Basic setup
So, in this post I will explore how post to Blogspot from the command line in an elegant way. First we need to install Google's CLI tool, let's grab it:wget http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/downloads/detail?name=googlecl_0.9.13-1_all.deb
Now, let's install it:
dpkg -i googlecl_0.9.13-1_all.deb
OK, basically, now you are good to go. The documentation is fairly easy to understand. Except maybe one note. The first time you will run the command you will need to configure your client. The config files are found in:
~/.config/googlecl/config
Well done by googleres who put the stuff where I expected it. Do note, when you run the config you will be asked for the name of your Blog. This is NOT the subdomain, e.g. in my case:
linuxpixies.blogspot.com
Rather to correct answer is the title of the Blog:
Linux Pixies and Stuff
Spaces are digested very well.
Making things Fancy
Until now you can post simple text files, or manually edit HTML (YUCK!). Here comes the fun part. Editing simple text files and automagically converting them to HTML. Enter markdown.Markdown
Markdown is a sweet little thing I discovered using stackexchange.com. The more I use it I want more. This thing is addicting, and even worse, it makes me hate all other Wiki syntax! Especially TkWiki, which we use in my workplace. Markdown has many many converters. I use python-markdown2, so let's install it:pip install markdown2
Now, if you are a pedant, you could make a Debian package, which is actually better than just dumping Python packages. But pip can also remove Python packages, so it's now that bad, after all.Anyway, at this point, you have python-markdown2 installed, and the command
markdown
is at your finger tips. You can start writing your post with your favorite editor, be it Nano, EMACS, Ed or VIM, when your done, save it with an appropriate title and md
suffix so you know later it's Markdown. Now comes the fun part.
Converting to HTML
/usr/local/bin/markdown2 YourCoolPost.md > Title\ of\ Your\ Cool\ Post.html
Now, you can view it with:
firefox Title\ of\ Your\ Cool\ Post.html
It will be bare naked HTML, without any styling, but you will get a good feeling how your post will look like. When your satisfied, go the next step, publishing.
Publishing your Post
Easy as:google blogger post Title\ of\ Your\ Cool\ Post.html
Done.
2 comments:
On Debian, googlecl is in the main repository (0.9.9 in Stable, 0.9.13 in Testing and Unstable). This means you can simply install it with aptitude install googlecl , no need to download manually and use low-level tools like dpkg. I suppose this also means it is available (or will soon be available) in Ubuntu Universe, if not main.
Hi Shai,
Thanks, I had no clue that googlecl is the repos already!!!
That's really good news.
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