pMachine had at least some support for desktop blog editing applications…is there anything similar in the works for Expression Engine?

There’s been discussion before that becuase of the complexity of EE a desktop publishing app wouldn’t be possible or atleast very very difficult to impliment.

I have a few ideas for modules I want to make but I’ll add this to my “idea” list.  Could be a fun task to try to tackle.

There is an API being worked on, there is no eta.

I’ll second this request. Some form of offline editing, other than saving text in BBEdit [as I did on the plane last night] or whatever, would be nice. Moblog doesn’t cut it, because it still relies on a live connection to make any progress, and it’s a clumsy way to approximate a writer’s solution. One of the reasons I first started blogging in Radio was its desktop publishing metaphor. I loved having the pMpost functionality in pMachine. With Brent Simmons making nice progress on MarsEdit, it would be nice to have EE included in the pack, not left out. I know that EE was not developed for the blogging “masses,” but some nod to API functionality would be great. Not sure how a module could be implemented in the current framework, since net access would be a prerequisite for a module, wouldn’t it?

Since there is no API you would have to create a module (or atleast a server side php script) that provides the interface for a standard app to connect to EE (or your MySQL database directly) to post an entry.

Then it’s just a matter of creating a nice windows/mac app that lets you create/edit entries and can connect to the module( or php script) to post the entry when you want to.

That’s my 30 second pre-morning coffee interpretation of the problem…

Yeah, MarsEdit is what prompted my request. It was unfortunate to see the long list of supported software in it, with EE left out.

As it is, I use SubEthaEdit for the nice preview capability, and then upload. The real pain in the neck is images, because I have to upload each individually, then patch them into the EE body text one by one. It would be lovely to have an offline editor that I could then tell to just upload all of the text and images for me, in one step.

Imagewell is pretty cool for some minor edits/quick uploading.  But it’s not batch; I use it all the time though. =)

The latest version of ecto has been released; it’s from the author of Kung-Log and 1001, the Flickr desktop utility. Not to beat the dead horse, but this is one area where EE sorely lags pMachine, and all the other major blogging tools.

Patience, young padawan. [wink]

Acknowledged.

As I have heard, I have many reasons to be “enthusiastically patient.”