Friday, December 4, 2009

Java Swing application to access Blogger

This small and very simple application allows you to connect to the Blogger server, see all you blogs, read posts, create new posts and edit them. The use of Java language was determined by the need of running this application on different operating systems. Swing was used for GUI programming because of its simplicity (and one more reason, described below). The name of the application is JDesktopBlogger.

After I started to use Blogger I searched for some desktop application to use with it. I've tried to use different open sources projects but none of them fit my needs. Then I thought: why not writing something on your own? Interesting enough, but some big changes came to my life at that time - I've switch my job and moved to another city. At the new job because of some reasons I couldn't start working at the project right away. I had couple of weeks to... do some self education :) I found out that the new project will be dealing with Swing. So I thought - why not create a blogging application? I've incited my friend to help me. We both were waiting for a project to start and while waiting we created this blogging application.

The application is very simple. The used technologies are limited to Swing for GUI, JAXB for saving account's file, Google's Gdata BloggerService for accessing Blogger.

At the time of writing this post the application is at pre-beta state. :) The features are not very rich, but include the following:
  • managing of several blogger accounts (includes creating, editing, deleting);
  • getting list of all blogs within account;
  • managing list of all posts within blog (includes creating, editing or deleting posts);
  • ability to create draft post. 
That's about it :) Not much, but we had to start with something. However, I do have some plans for this application and if time permits we'll add the following:
  • simple formatting options for post (right now only plain text is supported); 
  • caching of posts and blogs;
  • saving drafts on local machine; 
  • support of other blogging services by adding plug-in functionality. 

And now the main revelation: This post was written from the created application! :) It's like a proof of its work. Well, yes, the formatting of links and lists was later edited in the web, but that is the primary to-do for me :)

2 comments:

Andriy said...

Guys, implement the ability of posts' rich formatting and the application will be really cool!
BTW there is a commercial analog of this - MS office 2007. This can be a good example to follow :)

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