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InfoPath as a RSS Smart Client

Monday, November 17, 2003 1:08:57 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)
This all started when I wasn't quite satisfied with the tools I was using to publish to my blog. w.bloggar wasn't working correctly with dasBlog (or I didn't configure it properly) and I didn't want to take the time to debug and see what was going on in the BloggarAPI and dasBlog interaction. MailToWeblog worked fine as long as I didn't use the e-mail server at work, they would strip html out, so I would loose my formatting in the posts.  So after reading a couple of articles on InfoPath and wanting to play with it, I designed a form for dasBlog submissions and created an endpoint on my web server.
 
For the initial version I came up with these core attributes for the client:
  • Simple and straight forward, little configuration. 
  • Post only functionality (I can refine the posts using the web UI if I need to, and will possibly add addtional functionality later)
  • Acts like Microsoft Word (spell check, formatting, etc) when composing
  • Save posts off to file system, so I can evolve it over multiple revisions if needed, or I don't have a readily available internet connection.
  • It must use the HTTP protocol for the post submission (that way I can post reliably from anywhere with an internet connection)
 
Don't get me wrong, dasBlog already supports a great deal of these features and is a solid thin client editor.  However, I really needed the ability to compose posts offline, and persist them to file for later publishing when I was back online.
 
Actually this post right here is the product of what I created.  This is the inaugural post.
 
After I refine it, I will release the InfoPath form and dll endpoint so others can use it for their dasBlog driven sites.

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