bluefacedpixie

Installing JBlogEditor 0.6 on Tiger.

After trying ecto and MarsEdit I thought I would give the experimental build of the all-Java JBlogEditor a spin. It was a little more complicated that I thought it would be:

1. Download the tar from http://www.javio.com/JBlogEditor/
   
2. Untar it (by doubleclicking in Finder) – this creates a jblogger directory.
   
3. Edit the file jblogger/macosx.carbon.ppc/configuration/config.ini: find the reference to org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86 and carefully change it to org.eclipse.swt.carbon.macosx.ppc (this fixes a bug in the default download)
   
4. If you don’t already have it, download and install Java 1.5 from Apple: Java 2 SE 5. Tiger defaults to Java 1.4.2 for maximum compatibility.
   
5. As I can’t work out how to configure the application to automatically choose Java 1.5 (please add a comment if you know how) I then have to run the application from Terminal:
   

   • change to the jblogger/macosx.carbon.ppc directory (for me that’s cd ~/Incoming/jblogger/macosx.carbon.ppc)
     
   • set the PATH variable to prefer Java 1.5 and then execute the editor using open: export PATH=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Commands/:${PATH}; open -a jblogeditor.app. (This is all on one line and may vary a little depending on your shell).
     

6. JBlogEditor should now start and ask for configuration for your blog – it’s still early verion 0.6.0 but unlike other applications it is cross-platform and free.
   

Unfortunately after all the effort it looks pretty dull and I still like editing my posts in Mail or the Wordpress editor!