Monday, October 02, 2006

Paste As WLW v1.0 Plugin Released and Available via CodePlex (and some thoughts on my next plugin)

v1.0 of my WLW Paste As Plugin is now available via CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=wlwPasteAs). Please see the preview post or the project home page for more details on this plugin.

 

My next plugin? I'm thinking a "Related Past Post XRef" Plugin. I like having links to past posts that are directly related to the current post. This is provides me a direct and specific conversation thread" in the post. Even in the future, when production Blogger supports categories, I'm still going to use "related past post xref's." Categories are great for general threads, but for tightly focused threads, well that's where my past post xref comes into play.

And right now it's a pretty manual process. I go to my blog, copy the title, paste. Copy the URL, paste. Get the other past xref's and past them too. Wash, rinse, repeat.

So I'm thinking that this would be a good plugin... Using the Blogger GData API, provide a list of past posts and let me select which ones I want to insert. Also I'm thinking I can add other blogs (like my Live Spaces personal blog) to the post list as well...

I'm planning on working on it this coming weekend, so we'll see how it goes...

Related Past Post XRef:
WLW Paste As 1.0 Plugin Preview
WLW Paste As Plugin

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had the exact same idea for a plugin a couple weeks back. MS doesn't provide an easy way to get your back posts through the add-in API, and I had to root through the registry to find the blog URL (it also doens't seem to be exposed through the API). Then I ran out of time to work on it.

Why bother with the GData API, though? All you need is the RSS, directly fetchable with HttpWebRequest. Then it would work with any provider.

Greg said...

LOL... You made me think a minute there...

At first I thought, "Damn it, I had another brain cramp... He's so right. RSS and/or Atom support would be easier. What was I thinking?"

Then I remembered why I thought to use GData... (lol... I knew there was a reason? :| )

Most feeds don't go far enough back in time for me. GData provides at least the last 100 posts and my blog atom feed only goes back about 36 posts....

Also I thought it a great excuse to play with GData more. To see if I might be able to use it for my Blogger Backup utility (i.e. determine once and for all as to if I can go all the way back in time to my first posts or if it's really limited, even with its queries, to the last 100...).

Still it's a great idea and like you said, pretty darn simple.

Okay, I'm sold. ;)

Now what I'm thinking a very simple provider model, with Blogger, RSS and Atom. And then adding new providers as needed (like Meta/Live Spaces, etc).

Great idea... thank you sir!

Anonymous said...

Provider model, good idea. Glad I thought of it. :P

Anyway, looking forward to the plugin. You're rapidly becoming the WLW plugin zen master. :)

Greg said...

lol...

As long as I don't become the WLW Plugin Dumb Ass I'll be happy :0