Zoundry 2.0 (Raven) Development

The Extended Beta

2008-08-14T06:49:00.000-04:00

The 1.0 version of Raven has just been released and we have already received our "Daily WTF" (a blog we read) feedback via Cobalto:

Note the the "Beta" stamp on the splash screen. Time to startup Photoshop (or GIMP).

Release Version 1.0 - out of beta

2008-08-13T07:54:00.000-04:00

The first non-beta version of Raven 1.0 is now available for download. A big thank you goes to the Raven user community for reporting defects and sending us valuable feedback. Some users have gone to the extent of giving us access to their servers to test Raven.

The formal press release can be found here. We think Raven is one of the first WSYIWYG blog editors designed to be portable. (We do want to mention that the editor we used before Zoundry made an editor - wBloggar - can also be run on a USB stick. wBloggar is not a true WYSIWYG blog editor). When installed as a portable application, Raven stores all of the downloaded blog content, drafts, thumbnails, clipboard copy/paste content in the USB drive. Any resources referenced on the primary hard drive (e.g. images in the C:/ drive) will be automatically copied to your profile in the portable USB drive.

It took us a while to get to the 1.0 version as we wanted to resolve as many issues as we could before releasing it. There are still a few known issues still unresolved.

Embedding video links - To add video (youtube.com, google video, ifilm, photobucket, piratr, slide, veoh, and vsocial), all you have to do is drag and drop the youtube.com link into the editor, or if you already have a link to a video site in the editor, then right click on the link and choose "Link -> Create Embed Content".

The issue related to a video embed is that it is not properly rendered in the editor (it is OK in preview mode). The video embed (in the editor) may remain blank until you either grab it and move it around or double click on it.
Diacritic marks when entered as entities are converted to Unicode characters.
Font settings user interface supports only fixed font size units (px). Relative font size units such as em and percentage can be entered via xhtml editor.
Image and attachment links to UNC paths do not render correctly and are not uploaded when posting.
HTTP Proxy supports only BASIC authentication. ISA server specific (windows logon) schemes are not supported.
UPDATE: The Splash screen and About page image still "thinks" its a beta. Oh well!

Portable Application:
If you plan to install Raven on a USB stick (pen drive), then please make sure to check the "Portable Application" check box shown in the install wizard. You can read more about this here.

WordPress 2.6 :
WordPress 2.6 users must have the XML-RPC Remote Publishing enabled to use Raven.

Release Version 0.9.360

2008-07-21T19:49:00.001-04:00

The fifth (and likely the final beta) build release (version 0.9.360) is now available for download. This release contains mostly bug fixes and a few enhancements.

Added support for Flickr media storage (image upload).
HTTP Proxy support. See Tools -> Preferences -> General -> Proxy. ~~Note that the current implementation does not support Google ClientLogin (i.e. Blogger.com and Picasa)~~. Updated July 24, 2008 - Version 0.9.363 supports Google ClientLogin via HTTP Proxy - please see this forum post.
When image files are dropped into the editor, a dialog box is shown to allow you to choose the thumbnail size settings.
Width and height attributes of <img> tags are automatically generated if they are not set (images without these attributes do not work on WordPress.com hosted site).
The <img> tag ALT attribute is now automatically set (derived from the filename) when you drag and drop an image into the editor.
When you drop attachments/files into the editor, the <a> tag TITLE attribute will be set with the file name and file size.
The Src input field in the Image Properties dialog now supports paths that start with underscores as well as UNC paths.
The XML-RPC layers uses local Date Time format (instead of UTC) for TextPattern. This is a work around until TextPattern's XML-RPC layer plugin supports UTC.
The src attribute in <img> elements for Picasa urls contain the imgmax parameter. This parameter is now also applied to href attributes in <a> elements. E.g. link from a thumbnail image to larger image. (If the imgmax parameter is not added on to the URL, then Picasa server returns the large images as attachments which forces the browser to prompt the "Open With" or "Save As" dialog.)
WordPress specific:
- When you remove existing tags for a post and update the post, the tags are removed from the WP entry.
- You can now set WP per-post password.
- You can now change the WP post status such as Pending, Private etc.

WordPress 2.6 users should enable Remote Publishing on the WP server.

As usual, many thanks goes to all our users for taking the time to send us feedback as well as bug reports.

WordPress 2.6 - You Must Enable Remote Publishing To Use Raven

2008-07-20T16:57:00.000-04:00

Raven and most other desktop clients use the XML-RPC api on WordPress in order to publish posts as well as to download posts. The XML-RPC api is normally shipped enabled with WordPress version upto version 2.5.x.

Beginning with WordPress 2.6, the XML-RPC api is disabled by default. To use Raven with WordPress 2.6+, you must enable XML-RPC Remote Publishing via WP Administration Console.

