Domino Based Blogs And External Editing Tools
Bookmark :
Kevin Hansen over at DominoKeys.com is under the impression that Domino based blogs do not support any external tools.
I've often defended my choice to blog in something other than Lotus Notes by simply saying that NOT using it allows me to use other tools.
Well this is not the case and hasn't been the case for quite some time. About 5 years ago Jake Howlett added support to DomBlog for the blogger API. He also offered the code to the other Domino based blog templates and I added support into BlogSphere as early as version 1.
Now BlogSphere V3 has support for the MetaWebLog API which is probably the most common blogging API used by external tools. There is full support for creating and editing posts, uploading images, categories and tags. Everything that you need.
Looking for an external tool to use against blogsphere then you don't have to look very far, there is ScribeFire for Firefox, Live Writer for Windows and Mars Edit for Mac ( which I'm using to create this blog posting ) and there are even tools for the iPhone like BlogWriter which supports the MetaWebLog API.
Not using BlogSphere, then the xml-rpc agent can easily be moved into the official IBM blog template and with a little developer time thrown in to create a few views and update the agent I'm sure it would be very easy to add support for MetaWebLog API to that and probably other templates also.
Comments
Posted by Turtle At 09:59:42 AM On 09/02/2008 | - Website - |
And you should check out BBMetaBlog for the Blackberry by Jason Hook. It was written specifically for BlogSphere but used the MetaWebLog API so works with any blog platform that supports it.
Posted by Declan Lynch At 10:02:52 AM On 09/02/2008 | - Website - |
I've defended my decision to not use Lotus Notes/Domino to drive my blog by explaining to people that it gave me the opportunity to use other software instead.
Since I have/want to maintain my blog, keeping the software something other that Notes means I "get" to use another tool I wouldn't normally spend much time using... in this case, WordPress.
The other point I was trying to make was that using WordPress meant I could instantly take advantage of the native WordPress iPhone application that's now available for free. I see that as an unintended benefit of using a blogging tool that's easy to get, install and cheap (Notes is many of those things as well - but most ISP's simply have it pre-loaded in their Fantastico control panel so you can click twice and have a blog).
Now... if there's a native iPhone application that let's me connect with Notes... please BE SURE to tell me about that!
DWA uberlite doesn't count.
Posted by Kevin Hansen At 03:23:18 PM On 09/02/2008 | - Website - |
I know you can use a tool like BlogWriter on the iPhone for this Domino based blog, but its $10. WordPress is $0. -- Again, not saying one is better than the other; just that its a nice, free, easy solution brought about by my decision to try something else.
... all that being said, I often think about how handy it would be to have an off-line replica of my blog and replicate the changes; especially since I spend a good chunk of my day in Notes.
Posted by Kevin Hansen At 03:26:40 PM On 09/02/2008 | - Website - |