Code

As you probably know if you've been reading my blog, I'm working on a frontend to Nicholas' "Coat" blogging app. It's a set of python scripts and templates that run over plain text files and make pretty pages out of them. However, I can never remember Markdown syntax or anything like that, so I wanted to make a quick and simple blog entry app for Mac OS X. So I originally whipped up a web page which I stuck inside a WebKit frame, but since then it's become a lot more complicated, with attachment support (the photos in the previous entry were done with this - it saves attachments, then puts the Markdown that references the file into the text area), and automatic hooks from Cocoa into the python scripts.

I'm still working on it but I'm pretty pleased with how it's going, especially since it was a long time since I'd done any Mac programming and Interface Builder can be confusing as hell to get the interfacing connections right. But I'm very happy with what I've done, especially since I didn't think I'd be able to do it before.

Here's a screenshot of it in action, writing this blog entry (ooh, you can see some edits I made since! :):

I'm in the process of cleaning up the code and adding more error messages for when things don't work, but if you're interested in checking it out, I put it up on bitbucket (though you probably won't be, since you don't have Nicholas' Coat program, and this is entirely useless without it). But writing about it makes me want to do more with it, and keeps up the motivation to add things to it.

To do list:

• editing of previous entries
• smarter attachment handling (putting the Markdown where the cursor is rather than just at the end of the file, since adding in links etc. can screw up the flow)
• automatic resizing of images (+ links to "full size" images)
• integrating the entirety of the Coat code into the app, whether through rewriting it or something else
• integration with Tapir? I'd love to have a gallery that doesn't suck (Gallery3 is far too huge and PHP-y for my liking), and Tapir's a bit old but now that I know how to do things better I could probably fix it up to be awesome.
• static page creation/editing (e.g. my recipe pages, etc.)
• iPhone/iPad app

Obviously some of these are easier than others to do. :) But it'll be fun!