Login to WordPress 2.6 Administration Console and goto Settings -> Writing.
Check the "XML-RPC" checkbox found under the Remote Publishing section. (see screen shot below).

You can find more information on this issue via RedSweater and the original WordPress Trac Ticket.

Post Link URL Is Not Available On Blogger.com When You Use a Future Date Time

2008-07-20T16:43:00.000-04:00

As you know, Raven allows you to set the post date-time stamp to a future date time. In in previous versions, when you post an entry with a future date-time, the blog post URL (link location) is available (to Raven) as soon as you post it. Having the blog post URL is very useful - especially, if you want to view the post online, or refer to it (i.e. link to it) with in Raven in another post.

Recently, I noticed that Blogger no-longer returns the blog post URL if the post date-time is set for a future date (or if your PC clock date-time is faster than that of Blogger servers date-time).

According to Google's Blogger developers, this is "as designed" - i.e the post URL is not returned for posts with future date-time stamps. We do not agree with this design, but it is their design.

What we have done as a work around (with build 336), is that Raven will attempt to 'refetch' the blog post URL the next time you run "Download Recent Posts". Even in this case, the URL is available only if the blog posts' date-time is either 'now' or in the past - relative to the time you ran "Download Recent Posts".

How To Publish Screenshots

2008-05-16T13:47:00.001-04:00

A forum user recently suggested that a nice feature to add to Raven would be a slick screenshot tool akin to what can be found in OneNote. Apparently they have a cool feature where you can take a screen capture of only a specific part of the screen (by specifying a rectangle using a screen capture tool). Once taken, the screen capture is then injected into OneNote.

This made me realize that, while we could implement such a feature, we should be able to come up with a decent workflow to take screen captures with the current Raven build. Raven has the ability to paste an image that is on the clipboard directly into the blog post. For example, you can do the following:

Open Raven
Create a new Post or edit an existing one
On the keyboard, hit Alt-PrtScrn (the Print Screen key)
This will take a screen capture of just the current window (not the whole screen)
Back in the Raven Editor, paste (Ctrl-V)

I'll try this now, and insert the resulting screen capture...

Of course, after I pasted the image into my blog post, I then created a thumbnail of it. But you get the idea.

The part we're still missing is the ability to capture only certain parts of the screen by specifying a rectangle. To enable that behavior, I think another tool is required. On the forum, it was suggested that Snagit could fulfill this role, although I have not used it myself. Suffice it to say, there must be a handful of utilities out there that one could use to take partial screen captures. Once the capture is taken, and the image is on the clipboard, Raven will let you paste it right into the Editor. Done and done.

Beta Release Version 0.9.284

2008-04-23T23:37:00.001-04:00

Our fourth public beta build release (version 0.9.284) is now available for download. This build has most of the defects that were submitted during the last beta period fixed as well as the following enhancements and features:

Designer
- You can now select multiple paragraphs and press the bullet button to get multiple bullets.
- Added a toolbar button for the <blockquote> (the indent button still inserts a <blockquote> tag).
- Toolbar buttons to insert html tags such as <H1>, <H2>, <code> etc. Read more.
XHTML Editor - lot of enhancements on this editor. See this post for more details.
- The current row and column position is now displayed in the status bar.
- Find and Replace functionality.
- Paste as XHTML.
- Toolbar button implementations for bold, italic and underline text formatting.
- XHTML schema and CSS valid code completion and call tips.
- XHTML validation.
- Clean up and W3C Tidy.
Templates
- Javascript in the Preview page is now disabled.
- Added BaseHref support when downloading Blog Templates.
Publishing
- You now have the option to remove newlines when publishing your posts. For those of you who use Blogger.com and have enabled their "Convert Line Breaks" option should check the "Remove Newlines" check box. This check box is available in the Account and Blog preferences UI. This option removes newlines (so that Blogger will not convert those to additional tags). Newlines in <pre> and <javascript> tags are not removed to observe the xml:space="preserve" option.
- XML namespace prefixes (e.g. xml:space="preserve") are removed during publishing. This is mainly to avoid support some WordPress plug-ins that are not XML aware.
- XML-RPC based file uploads for WP now also send the file MIME content-type. The content-type is needed by WordPress 2.5 to display thumbnails in its Media Library. Thanks to Kirk M. to reporting this defect (among others) and allowing us to use a test server hosted on his machine.
Raven To Go (Portable Version) - When you drag and drop (or link to) image or files from the host machine's hard drive, these resources will be copied to the portable thumb drive when you save your post. Note that this process may take a few seconds (for moderate size resources) since the files need to be copied to a slower device (e.g thumb drive).
Application UI
- You can now delete only the local copy of a blog post without deleting it from the server.
- Raven now remembers if the main app window was maximized, so it will start up maximized if it was maximized when it was shut down.
- Added "Collapse All" button to the Account Navigator - this button will collapse all of the nodes in the tree.
- Account Navigator now remembers which node was selected when Raven was closed.
- Pressing the "Dashboard" button in the Account Navigator will now deselect any node that was previously selected.
- Partial translation language bundles for Spanish (es_MX, about 60% done) and Chinese (zh_CN, about 25% done). Many thanks to Fëaluin (es_MX) and MaoMen (zh_CN) for getting the translations started. We also want to mention that Marcos Silva was one of the early testers to start on a Portuguese (Brazilian) translation, but unfortunately, most of the work he did was lost due to a defect in out translator tool.
Framework - major changes to underlying background task support:
- Improved synchronization to avoid errors, stack traces.
- Background Task window should now update properly in all cases.
- Standard Perspective views have been changed to better handle concurrency (better thread synchronization)
- Added a section in the Main Application Window's status bar to indicate the current background task activity.
- Canceling bg tasks should work better now.

