you completely... I think the Joomla! 'team' has provided a great base to build from. Justo has done a terrific job. It is time for the community to take this 'opportunity' to the next step.

When I said; "Hopefully we will get some input from devs and designers who can make the tweaks and/or create some new innovations to make it easier to deploy... or point out where we are not configuring it properly." I was thinking of 'community' not 'core'... I was not really clear...sorry ...

For those of us who do not code, it is always a dilemma... we can test and suggest... sometimes, "wish lists' generate opportunities for devs but they should be 'suggestions' not 'demands' ... they should also be 'considered'. I also agree there are times when folks should compensate 'those that make their wish come true' 

I suggest that we need a lot more testing, so that when someone has trouble with 'my tool doesn't connect or whatnot' that it may be a setting in the tool rather than in the site. I would be happy to provide pre-configured test beds with XAMPP servers etc. if there is enough interest, along with portable w.bloggar (license issues with the rest...but they are easy to add) for downloading. This is a 'non install'...in essence, portable set up, that can either be used on a lan or standalone environment. It is ported to alternative ports to eliminate conflict with existing servers.

Is this what you had in mind?

Hello, I have a few comments:

About the per-post author: Live Writer has a special manifest file to get the parameters of the blog, one of those parameters is supportsAuthor, wich if enabled would let you post entries with different names in the same account. There is also a lot of customization that can be done for WLW using that file.

I suggest to create a plugin similar to the RSD for the WLW manifest file, as Amy said.
If anyone is willing to do it, here is the  msn documents on how it works http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb463263.aspx. It would be the same as the RSD plugin only with different data. If you have any questions about how to do it post them here or PM me.

About the styling issues: I doubt it's the plugin problem, as the only thing it does is adding to the database the content that the blog editor sends.

ivan007: I don't have time now to test with ScribeFire to see if there is any error, sorry. Anyway, in wich step are you getting the error? Auto-configuration? posting the article?.

I will be very inactive this week - or I should be - because I have a lot of exams. So don't worry if I don't respond quickly.

Justo

Justo,

I am giving you a standing ovation with all of your hard work on this plug-in.
[standing ovation]

Good luck on your exams and thanks again for your contribution!

Hello Justo,

As a newbie I didn't quite get this. But no worries.

Anyway my question is about Joomla 1.5.1 and having a blog on it. Is there a plugin/module/component wich I can install to Joomla 1.5.1 and thus have a blog on my page? I want to emphasize that I do not want to install a client on my computer to control the blog but do all the controlling of the blog from Joomla administrator interface.

--
Troubled newbie, Tero

Did you have a look here?
Also if you google with "Joomla 1.5 extensions blog" you might be supprised by the result.

Yep,

I looked for the extension yesterday for 7 hours straight and finally gave up and wrote here. I looked again today for a hour but still no answer. A lot of stuff is there in internet nowerdays and just writing "Joomla 1.5" and extensions and blog makes a lot of search results. Most of them at fruom.joomla.org wich isn't actually very SEF, so...

There are a couple of possible extensions but they all cost. So here's a couple of other border lines for my quest for the blog. I have PHP4 and MySQL4, I wouldn't like to pay for the extensions, I have no skills to create PHP on SQL databases.

I think the fact that I'm no coder makes it a huge amout more difficult to do these things since most af the forums or instruction are all hebrew to me. I know html coding and can do locig changes to php but to actually create php code is out of my ligue.

As can be seen I'm pretty run down by this Joomla 1.5 adventure. I hope I see some light at the end the tunnel soon.

After further readin I see that Joomla 1.5. is so new that there are not many blog extensions for it yet.

I'm looking forward for jBlog by Kevin Murray.

Hi, Tero,

I am a newbie as well. I don't know what you desire to have in a blog. As far as I know, the frontpage in the default HOME (if you have the sample pages loaded during installation) is already a blog. If you go into the menu item for Home, you will see that it is set to a page type of a blog. You do not need any extra modules. It is already built in. Will that do for you?

John

Hi John,

I'm doing a website with alot of different kinds of pages. News, info, happenings and also a blog where people who are registrated can post their comments about different kinds of services. The front page how ever should be in such use as it normally is - you can set articles to show on it.

Hi Folks,

Just wanna pop in to give a big THANK to Justo.
The xmlrpc metaweblog API is working like a charm. And really a very charming charm !!!

I have just setup a new website for a project we are starting using Joomla 1.5 and I thought I'd give a try to posting using a desktop client. A year ago or so I already tried this on a Joomla 1.0 site with very limited success. I tried the Blogg-X utility but was not really convinced with desktop publishing to Joomla.

I also recently discovered this new tools from MS, Live Writer. I must say that the combination of Joomla 1.5 + metaweblog API + WLW is really great and it works very well !

I also tried the Metaweblog API with scribefire, blogjet and w.bloggar. They all worl well with it but the best of all those tools is really WLW. For images and files I have setup WLW ftp parameters and it automatically uploads any attached images or files in my articles to my server. All transparently !
I could not use the metaweblog api to upload files, but I guess it has something to do with permissions on the server of my ISP. Neither was I able to delete a post, guess it's related to the same problem.

Category management is fine. Retrieving previous posts and posting drafts (unpublished) to Joomla is working fine. I also used the frontpage category with full success. BTW this is very convenient.

All in all, this is great. Maybe a few glitches to polish but it seems to be very stable as it is now.

Another great benefit is publishing speed. It seems to be much faster to write a post this way (WLW + xmlrpc) that through Joomla's web interface.

Again, Thanks a lot Justo for sharing those great plugins,
Merci !

