Looking for alpha testers…

Anybody wanna alpha test BlogMate?

If so, comment here or email me (todd at ditchnet dot org) and I’ll send you a link. She’s not ready for the unwashed masses just yet.

BlogMate seems to work with WordPress, and theoretically should work with any MetaWeblog API-enabled blogging software. BlogMate does not currently support any other blogging APIs like Blogger API or APP.

The biggest issue with this plugin has been getting TextMate to realize which TM document/window belongs to which remote blog post. And also to get BlogMate to realize when you are trying to create a new post… I’m constantly comparing the behavior of TM+BlogMate to MarsEdit (which I have bought and I like).

MarsEdit doesn’t have these problems, because it always knows which ‘edit post’ document/window belongs to which post (or a nascent post). But in TextMate, the user may save and close a TextMate document/window locally that logically ‘belongs’ to a post and then reopen it later, expecting BlogMate to realize which post this document/window now represents… there’s really no reliable way for BlogMate to realize that… you may have moved or renamed the document in the Finder before reopening, and I really don’t want BlogMate to try to track all that. Instead, to edit a post, you have to begin by double clicking it in the BlogMate palette rather than saving a copy locally, opening it later and then expecting BlogMate to know what post you are intending to edit.

This is really just like MarsEdit, except that MarsEdit doesn’t allow you to save a post as an independent document on your local filesystem as TextMate does… so there’s no confusion. Again… there’s really no way I can see around all of this.