Using The XHTML Code Editor

2008-04-21T18:05:00.000-04:00

The XHTML code editor in Raven (version 0.9.279) is almost feature complete with following enhancements.

Find and Replace.
Zoom.
Paste as XHTML.
Text Formatting.
Brace (< and >) matching and XHTML tag and attribute name highlighting (syntax color coding).
XHTML schema valid code completion.
XHTML validation.
XHTML code cleanup and Tidy services.

When using the code editor, note that the content of the editor should content of a XHTML <body> tag. Do not enter <xhtml>, <head> and <body> tags. Use only child tags of the <body> tag such as .

Find and Replace:
The Find/Replace dialog is exactly the same dialog used in WYSIWYG Designer. Press Ctrl+F (or EditMenu->Find) to bring up the dialog.

Zoom Controls:
Press ctrl and + (plus) or ctrl and - (minus) to increase or decrease the XHTML editor font size.

Paste as XHTML (Ctrl + Shift + V):
This is similar to functionality found in the Designer. The difference between Paste (Ctrl + V) and Paste as XHTML (Ctrl + Shift + V) is that the latter will convert the content into a xhtml code fragment before pasting the content into the editor. For example if you copied the following plain text content to the clipboard:

This is the first paragraph
Second line.

Second paragraph
2nd line
3rd line

then pasting as xhtml insert the following formatted code:

   <p>
     This is the first paragraph
     <br/>
     Second line.
   </p>
   <p>
     Second paragraph
     <br/>
     2nd line
     <br/>
     3rd line
   </p>

Text Formatting:
Text formatting toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Bold or Ctrl+B, etc.) are available in XHTML editor. To use it, simply select the text and press the toolbar button (such as Bold). The appropriate markup is then wrapped around your text selection. For example, if the text selection is

Hello World

then the final markup would be

Hello World

If you do not have any text selected when you invoke one of operations (e.g. Bold or Ctrl+B), then the relevant markup is inserted with the cursor positioned between the open and close tag. For example, the Bold button would insert

[cursor]

where [cursor] indicates the cursor.

Note: Be careful when you apply markup on selected text as the markup is applied to the whole selection even if the selected text had partial markup. For example if the selected text is

em>[cursor]

(i.e. includes partial text for open tag), then after applying Bold, the final markup would look like

em>[cursor]

Notice that the tag was applied over the partial tag since it was part of the selection.

Code Completion:
The auto complete list is a list of schema valid xhtml and css keywords that can be inserted at current document (cursor) position. The list is automatically shown when you type in a start tag "<" or an end tag "</" character sequence. This list will also automatically hide if any of the characters you typed did not match a tag in the list shown.You can also display the list by pressing Ctrl + Space (e.g. after the < character).

Below is a screen shot showing the tag list at the top (root) level:

Once you are inside a tag, Ctrl+Space will show the list of available attribute names for the current element.

If you are in a style attribute, Ctrl+Space will show the list of available CSS style names and or values depending on the context. Similarly, attribute value options for href, class attributes are shown when available.

The list for class attribute values shown are based on what you have already used in the current document (post). The href values are also based on list of links you have in the current working document. For example, soon after typing http:// you should see a list of possible matches links based on other links in the document. Screen shot below shows the auto complete on font-family CSS style attribute:

The auto-completion on a close tag character sequence </ will show the matching closing tag (when possible i.e. as long as your content is well formed).

XHTML Validation:
This version of Raven also allows you to validate your post entry using XHTML 1.0 Strict or Transitional by pressing the Validate button on the tool bar. The validation messages with warning/error line numbers are shown in the message list below the editor along with corresponding "markers" (icons) on the editor margin.

Note: validation is performed against your post - and not against your Blog site. You should make sure that your Blog site is XHTML compliant (most are based on templates).