Christian

I have installed the metaweblog plugin per Justo's instructions but when I try to hit the http://yoursite.com/xmlrpc/index.php (substituting my site, of course) I am met a web page that solely contains the text "JError XML-RPC Server not enabled."

Both the metaWeblog and RSD plugins _are_ enabled in Joomla (and all the other XML-RPC plugins are not enabled).

Do any of you know if there is something I need to ask my web hosting service to provide for XML-RPC to work? In other words, is the "XML-RPC Server" that the error mentions something _outside_ of Joomla?

Much thanks in advance!
Sean

Sean,

Have you enabled the web services in Joomla admin panel ?
You can set it in Global configuration / System.

I also went trhough that one and forgot to enable web services after my first install of Justo's plugins

Hope it helps,

Christian

Thank you, Christian! That was exactly the problem!

I have just encountered a plugin incompatibility. MetaWeblog prevents JoomlaPack (http://www.joomlapack.net/) from performing backups. When issuing a backup within JoomlaPack, the rsd.php file from the MetaWeblog plugin comes up with this error:



I was able to work around this by temporarily un-publishing the rsd plugin, performing a backup, and then re-publishing the rsd plugin.

I really don't know if this is JoomlaPack's problem (I posted my finding on their forum too (http://www.joomlapack.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186) or MetaWeblog's issue. And I also realize the there is no way any plugin can worry about whether they work with every other plugin. I just wanted to mention it: 1) in case it's an obvious error that can be easily rectified, or 2) to document the occurrence.

In any case, I love MetaWeblog!

Thanks!
Sean

cmagic - Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to look into the file upload problem this week.

scrotty - I'm trying to find the problem that is causing that error with JoomlaPak. It's important to know what's happening because it might happen with other extensions.

Justo

Hey, Justo. Thanks for the plugin!

The developer's of JoomlaPack are talking about this issue in this forum thread: http://www.joomlapack.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186&p=769#p769. They seem to think it might be something in the rsd plugin.

Thanks again!
Sean

Thank you so much for the awesome plug-in. I have been waiting for something this flexible since I started using joomla 1.0. The closest I ever got was blogg-x.

I know you already addressed concerns about the image upload error in WLW, but I wanted to add my experience to the hurd. I read the post about changing the folder permissions, so I just chmod'd that sucker to 777 to see if it would help. Unfortunately as others found out, that does not quite work. I know you are working on it, so no big deal. I switched over to using FTP for now, which works great. But would sure be nice to use solely the API, makes it 10x easier to tell folks how to set themselves up over the phone. Here is a screen just so we are all on the same page;



I also ran into another issue just a few minutes ago. If the rsd plug-in is activated and a user tries to print an article as a PDF file, they get this error;



Is this and the backup issue similar? Just a thought.
Again, Thank You! I can't say it enough, if I ever run into ya some day remind me to buy you a drink.

I released version 1.2 of the RSD plugin, wich fixes this error:

and should also fix the conflict with the backup component. It also fixes an error in the plugin parameters (preferred API).

I have made some progress with the upload files error and should have a new version soon. I'm also working now on the WLW manifest plugin (to work better with Windows Live Writer).

Tests of the new plugin version are appreciated

Justo

Thank you for the update, however I am still having the same issue. If there is any information I can provide that would help you, please let me know and I will be more than happy to provide it.

One thing worth noting is that after I removed the old RSD plug-in and installed the new one, it still says "1.0" in the plug-in manager. Is this normal? I am sure that I downloaded and installed the latest file, I also went in there are overwrote the rsd.php manually just in case.

Thanks!

Getting two errors - Livewriter, when attempting to create the account:

---------------------------
Error Connecting to Weblog
---------------------------
An error occurred while attempting to connect to your weblog:
Invalid Server Response - The response to the blogger.getUsersBlogs method received from the weblog server was invalid:
Invalid response document returned from XmlRpc server
You must correct this error before proceeding.

Additionally, when I attempt to configure the RSD module (should I be able to?) from within the admin interface I get this error:

PHP Notice: Undefined variable: atributes in E:\Website\plugins\system\rsd\installedapis.php on line 43

Running PHP/mysql under fastcgi on IIS, if that matters.

thanks

Hi ddecker, I think that the error you are getting on Live Writer is because you may have the web services disabled, to enable them go to administrator, then Global configuration and then System, and mark Enable web services to Yes.


The RSD configuration is to select which API you want to use (blogger, MetaWeblog, whatever) if you have more than one XML-RPC plugin enabled, and it uses MetaWeblog by default.
I will look into that notice, but everything should work fine even with it.


Hope it helps :)

Installed the latest version of the RSD plug-in the other day, looks like it fixes all the problems with PDF. Thank you again for all your hard work. All I need now is upload support using metaweblog and my life will be perfect... at least as far as joomla is concerned.

Thanks again!

i reinstalled it yesterday on a clean joomla setup, and it has no problems uploading images or anything now, dunno why, was there some changes?

Justo, wonder if you can help.

I've installed and using this great plugin with no problems from Windows Live Writer.

I've just installed ScribeFire and have a couple of wrinkles which are either down to ScribeFire or your plugin:

• ScribeFire isn't getting the full list of entries (it seems to pick some fairly random articles to show in the Posts tab).
• The list of categories is empty

FYI The latest (preview) version of ScribeFire can't manage to get any of the entries

Error with request, the server sent back the following response:
Unknown method

Let me know if there any debug settings I can use to help you diagnose these (that's if they're anything to do with your plugin of course )

MTIA
Andy