BlogSync details

This page contains detail information about BlogSync.

How does it work

The magic behind BlogSync is blog API, it is a software interface implemented by blog service provider in order to enable other applications to access their blogs.

There are many kinds of blog APIs, such as GDATA API from Blogger and MetaWeblog API used by Windows Live Spaces, Drupal, WordPress and many other blog services. BlogSync currently support these 2 kinds of APIs. If your blog is not listed above, you can try contact your BSP to find out if they have enabled API access and which API are they using.

For blogs that does not support API access or use some other type of API, BlogSync features the ability to read from a standard RSS or ATOM formatted feed. This feature enables BlogSync to read from an unsupported blog, and then write the content to another API enabled blog. However read is as far as BlogSync can go with a feed, it is not possible for BlogSync to write any thing to it unless the blog support API that is recognized by BlogSync.

How does the authorization work

BlogSync need authorization to access your blog.

Different API use different kind of authorization process. Some use user name and password, some use authorized token.

GDATA API requires applications using a token to access the blog. The token is acquired through a authorization process hosted on Google Account site only. The only thing that the application knows is the token, and you can disable the token any time you like on the Google Account website. User name and password are not exposed to the application. So users don't have to worry about their user info. I think this method is the safest.

Windows Live Spaces use another approach. User have to set a special key in their blog setting page and then input the blog name and the key in BlogSync to enable it access the blog.

You can find the setting detail for every supported blog in this page.

In any case, BlogSync doesn't store your account info. By default, it uses Flash SharedObject -- a place like cookies that can only be read by the flash application at the same location on web -- to save user data, and you can disable this feature at any time.

Features

Once a blog or feed has been added to BlogSync, you can perform following operations to it.

Copy posts

This feature needs 2 blogs or 1 feed and 1 blog added in BlogSync. It can copy posts from one blog to another, while preserving the format, layout, publish time and labels of the post.

Synchronize

This feature too needs 2 blogs or at least 1 feed and 1 blog. BlogSync automatically compare two blogs, and find out the different posts. It use post title as identity of the post. If you have two posts with the same name on both blogs, BlogSync will not list it in synchronize queue.

Delete multiple posts from a blog at once

BlogSync can help you delete a lot of post from a blog at once(Be careful, you cannot undo this process). At least 1 accessible blog is required.

What is a "source"?

"Source" is the term BlogSync uses to address a blog or a feed. If it's a feed, the source will be labeled "read only".
The main page of BlogSync is "Sources manager", which list all the blogs and feeds user added to BlogSync. BlogSync automatically check every source to find out if the source is still accessible and how many posts are there in each source at start. After the check, user can perform other operations.

System requirements

BlogSync need flash player 9, and enable javascript on your browser.

Future plans

I'm currently planning a AIR version of BlogSync. If it is completed, you will be able to run BlogSync on your desktop. And there maybe some drag & drop feature in it.
But don't anticipate too much yet, 'cause I have not officially started the developing...