XHTML Clean up and Tidy:
This tool bar option allows you to manually run a basic code clean up process (e.g. convert plain text to xhtml, clean up MS Word tags etc.) followed by a call to W3C Tidy. Note that is also automatically performed when you save or switch to the Designer.

How To Insert XHTML Tags From The Designer

2008-04-21T12:18:00.001-04:00

Many users have requested a feature enhancement to allow them to insert xhtml markup tags such as headers (H1, H2 etc) and other inline tags such as , <code> etc. using the Raven WYSIWYG Designer instead of having to switch to the XHTML code editor .

These feature enhancements have now been included into Raven (starting with version 0.9.279) as a tool bar drop down button.

The tool bar has two buttons - one is for formatting block level elements such as <h1>, <pre> etc. To format text as a header, simply select the text and choose one of the tags shown from the drop down menu. The horizontal rule (<hr>) tag is also available in this menu. If you want to insert a <hr>, make sure that you do not have a text selection - otherwise your selection will be replaced with a <hr>.

The second tool bar button also allows you to format you text selection, except that the list of available tags are schema dependent. In most cases, you will see inline tags such as <code>, , etc.

How To Backup Your Data

2008-04-08T14:44:00.000-04:00

A question that we recently had asked on the forums was "How do I backup my Raven profile data?" This particular user was interested in doing this due to a needed re-install of Windows. I think it's a good question in general, so here's how you do it.

Raven stores all user data in your profile. You may have as many profiles as you want, but most users will likely have only one. You use the Zoundry Profile Manager to add, import, create new profiles. For backup purposes, simply backup the entire profile directory (or directories). By default, the profiles are located in your Application Data directory, for example:

C:\Documents and Settings\ZoundryMan\Application Data\Zoundry\Zoundry Raven

Of course, unless you log in as "ZoundryMan", that part of the path will be different (your username). For the record, I don't mind if you use "ZoundryMan" as the username for your computer. :)

If you are using Raven2Go, then your profiles will be in a "profiles" directory within the Zoundry Raven installation directory, for example:

E:\Portable Apps\Zoundry Raven\profiles

When restoring from your backup, all you need to do is copy those profile directories back to your computer. Feel free to put them wherever you want, although in most cases putting them back where they were before is best. Once you have done that (and presumably re-installed Raven) it is a simple matter to add them back in. Run Raven, and choose New in the Profile Manager. You will see the Create New Profile dialog. In that dialog, name your profile whatever you want, and point the path to one of your newly restored profiles.

That's all there is to it.

Beta Release Version 0.9.250

2008-04-03T09:10:00.000-04:00

Our third public beta build release (version 0.9.250) is now available for download. This build has most of the defects that were submitted during the last beta period fixed as well as the following enhancements and features:

Translation Tool - made some improvements to the Translation Tool, since some of our translators were experiencing crashes and losing all their data! I can't guarantee that this build fixes the crash problems (we hope so), but we added "journaling" to the UI so we can recover any data lost. If you are translating Raven, and you experience a crash, contact us and we can help you recover anything you may have lost.
Raven2Go - when you install Raven, you now have the option to install it as a Portable Application.
- When you install, you will notice that there is a new installer page. Use it if you want to install to a portable drive (or if you just want us to stay out of your registry).
- If you copy/paste an image (e.g. via Photoshop or Gimp) into Raven, we will create a local image resource in your profile directory.
- If you want to make sure any other images are available wherever you go, you will need to copy them to your portable drive prior to linking to them in your blog post(s). We will be fixing that in a future release.
Fixed Picasa hot linking issue. Images uploaded to Picasa Web should display correctly. Raven will choose the appropriate image url on Picasa based on your image width and height properties.
Paste images from Windows clipboard. For example, copy and paste images or a selection within an image from Photoshop, Gimp etc. to Raven.
Fixed image and link unicode issues. All img src and anchor href values are now in IDNA (Punycode) format. This is mainly to support older browsers such as IE6. The values within the designer (e.g. Image Properties dialog) will still be in unicode.
Fixed WordPress delete post issue where the post was first deleted directly from WordPress and was not able to remove it from Raven.
Canceling background tasks (publish, template download, etc) should now work better.

How To Create Block Quotes

2008-03-25T22:10:00.001-04:00

Creating Block Quotes in Zoundry Raven takes only a couple of steps:

Select the text you want to quote.
Press the Indent button on the tool bar (located left of the bullets button).

To remove the block quote, place the caret/cursor on the quoted paragraph and press the "remove indent" button (i.e button with left arrow).

