A few days ago, when WordPress 2.7 RC2 was released, I discovered that UseShots Editor produced the ” -2: Key [description] not found” error. My first thought was it was a bug introduced in RC2. I even found a suspect change in WP code and reported it in WP support forum.  However when forum members failed to reproduce the error, I double-checked the issue and discovered a bug in my own code.

In versions prior to WordPress 2.7 RC2, they ignored category descriptions in XMLRPC responses for the metaBlogger.getCategories call and always returned the category name in the “description” field. This way the “description” field was never empty. However in RC2, the started to pass actual category description (which may be blank and is usually blank for the “Uncategorized” category) in that field. For some reason in UseShots Editor, I didn’t check whether all fields in the responce are non-empty. It worked for previous versions of WordPress but no longer works for WordPress 2.7.

That’s why I decided to release  an emergency update to make UseShots Editor fully compatible with the latest version of WordPress, which you definitely should upgrade to.

You can download UseShots Editor v0.6.1.63 here.

I’ve been using beta versions of 2.7 for quite some time for my other blog and I must admit I like it. However yesterday, with the Release Candidate 2, they added a bug to version 2.7 which was not fixed in this final release.

This bug prevents offline clients like Windows Live Writer and UseShots Editor to load a category list from a server if even one category doesn’t have a description. This is a nasty bug since many people don’t assign description to categories. And there is a default pre-installed “Uncategorized” category that doesn’t have a description. This means your offline blogging clients won’t work smoothly with WordPress 2.7.

I reported this bug in WordPress support forum. Until it is fixed, I don’t advise to upgrade to version 2.7 if you use XMLRPC-based clients.

Update: Thanks to responses in the forum I realized that the bug was in UseShots Editor, not in WordPress 2.7. Sorry for the false alert. You definitely should upgrade to WordPress 2.7 - you’ll like it.

I have fixed the bug and released an emergeny update of UseShots Editor.

Remote Publishing in WordPress 2.6

By default WordPress 2.6 will be installed with remote publishing turned off. I.e. you wont be able to use Windows Live Writer or UseShots Editor on new out-of-the-box WordPress installations.

Don’t panic. It’s easy to turn the remote publishing back on.

Note: If you are upgrading an existing blog to WordPress 2.6 you don’t have to do anything - remote publishing will still be available.

Settings / Writing

Log in to WordPress admin panels. Click Settings, then Writing.

Enable XML-RPC

Scroll down to the Remote Publishing section and enable the XML-RPC option. (Some software might also neen the “Atom Publishing Protocol”).

If you don’t turn the remote publishing on, you will see the following error when you try to publish your articles: “405: XML-RPC services are disabled on this blog. An admin user can enable them at http://your-site-domain.com/blog/wp-admin/options-writing.php“. Just copy and paste the address into your browser’s address bar, log in to your blog, and turn on the remote publishing.

Do I need to upgrade to WordPress 2.6?

Yes, it’s a good idea to upgrade as soon as WordPress 2.6 is officially released. Don’t let hackers enough time to find vulnerabilities in your WordPress 2.5.1 blog. With the new version, your blog will be more secure. And if you are still using more old versions, you definitely should upgrade.

Security warning

Warning: If you are upgrading a compromised blog, your WordPress 2.6 will also be compromised.

So, before the upgrade, make sure your existing WordPress blog is not compromised. You can use the WordPress Exploit Scanner to search the files and database of your website for signs of suspicious activity, or, if you don’t want to install anything, try the Unmask Parasites online service to check your web pages for hidden malicious content.

UseShots Editor 0.6 has been released.

The major new features is Article Layouts. Now you have more control over how your articles will look like. (Check the "Article Layouts" section below)

Download UseShots Editor 0.6

Smarter UseShots Camera

Among other improvements, smarter UseShots Camera that will warn you when you try to capture screen area that is wider than your blog’s column. You will know whether the screen shot will be automatically resized to fit the blog layout or it will retain its original size along with the best image quality.

