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LyXBlogger

LyXBlogger allows LyX to post beautifully formatted code directly to your WordPress blog.

1.  Premise

LyX really is a new way of thinking about documents. There is a bit of a learning curve about it, but once you get the formatting set up the way you want it, each successive chapter in your book sets up exactly the same-- automatically. It also prevents you from doing things that don't normally make sense, like putting two spaces between a word, or a space at the beginning of a paragraph. It won't even let you accidentally (or on purpose) put two blank lines between paragraphs. Content is content and layout is layout - and LyX does a good job keeping them separate.

So many of us have become LyX addicts for these and other reasons. But when one wants to publish to the web, as in creating an online blog, there comes a dilemma of the having your cake and eating it too variety. Of course LyX users still want to compose everything they do in LyX. But blogging engines, such as WordPress, don't speak LyX, and they don't understand PDF either. They hunger for none other than xhtml. Ah, but how to get your beautiful looking, carefully arranged document from LyX to WordPress, while retaining your document's organization and allowing you to still manage your own CSS style file to tweak the formatting?

LyX die hards have done it the hard way before. Like composing a document in LyX, then copying the screen into the blog engine composition window, and re-adding any formatting that was lost for titles, headings, emphasis, lists, and so on. Well those days are over. Now you can talk directly from LyX to your favorite blogging engine. That is, as long as your favorite blogging engine is WordPress.

2.  Solution

LyXBlogger allows you to post to your WordPress blog right from LyX. LyXBlogger 0.38 comes with the following features:

• Provides XML-RPC connectivity to WordPress Blogs
• Uploads images automatically
• Allows previous posts to be updated
• Saves multiple blog profiles in a local config file
• Supports eLyXer XHTML format
• Supports LyX 2.0 (internal) LyXHTML format
• Extracts title from document and uses it as the posting title
• Preserves document organization hierarchy as CSS classes
• Provides consistent look among all your blog entries based on your master CSS file
• Retrieves category list from server to allow user selection
• Gives option to post to test site at blogtest.letseatalready.com
• Displays messages and gets user input through xterm window

3.  Download

LyXBlogger is available as a free download from https://savannah.nongnu.org/files/?group=lyxblogger.

4.  Installation and Support

LyXBlogger now has its own home page. There you will find the user's guide, which contains the latest documentation on installing and running LyXBlogger. For support, please email the author directly at jackdesert556@gmail.com.

An xhtml converter is also required. Select and install an appropriate xhtml converter for your version of LyX.

4.1  Supported xhtml converters for LyX 1.6.x

• eLyXer

4.2  Supported xhtml converters for LyX 2.0

• eLyXer
• LyXHTML (Internal in LyX 2.0)

5.  Usage

LyXBlogger is called from the export menu of LyX. First, see if LyXBlogger is already listed in your LyX export menu. If it's not, see the user's guide for help in setting it up.

Alternatively, LyXBlogger can be invoked from the command line as

See the user's guide for details.

5.1  Test Drive

LyXBlogger comes out of the box ready to upload to a test site (blogtest.letseatalready.com) where you can test its posting capability. LyXBlogger will ask you whether to post to the test site or not. Once you can post to the test site, just run LyXBlogger again, this time telling it to use a different site instead. It will prompt you for your domain name, user name, and password.

6.  Brief History

• 0.38: Supports multiple blog profiles
• 0.37: Allows updating of previous posts
• 0.34: Installs as a python module. Supports Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux. Added significant automated testing to ensure quality releases.
• 0.32: Asks for confirmation before uploading to default domain. Prompts for a new title if eLyXer's default of 'Converted document' is found.
• 0.31: Adds eLyXer support for LyX 1.6.x and 2.0
• 0.30: Adds support for images. Changed to xml-rpc connectivity instead of cut-and-paste. Runs on LyX 2.0 (internal) LyXHTML format.
• 0.20 and previous: Initial releases pasted html code to the clipboard so it was ready to paste wherever you needed it, like into a text editor or a browser-based composition window. This still has a lot of usefulness for creating forum posts and for other projects, too. May be revived in the future under another project name.

A more in-depth history of LyXBlogger is available in the change log.

7.  Contributors

• Jack Desert

8.  Categories

Blog html xml-rpc Publish online