Raven2Go - First Post Using Portable Raven

2008-03-19T17:13:00.000-04:00

The next beta release of Zoundry Raven will support the ability to install as a portable application (e.g. onto a flash or other portable drive). This is a feature that was requested by many users, and I'm happy to say that we have finally finished the initial support for it. In fact, I am composing this post using Raven2Go installed on a Memorex TravelDrive. It's a bit slow when compared to running off a hard drive (obviously) but it works pretty darn well!

The changes to Raven to support Raven2Go are, for the most part, hidden from users. There are a couple of things that I should mention, however. First, there is a new page in the Raven Installer. This custom installer page simply has a checkbox that can be checked if the user wants to install Raven as a portable application. If the checkbox is checked, then no application information will be saved to the registry. In addition, when Raven is run after being installed in this way, it will run in "Portable" mode.

The other relevant change for users when Raven is in "Portable" mode is where profiles are stored by default (and where the profiles.xml registry file is located). When in portable mode, Raven looks for a "profiles" directory in the install location. For instance, if you install Raven2Go to E:\TravelApps\Raven, then the profiles.xml file and the default location for newly created profiles will be E:\TravelApps\Raven\profiles.

Everything else that's different between Raven2Go and Raven is under the covers, so users shouldn't have to worry about it. For the most part, it simply means that where we used to refer to files in your profile using absolute paths, we will now use relative paths. This should allow you to take your portable drive to different machines (where the drive letter might be different) and everything should still work.

One thing to note for existing users - I would recommend doing a clean uninstall/install of Raven2Go if you have previously been using Raven on a portable device. The uninstall step will remove all of the stuff from the registry that Raven put in there (not much, but you clearly don't want it in there). Then the re-install will be clean (little/no registry entries).

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Blog Post Meta Data via Post Summary Views

2008-03-16T18:48:00.001-04:00

The Zoundry Raven application is based on a typical three pane view, with the bottom right view showing the summary of the current selection. For example, if the current selection is a blog post, then the post summary is displayed in the lower right pane. This pane exposes an extension point allowing one to contribute a view to it. ZM has created 4 extension point contributions to this, resulting in four difference 'views' of the post data.

The default is the standard Post Preview view.

On the top right of the Blog Post Summary, you will find a small 16x16 "window" icon. When you right click on this icon button, the context menu displays all of the available contributions (or views in this case).

The available views are - Post Preview, General Properties, Links (links found in the post), and Media (images referenced in the post).

General Properties

This view shows general properties about the post, such as the post title, date-time, and internal entry-id. If this post is published to multiple blogs, then the list of blogs is also shown in this summary view.

Links

This view displays all the links referenced within the post. You can right click on each link for other options.

Media

This view lists all of the image src URLs referenced in your post. Right click on the image URLs for options.

Adding Custom Weblog Ping Sites

2008-03-16T17:56:00.001-04:00

Similar to adding your custom links, you can add your own weblog pings sites by contributing to extension point "zoundry.blogapp.pubsystems.weblogping.site" (since there is no UI at this time).

Download the sample weblog plug-in zip file:
sample.zoundry.raven.blogapp.mypingsites.zip
Unzip it to Raven install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven).
Restart Raven. You should now see a new weblog ping site (to Bitacoras.com).

This zip contains just one plug-in folder (for the plug-in XML file) with the plug-in containing one contribution (ping site) to the extension point "zoundry.blogapp.pubsystems.weblogping.site". The zplugin.xml can be found in the plug-in folder

<install_dir>\system\plugins\sample.zoundry.raven.blogapp.mypingsites

To add more, edit the plug-in.xml file and append additional <zoundry-extension> elements. The sample contains one <zoundry-extension> element (for Bitacoras.com) :

    <zoundry-extension point="zoundry.blogapp.pubsystems.weblogping.site">
         <!-- id for Bitacoras -->
        <id>zoundry.blogapp.pubsystems.publishers.weblogping.site.bitacoras</id>
        <extension-data>
            <weblog-ping-site>
               <name>Bitacoras.com</name>
               <url>http://ping.bitacoras.com</url>
            </weblog-ping-site>
       </extension-data>
   </zoundry-extension>

Adding Custom Links And Tag Sites To Raven

2008-03-16T17:06:00.001-04:00

One of the key features of the Raven blog editor is its extensibility via plug-ins. Some of the plug-in extension points are based on XML file configuration (i.e. no programing required) while others require programing. Some examples of the first category are blog sites/servers that appear on the New Account wizard, FTP based sites that appear on the New Media storage wizard, weblog ping sites and "quick links" that appear in the Link To right click context menu.

The current beta release does not provide a UI for the user to add his or her own list of quick link sites that appear in the context menu or even the tag sites that appear in the post publish settings dialog. How ever, if you are technically proficient in XML, here is way to "manually" add links and tag sites.

Download the sample link plug-in zip file:
sample.zoundry.raven.blogapp.myquicklinksprovider.zip
Unzip it to Raven install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven).
Restart Raven. You should now see some new links in the Link To menus.

