Blogging Roller

Dave Johnson on blogging, open source and Java

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Monday Jan 17, 2005

BlogClient 1.0 is available

BlogClient is an experimental blog client library designed to make it easy to write Java programs that blog. It supports both Atom and XML-RPC based protocols. I wrote BlogClient for the new Manning book Blogs, Wikis, and Feeds In Action, which is due for release this Spring. I'm not quite done but I am ready to get some feedback, so please download BlogClient, try it out in your own programs (or try the test GUI), and let me know how I can make it better.

How does it work?

The idea is to define a couple of simple interfaces for the objects we need to blog, such as a BlogClient, BlogSite, and BlogEntry. Then, provide implementations of those interfaces for the different protocols. The diagram below shows the interfaces and classes that make up the Blog Client API. Right now, I have two implementations of the interfaces. I have an AtomBlogClient, that is based on the Atom protocol and a MetaWeblogApiClient that is based on a combination of the MetaWeblog and Blogger APIs.

Diagram of Blog Client interfaces

Using Blog Client

Assuming that you have the BlogClient jars in your classpath, using the BlogClient to make a post to your blog via the MetaWeblog API works like this:
    BlogClient client = new MetaWeblogApiClient(
       "http://jroller.com/xmlrpc", "scott", "tiger");
    String[] sites = client.getUserBlogs();
    BlogSite site = client.getBlogSite(sites[0]);

    BlogEntry entry = site.createEntry();
    BlogEntry.Content content = new BlogEntry.Content("Hello blog world!")
    entry.setContent(content);
    entry.save(true);
As you can see, some improvements could be made in API usability. Let me know how you'd like to see the API work. Oh, and those jars I mentioned:

rome-0.5.jar (modified to support link titles and rel="resource.post")
xmlrpc-1.2-b1.jar
commons-httpclient-2.0.2.jar
jdom.jar
commons-codec-1.1.jar
commons-lang-2.0.jar
commons-logging.jar

Where to learn more

You can find the complete BlogClient API interfaces on the Roller wiki and you can download version 1.0 of the client library here: blogclient-1.0.tar.gz. Also, included in the client library is a Swing-based GUI that supports creating, editing, and deleting blog entries as well as uploading images. Here 's a screenshot:
BlogClient GUI
And here are a couple more:
Login | Editor view | Entries view


Status of BlogClient

BlogClient is not complete because Atom itself is not complete. Work remains to bring BlogClient in-line with the current Atom protocol and format specifications. BlogClient been tested against the important blog servers -- by which I mean, of course, Blojsom, Pebble, Roller, and a couple of others. The table below shows the testing that has been done so far.


New
Entry
 Edit
Entry
 Delete
Entry
 Get
Entries
 New
Resource
 Get
Categories
 Set
Category
Roller 1.1 XML-RPC X
 X
 X
 X
 X
 X
 X
Roller 1.1 Atom X
 X
 X
 X
 X
 **
 **
Blojsom XML-RPC X
 X
 X
 X?
 X
 X
 fail
Blojsom Atom X
 X
 X
 X
 fail
 **
 **
Pebble XML-RPC X*
 X*
 fail
 X
 fail
 X
 X
Movable Type XML-RPC X
 X
 X
 X*
 fail
 ***
 ***
Das Blog XML-RPC







? Can't tell what expected behavior should be
* Operation succeeds but exception is thrown
** Atom does not support categories yet
*** Movable Type does not implement categories via MetaWeblog API

Plans for Blog Client

I'm releasing BlogClient as open source now to get feedback and I'll be improving it over the next month or so. Once the book goes to print, I'll try to find it a nice home (most likely as a Rome sub-project).

Enjoy!

Dave in Blogging Comments[9]

Tags: Blogging

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