Blog Post Builder: The fastest way to compose a blog post!

What is Blog Post Builder (v0.45, 10april07)? - Download! - Support Forum - Help Pages

Crop & Resize

Main screen

View resized image

Blog Post Builder makes writing multiple blog posts with a certain format faster, the process of resizing and cropping images used in blog posts will become more efficient and the overall time you spend on composing and writing blog posts will decrease. Watch me write a simple blog post (i'm not a good actor :D).

Features

Cropping and resize abilities.
Resized images are Photoshop quality.
The post template defines the fields in the editor. Only fields that you are use are visible.
Retrieve images directly from online galleries and do your cropping & resizing afterwards.
One button press publishes the blog post including all images.
Compose your blog post once, convert it to post template and use Blog Post Builder to fill in the images, links and text.
Archive Blog Posts and use them as template the next time.
Hub support, upload images once and the next posted blog posts will use these uploaded images.
Post to Multiple Blogs, group blogs in Blog Sets.
Powerfull keyword replacement function.
Free and no spyware.
Automatic uploading of images and blog posts.
Full help pages for every dialog.
And even more.

Latest News
How does it work?
What is Blog Post Builder?
Download
Post template introduction
Importing your blogs
Learn how to create a blog post in 1 minute
The Image Field explained
Keyword replacement function
The Crop & Resize Image Dialog
Tweaking the quality of the resized image
Creating your own post template
Support

Latest News

10 April 2007
- Added: right mouse click menu (copy, paste, cut, delete, select all, undo, redo)

26 february 2007
- Added: scrollbar appears when there is not enough vertical space on the Images, Links and Text tab.
- Fixed: image fields are filled in the correct order.
- Added: Help Topics and Support menu items under Help menu.
- Fixed: a small amount of fixes.
- Updated: version number is now 0.41.

25 february 2007
- Added: retrieve images from online galleries
- Added: integrated Images, Links and Text tab in to one tab
- Added: ask to import blogs when no blogs are imported
- Updated: fine tuned the whole program
- Updated: version number is now 0.4

22 november 2006
- Fixed: a problem when using the dollar sign

19 october 2006
- Blog Post Builder now has its own domain name: http://www.blogpostbuilder.com/
- Changed: version number to 0.31
- Versions older then 0.31 will display a message that a new version is available

18 october 2006
- Added: blog set support
- Added: hub support
- Added: publish date
- Updated: more stable
- Added: keyboard support for main window
- Added: full help system + help pages for every dialog
- Changed: version number to 0.3

17 october 2006
- Added: posting to multiple blogs
- Added: manage templates from program
- Added: predefined texts
- Added: keyword replacement function
- Changed: moved "select template" function to a new dialog
- Added: archived blog posts
- Added: create blog post from archived blog post
- Added: $REF tag for template
- Added: $ALT tag for template
- Added: image preview in file open dialog
- Changed: image crop/resize dialog
- Added: specify a filename of cropped/resized image
- Changed: version number to 0.2
- Added: a help button on every window

26 november 2006
- First version of Blog Post Builder sees the light! Version 0.1

How does it work?

This is a Post Template, simple html with a couple tags:
<a href="$LINK(A link)"><img src="$IMAGE(A image)" border="0"></a><BR>
$TEXT(My text)

If you use the above template in Blog Post Builder then 3 fields will appear, a link field, a image field and a text field. The image field is a special field. You can select a image from your harddisk and crop & resize it. When you finished filling in these 3 fields Blog Post Builder will:

Create the final blog post:
<a href="http://www.mysite.com"><img src="http://www.myimageserver.com/img.jpg" border="0"></a><BR>Wow, look at that!
Upload the cropped & resized image (img.jpg) to your server.
Add the final blog post to your blog.
Simple!

What is Blog Post Builder?

You don't have to use external programs anymore, like dreamweaver for composing the blog post, just compose you blog post once, make a post template of it and use it when you like it. Or Photoshop for cropping and resizing images. Blog Post Builder can crop and resize like an expert and the quality of the resized images is Photoshop quality.

Blog Post Builder can add blog posts to almost any kind of blogging software like Wordpress, Thumblogger.com, Blogger.com, Serendipity, Movable Type, you name it and Blog Post Builder supports it.

Blog Post Builder main screen, where it all happens. (how it looks in XP)
^^ These are old screenshots, take a look at a more recent one.

Download

Blog Post Builder is a program that you may use for free, it doesn't contain spyware or adware. In the future a paid version of Blog Post Builder will likely see the light, but their will always be a free version.

Blog Post Builder runs on any version of Windows. The only requirement is that you have installed a recent version of Java, which can be downloaded here: http://www.java.com/ . After you installed Java please click the big red link below to download Blog Post Builder. If you don't understand what i'm saying: just click the big red link below.

> Download Blog Post Builder <

Instructions on how to get Blog Post Builder running on other platforms including Mac, UNIX, Solaris and Linux will be published on a later date. (forum post)

Post template introduction

This is possible because you can create and use your own post template with Blog Post Builder. A post template specifies the html needed for a blog post. For example where the images should go.

In addition to html a post template can also contain special tags; these tags represent a visual field in Blog Post Builder. For example when you put "$LINK(My link)" in a post template a field with label "My link" will be visible on the Links tab in Blog Post Builder.