(Note: Displaying of simple links show above (Raven Blog, Zoundry etc.) will be available in the next release - build 226+).
You will also see a new entry (Ice Rocket) in the Tag Sites tab in the publishing settings of the post as well as LinkTo->Tags menu.

The plug-in zip contains two folders, one for the plug-in xml and the other being the plug-in resources (icons). In this example, the plug-in id is sample.zoundry.raven.blogapp.myquicklinksprovider and the plug-in extension point contributions (zplugin.xml) can be found in the plug-in folder

<install_dir>\system\plugins\sample.zoundry.raven.blogapp.myquicklinksprovider

and associated icons are located in:

<install_dir>\system\resources\plugins\sample.zoundry.raven.blogapp.myquicklinksprovider

This sample has the following links (see zplugin.xml):

Simple link to a web site (Raven Blog)
Search link to Google Image Search
Tag search at IceRocket.com
Reference lookup at imdb.com

You can edit the sample zplugin.xml file to add your own links and tag sites. You can find more examples in the zoundry.raven.blogapp.simplelinkprovider plug-in (this is the default link provider plug-in that Raven ships with).

Multiple Profiles and Launching Raven With a Different Profile

2008-03-10T23:10:00.002-04:00

One of the features of Raven is to allow you to manage multiple Profiles (in addition to multiple blogs within a Profile). A Raven Profile maintains all posts, tasks, indexes, account information etc. (basically all runtime information) in a single folder. Normally, most people would end up using a single profile. This default profile is normally stored in your Windows Application Data directory (e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Zoundry\Zoundry Raven\<Profile Name>).

Example of cases where you may want to use multiple profiles are:

More than one user is sharing a single PC desktop. In this case, each user can have a Profile.
You want to separate your personal blogs from other blogs (e.g. work/business).
You are a professional writer/contributer and write for multiple clients/customers. In this case, you want to assign each of your clients a separate profile (you do not have to - but it keeps each of the customers/clients data separate).

At Zoundry, we also maintain multiples profiles - one of them being for the this Development Blog (and the Zoundry Blog) and the rest (a lot) being various "test" profiles. For example, some profiles contain 1 blog with a few posts, while others may have multiple blogs across various platforms with 1000s of posts. Another case is where some users have zipped their profile and emailed it to use for tracking down bugs.

Profile Manager:

This is the dialog you normally see on start up. It allows you to select the profile you want to open as well as create and delete Profiles.

Currently, this dialog is shown only during start up. You cannot switch profiles once you have launched the application. If you need to switch profiles, you need to exit the application and restart it. (This issue will be addressed in a later release).

Notice that this dialog has a "Don't show this dialog again" check box. Well, if you do check it, the dialog will not be shown and Raven will always launch with the last used Profile. Currently there is no way (with the current UI) for you to get to this dialog again (this will be resolved as well). If you must see this dialog, then the only option is to exit the application and modify a XML configuration file:

Open the profiles.xml file C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Zoundry\Zoundry Raven\profiles.xml .
Change the attribute named "bypass-dialog" (in the <profiles> element) value to "false".
< profiles default-profile =" Raven Dev Blog " bypass-dialog =" false " >
......
......

Changing the Profile From The Command Line:

If you are launching Raven from a command line or a Windows shortcut file, you can provide the path to the profile using the "--profile" option. The syntax is:

--profile <full_path_to_profile>

We use this technique in our development environment (Eclipse) to allow us launch different test Profiles from Eclipse's Run menu.

Launching a Profile From The Desktop:

Using the --profile command line option it is possible for one to launch a Profile from a desktop shortcut. For example, I launch the Zoundry Development Blog profile directly from my desktop - bypassing the Profile Manager Dialog with its many profiles (in my case).

Create a shortcut to zRaven.exe on your Windows Desktop. The zRaven.exe executable file is normally found in C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven\bin\ directory. To create a shortcut, right click on the zRaven.exe, drag and drop it to your desktop and choose Create Shortcuts Here option.
Next, you need to modify the shortcut's "Target" value by appending --profile and the path to your Profile. To do this, right click on the shortcut and choose the Properties option. From the shortcut's Properties dialog, select the Shortcut tab and append --profile [path-to-profile] to the Target value and press OK to save the changes

For example, if the Profile is locate in the C:\Blog Profiles\RavenDevBlog directory, then the Target value should look like (not completely visible in the screen shot):

"C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven\bin\zRaven.exe" --profile "C:\Blog Profiles\RavenDevBlog"

Now, when you double click on the desktop shortcut, Raven will launch, bypassing the Profile Manager and using the Profile defined in the command line option.