<code> and <pre> tags

If you post code snippets on your blog, you will like the fact that you can now use code and pre tags.

code - defines computer code text.
pre - defines preformatted text. It helps preserve indentation (leading spaces and line breaks) in code snippets. The text renders in a fixed-pitch font

Here is how PHP code from the WordPress’ wp-atom.php file looks like when enclosed in pre tags

<?php
if (empty($wp)) {
	require_once('./wp-config.php');
	wp('feed=atom');
}

require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/feed-atom.php');
?>

It is possible to achieve a much richer effect using style sheets.

Article Layouts

Before version 0.6 you couldn’t change the layout of UseShots-generated blog posts. The pre-built layout was good (centered images followed by annotations), but if you prefer to place images on the right or left side of the column and have text wrapping around the images, the only thing you could do is modify HTML code of the published articles in the WordPress admin panels.

Now when you create a new article or preview an existing one, you can easily select the layout that better fits your blog style.

There are three article layouts available: Tutorial, Article (left image), Article (right images)

Layout: Tutorial

By default, the Tutorial layout is used.

Every picture is on its own line, in the center of the column. Each screen is visually separated from other screens with dashed horizontal lines.

This layout is ideal for tutorials where you explain things step-by-step.

Layout: Article (left images)

If you write a review and prefer a more natural flow of text, you should consider one of the Article layouts.

In the Article (left images) layout, small images (less than a half column width) are placed on the left side of the column. Larger images are centered as in the Tutorial layout. Annotations wrap around the images. Screens are not visually separated.

Layout: Article (right images)

In the Article (right images) layout, small images (less than a half column width) are placed on the right side of the column. Larger images are centered as in the Tutorial layout. Annotations wrap around the images. Screens are not visually separated.

In this post (I created it in UseShots Editor) I used the Article (right images) layout.

Feedback

To date, there had been more than 1,000 downloads of my program. Whatever you are using it for, I hope UseShots Editor makes your life a little easier. :-)

And since the program is still under development, please suggest features you want to see in UseShots Editor. Let me know which blogging platforms you want it to work with.

Send me links to your blog posted created with UseShots Editor. I will be posting such links on my blog from time to time.

Your feedback is always welcome. Leave your comments here or use the contact form.

In the first part of this series I talked about how tutorial directories can help you drive traffic to tutorials on your own site and improve ranking in search engines.

In this part I’ll share my own experience with some of such directories.

“One of the biggest areas of blogging in the modern world has to do with the idea of screenshots.” read more

Thanks James.

In this post, I want to talk about how you can promote your online tutorials.

First of all, online tutorials are regular web pages and all general web site promotion techniques works well with them. I.e. write quality content that other people would like to link to, have your tutorial indexed by major search engines and rank well, submit it to social media sites, advertize, etc. You can easily find tons of resources about web site promotion, so I’m not going to talk about them here.

This post is about promotion opportunity specific to online tutorials - tutorial directories.

Tutorial directories

Tutorial directories are web sites with categorized catalogs of links to various tutorials. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of such sites and you can submit your tutorial to most of them. The easiest way to locate such sites is to google for “submit tutorial”.

How to submit a tutorial?

The submissions are free and easy. On a specialized page, you need to select an appropriate category for your tutorial and specify a title and a short description along with a link to the tutorial web page. Some site will also ask for your web site (home page) link and an icon or a thumbnail that they can place next to your listing (usually a 50×50 or 60×60 gif file). Some sites require that you register before you can submit a tutorial.

Why use tutorial directories?

There are two major reasons why you might want to get listed on as many tutorial sites as possible: traffic and inbound links.

Traffic. Every tutorial directory tries to highlight new submissions on its home page and you may expect a short-term increase of traffic from tutorial directories right after the submission. A few days later, when your tutorial is no longer on home pages and can be only found under specific categories of directories, the traffic will significantly decrease, and only occasional visitors will come to your site from tutorial directories.

Inbound links. Nonetheless, in the long tail, you will benefit from the inbound links that will help you rank better in search engines. Most sites provide links both to the tutorial web page and the tutorial author’s web site. However you should be aware that some sites include only redirected or “nofollowed” links, and/or display your web pages in a frame. Although such links can channel traffic to your web site, they are almost useless in terms of SEO.

To be continued…

In the second part of this post I will review tutorial directories. I have submitted my own tutorial to some of them and will be able to share my own experience with you.