This way you can create your own fields for your own blog template. And only the fields that are useful for your post template will be visible. If you only want a blog post with 1 image that is linked to some site then you use the following post template:

<a href="$LINK(A link)">$IMAGE(My little image)</a>

Now when you choose this post template in Blog Post Builder the Links tab will contain a field "A link" and the Images tab will contain a field with label "My little image".

Importing your blogs

When you start Blog Post Builder for the first time you need to import blogs. You do this by going to "Blogs" menu > "Manage". A new dialog appears, click the Import button. Another dialog appears, enter the XML-RPC url in the "Server URL" field, enter the username you use to login in the Username field and the password you use to login in the Password field. Click the "Start Import" button to import your blogs into Blog Post Builder.

If everything worked you should now have a couple blogs in the list. Click the Close button the close the dialog.

The XML-RPC url is usual a url which external programs can use to add blog posts to your blog. On Thumblogger it is for example: http://www.thumblogger.com:2020/ . On wordpress it is a url with the file "xmlrpc.php", for example: http://www.mybloggy.com/xmlrpc.php . For Blogger it is: http://plant.blogger.com/api/RPC2 .

Learn how to create a blog post in 1 minute

Now let's create a blog post which we will post on your blog:

Select a blog in the Blog field.
Select a post template in the "Post template" field, let's choose "one_image_at_top", which is a blog post with one image at the top and the blog post text under this image.
Click the "Create blog post" button.
Click the Images tab and click the Browse button, choose an image from your hard disk and click the Open button.
A new dialog appears which allows you to resize/crop the image. Let's keep it simple and click the "Resize only" button, to resize the full image to 150 pixels.
Click the Links tab; enter some url in the link field.
Click the Text tab; enter the blog post text in the text field.
Finally press the "Post to Blog" button.
You blog post is added to your blog!

The Image Field explained

A field on the Images tab is an special field, it's a image field. This means that you can click the Browse button. When you do this a new dialog appears which allows you to choose a image from your hard disk. Next another dialog appears which allows you to change how the image will appear in your blog post:

You can select a certain area of the image and crop/resize this area to a certain size.
You can just resize to whole image to a certain size.
You can choose to include the original image in your blog post (no crop/resize)

After you chosen a image and specified a link (on the Links tab) then you are ready for posting the post on your blog, this is simple: just press the "Post to Blog" button and wait while Blog Post Builder uploads the images and blog post for you.

Keyword replacement function

When you select Text > Manage in the menu then you can manage your predefined texts, you can use these texts on the Text tab when creating a new blog post. That is handy, but there is more. You can define tags in the predefined text, for example:

Here are some hot pictures of a %babe% showing her tits and spreading her legs.

%babe% is a tag. When you select this predefined text on the Text tab then the text will appear in the text field. When you now go to the Keywords tab and press the "Scan for keywords in text" button then the keyword "babe" will appear in the table. Now enter "Girly" by double clicking on the cell in the Value column. When you now add the blog post to your blog the tag %babe% will be replaced with "Girly".

This is a quick way to make blog posts with similar text but different keywords.

The keyword tab

The Crop & Resize Image Dialog

The "Crop & Resize Image" dialog has a lot functionality:

You can select a area to crop by clicking on the image and holding down the left mouse button while moving the mouse. Release the left mouse button to complete the area.
If you want to select a area which has the same width and height: press the SHIFT key while selecting the area.
You can move a selected area around by dragging the area with your mouse.
You can make the selected area larger or smaller by pressing the SHIFT key while dragging the area with your mouse.
You can resize the selected area freely by pressing the CTRL key while dragging the area with your mouse.
Double clicking somewhere removes the area.
Create a area with a fixed size by entering the width and height sizes in the top fields and pressing the Create button.
Specify how many pixels the resized image (or area) will be by entering a size in pixel in the bottom field (after "Image or cropped area will be resized to ".
Enable the "I want to choose next image (if necessary) after this dialog is closed" option if you want to directly choose another image after you closed the "Crop & Resize Image" dialog.

Crop, resize, you can do that and more.

Tweaking the quality of the resized image

You can specify how the resized images look, go to File menu > Settings. A new dialog appears. "Image quality" stands for the quality of the saved image, a high quality (80, 90, 100) will result in a image with less or no compression, meaning a good looking but rather big (file size) image. "Smooth factor" is a filter which will be applied to the image after it is resized, "Sharp" or "Very sharp" is preferred for small thumbnails, but you have to do some tests to see what you like the best for your image size.

How would that resized image look on my blog?

To test:

Choose a post template with a image.
Specify a "Smooth factor".
Click the Images Tab, Browse button, resize or crop.
Press the View button on the Images tab to see the final result.
You can also look in the "thumbs/" folder on your hard disk.
Repeat with a different "Smooth factor".

Creating your own post template

You can read the "Post Template Mini Quickstart".

An example of a post template with one linked image and blog post text beneath.

Support

Blog Post Builder - Table of Contents might be interesting if you are looking for help.

Or maybe a full site map.

You can post all your question, bugs and feature requests on the Official Blog Post Builder Support Forum.