Beta Release Version 0.9.223

2008-03-08T16:39:00.001-05:00

Our second public beta build release (version 0.9.223) is now available for download. This build has most of the defects that were submitted during the last beta period fixed as well as the following enhancements and features:

Translation Tool - a new UI to help in translating Raven to other languages. If you would like to contribute, please let us know - directly from the Raven.
No More Technorati Tags - well, unless you want it. You now have the option of selecting Technorati or other tag sites. Read more.
Blog This - command line options to allow external programs launch Raven. Read more.
Editor Font - you can now chang the working font name and size of the Designer editor. Read more.
Trackback - you can now send trackbacks. Enter the trackback URLs in the blog post settings user interface.
File Attachment Upload - upload non-image files by simply dragging and dropping them into the designer. Read more.
Bug/defect fixes.

BlogThis with Command Line Options

2008-03-08T16:18:00.001-05:00

Zoundry Raven version 0.9.233 or later now supports command line options to allow external programs to launch the editor - specifically to support BlogThis functionality. The syntax is

path_to_raven_install\bin\zRaven.exe -blogthis -title [title text] -text "[text content]"

where -title is the post title and -text is the plain (not xhtml) text. Other options/flags include:

-format [text | xhtml]. If the text content is well formed xhtml, then use the flag "-format xhtml" to indicate that the content is xhtml and not plain text.
-file [full path to html file]. Use this if the content is located in a file instead of in the -text value. See example below for GreatNews newsreader.
-url [blog post or web site url]. If you want to site a post, indicate the post url here.
-quote [yes | no]. If set to yes, then the content will be enclosed in a block quote.

GreatNews Setup:

GreatNews (GN) is another cool news reader from CurioStudio. GreatNews has a BlogThis functionality to support external client applications such as Zoundry Raven.

To set up GreatNews to work with Zoundry Raven:

From GreatNews applications select menu Tools->Options
Choose Features tab.
Check BlogThis option and press the Configure button.
Create a new configuration (giving it a name such as ZoundryRaven).
For Type, choose Generic External Blogging Tool option.
For the URL enter path_to_raven_install\bin\zRaven.exe -blogthis -title "%TITLE%" -file %HTMLFILE% .

where path_to_raven_install is the install directory for Raven. For example,
C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven\bin\zRaven.exe -blogthis -title "%TITLE%" -file %HTMLFILE%

RSS Owl News Reader:

Instructions for RSS Owl:

From RSSOwl, select menu Tools -> Preferences.
Select 'Blogger' from the left handside on Preferences dialog.
For 'external blogger' executable, browse and select the Raven executable file (zRaven.exe) .
E.g: C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven\bin\zRaven.exe
For the command line arguments enter the following (all in one line):
-blogthis -format xhtml -quote no -url [NEWSLINK] -title "[TITLE]" -text "[DESCRIPTION]"

FeedDemon

Use the following for NewsGator's FeedDemon:

Select menu Tools -> BlogThis News Item -> Configure Blog Publishing tools.
Choose add.
Enter "Zoundry Raven" for the name.
For the command line, browse and select the Raven executable file (zRaven.exe) .
Append "-blogthis -file" (with out quotes) to the end of the command line.

For example, the command line should be similar to:
C:\Program Files\Zoundry Raven\bin\zRaven.exe -blogthis -file

TDB - Launching Raven directly from your web browser (FireFox and IE).

How To Add Attachments To Your Posts (Hint: Drag and Drop)

2008-03-08T15:33:00.001-05:00

From time-to-time, you may need to upload non images with your posts. For example, a PDF attachment, or more frequently a MP3 podcast file.

With Zoundry Raven (ver 0.9.223+), this is easy as a drag and drop. The only requirement to accomplish this is that you must have a media storage setup that is capable of accepting large non-image files. The best option is to use a FTP based media storage as it can handle large files and it is efficient in uploading files (compared to xml-rpc).

The second option is to choose your blog's xml-rpc (e.g. WordPress). How ever, these do have limitations on file size. If you try to upload very large files (e.g. 8MB, depending on your server configuration), the server may not allow file uploads. These PHP based servers can be configured to support larger files. Please read this forum post for more details (thanks to David Leigh).

Media stores that are of Image type hosting sites will not work as these sites allow only images to be uploaded. Example of these include PicasaWeb, LiveJournal FotoBilder and ImageShack.

OK, now for the instructions. To upload and link files, there are two options:

Drag and drop the file from Windows Explorer into Raven's Designer (WYSIWYG editor). Raven will take care of the linking process.
Or, select the text you want to link and press Ctrl + L to bring up the Create Link dialog. From this dialog, press the File Browse button to find and select the file you need to attach.

During the publishing process, local files will be uploaded to the media store. Media files will automatically be marked as enclosures (rel=enclosure).

Changing the Editor Working Font Name and Size

2008-03-06T12:51:00.000-05:00

The WYSIWYG editor (basically the MS IE control) font name and size, by default are based on your Internet Explorer settings. Depending on the your desktop screen size and dpi, this may be small for some.

The next beta release candidate will have a user preference to all you to set your own font name and size. Once the setting has been applied, you will see the changes next time you open a document/post.

While on the topic of screen sizes, dpis etc, did you know that you can change most of the toolbar button sizes as well. To do this, simply right click on the toolbar (e.g. editor toobar where the Save buttons is) and choose the "tool size" as well as the "show text" option. Learn more about this from the Zoundry Raven: Custom ToolBar post.

How to Send Us Feedback

2008-03-05T22:33:00.000-05:00

The Zoundry Raven editor has a built-in dialog to allow you send feedback, bug reports etc. To access the Send Feedback dialog, choose Send Feedback option from the Help menu.

Important: If you do use this dialog form to send us feedback, please include your email address in case we need to contact you. (Our usual privacy policy applies i.e. we do not collect your email addresses etc.)

For example, a bug report could be simply as "Posts did not download from my server". In this case, we may need further information from you to track down the issue and hence the need to contact you.

Coming Soon: New Tag UI

2008-03-05T22:27:00.000-05:00

Raven provides a simple text control for you to enter a comma separated list of tags (or labels). These are entered in the "Tagwords" field, found below the Title in the edtior.

In the previous release (0.9.199), these tagwords were linked (bound) to Technorati.com tagspace when post is published and updated (even if tagging was natively supported by your blog platform such as Blogger or WordPress 2.2+).

A feature of the new beta release (0.9.223) is that we have finally removed the "hard coded" references to Technorati tagspace that was in the alpha release. With this release, you can select one or tag sites (or none at all, if you are on WordPress).

The new version has an additional tab ("Tag Sites", similar to Weblog Pings) in the blog post configure UI.

By default, the available tag sites are unchecked. If you want to add your tags to Technorati (or any other tag supported tag site), then the Technorati (or other) tag should be checked. Now, the nice thing about this option if you are using Blogger, WordPress 2.2+ or LiveJournal, then you do not have to select any tags sites since these three platforms supports tagging natively (unless you also want to add tags to sites outside your blog such as Technorati). For Blogger, we treat tags and categories as labels. So, most of you might end up using the Tagwords section to enter Blogger labels rather than using the (some what inconvenient) Category check boxes.

Default tag site selection can also be made at application level (via Preferences) as well on a per Account and Blog basis (via Account Manager).

Finally, if you want to link to a tag space within your post content, simply select the text you want to link, right click and choose Link -> LinkTo -> Tag -> Technorati (or other supported site).

Coming Soon: Translation UI

2008-02-29T19:03:00.000-05:00

We're getting ready to release another beta version of Zoundry Raven in the next few days. One of the new features that will finally be present is a User Interface for translating Raven into other languages. Zoundry Blog Writer had this feature, and it made the translation process go much more smoothly. First of all, let me just give a huge thanks to those Raven fans who have offered to do translations for various languages. We really appreciate it, since we don't have the resources necessary to do it ourselves. And of course, my standard apology for taking so long to get it implemented: sorry!

The Translation User Interface is pretty simple. There is a Translation Manager that can be accessed from the main Help menu. The Translation Manager displays a list of translations already present (currently none). You can use the Translation Manager to edit existing translations and add new translations. When you create a new translation, the New Translation dialog presents you with a list of languages (which is defaulted to the one that matches your system locale).

Once you have one or more translation in the list, you can go ahead and start translating. Do this by double-clicking on a translation or selecting one and clicking Edit. The window that pops up is the Translation Editor window. Use the Translation Editor window to do your translating. Once you are done (you can stop at any time and resume later), don't forget to click Save.

Here is a quick tip when using the Translation Editor: if you have a bundle string selected in the list, hitting the ENTER key will move the focus to the translation text box. After typing your translation, hitting ENTER again will register the change and set the focus back up to the list. If you have the "Show only untranslated strings" option enabled, you can do translations very quickly by hitting ENTER again (as the next string in the list would have been selected automatically).

Technorati : zoundry raven translation localization i18n

Raven Beta - Looking Good!

2008-02-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been almost three weeks since we did our first public beta release of Raven. We've been getting a lot of feedback from our users (thanks!) and so far it has been overwhelmingly positive. We have some bugs, and we have a lot of work to do before we can release a 1.0 version, but I think we're off to a good start. I think we're closing in on 1000 users of Raven - we should probably hit that number today or tomorrow, actually. A big thanks to everyone that has downloaded and tried the beta.

Stick with us, Raven will only get better with age!

Technorati : zoundry raven beta