Beta Release Version 0.9.223

Our second public beta build release (version 0.9.223) is now available for download. This build has most of the defects that were submitted during the last beta period fixed as well as the following enhancements and features:

• Translation Tool - a new UI to help in translating Raven to other languages. If you would like to contribute, please let us know - directly from the Raven.
• No More Technorati Tags - well, unless you want it. You now have the option of selecting Technorati or other tag sites. Read more.
• Blog This - command line options to allow external programs launch Raven. Read more.
• Editor Font - you can now chang the working font name and size of the Designer editor. Read more.
• Trackback - you can now send trackbacks. Enter the trackback URLs in the blog post settings user interface.
• File Attachment Upload - upload non-image files by simply dragging and dropping them into the designer. Read more.
• Bug/defect fixes.

Announcing Zoundry Raven Beta

I'm happy to announce the beta release of our next generation blog editor, called Zoundry Raven. It's a big milestone for us. We've taken the great suggestions on how to improve Zoundry Blog Writer from our users around the world and incorporated them into Raven. You can download and try it out at http://www.zoundryraven.com/.

Many of our users have become more sophisticated bloggers over the last several years, and have asked us for a more sophisticated product that's still really easy to use. You'll see that Raven includes new features that simplify publishing across multiple blogs and services. There's also a new indexer that allows you to browse your posts by title, links, images, or tags.

Our goal is to make Raven the best blogging editor around and we'll continue to need your input to make that happen. I want to thank all of our users for their support and feedback. And please continue to give us your suggestions either through email or at our forum.

Technorati : Raven

Announcing the Zoundry 2.0 Development Blog

We've been busy working on our next product. Codenamed Raven, it will have a lot of new features, a new UI, and will be much more extensible. We want to make it easy for third-party developers to add new functionality through plug-ins. We've started a new blog, the Zoundry 2.0 Development Blog, where we will post regular updates on our progress. Feel free to post specific feedback there or you can always email us.

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Developer Release for Blogger Beta

We're looking for testers to try out our first release for Blogger Beta. You can read the release notes and download it at our forums. Please post feedback at the forum thread.

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Hello Chinese Zoundry Users

I am happy to announce that we have an official Chinese language site for Zoundry at cn.zoundry.com. I want to thank Walter Wu, a blogger in Tianjin, China and the developer of the nklog blogging service, for generously volunteering to translate our web site into Chinese.

The Chinese language version of the Blog Writer is also available for download there. I want to thank again flimsy, the Chinese blogger who translated our product.

Many of our users are coming from China, so we're happy to provide more Chinese support through the volunteer efforts of our many friends. Unfortunately we haven't expanded our Zoundry Service into China yet, but you do not need a service account in order to use our Blog Writer.

We hope to expand our affiliate service into China some day. Let me know if you know of any affiliate marketing e-commerce companies in China who would be interested in partnering with us.

Technorati : blog desktop clients, blog editor, blogging, china, multiblogging, zoundry Del.icio.us : blog desktop clients, blog editor, blogging, china, multiblogging, zoundry

We're Still Looking for Translators

As I wrote earlier, the Blog Writer v1.0 beta supports localization so we're looking for volunteers to help us translate the UI messages, captions, and strings. You can find instructions here in our user guide.

I am happy to announce that we have our first translation file - in Chinese. For more information, see this thread at our support forum.

Thanks for your help!

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Demise of Lite

You may have noticed that we have discontinued our Lite version of the Blog Writer. If you already have Lite, you can continue to use it but we will no longer support or update it.

We made this decision for a couple of reasons:

1. We designed Lite to be a slimmed down version of our editor for users who didn't care about inserting product links. However, we couldn't find many features to remove so it ended being very similar to the full Blog Writer. It wasn't a big surprise that demand has been low, with Lite making up less than 20% of our total downloads.

2. As we were developing version 1.0 and looking at our feature roadmap, we couldn't think of many features that we would include in the full version and not in Lite.

We might create multiple versions again in the future, but until then, we'll offer just one version of our Blog Writer. For those of you who don't want to insert product links, it's easy enough not to use that feature. But we hope you will try it out! If you're not interested in earning money for yourself, we encourage you to create product links for one of our charities or the Zoundry donation jar.

Let us know if you have suggestions for future versions of the Blog Writer targeted to specific use cases. We always appreciate the feedback!

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New Developer Release Available

It's been quiet here over the past several months because we've been working hard on our 1.0 release of the Zoundry Blog Writer. I am happy to announce that a developer release of 1.0 is now available at our forum.

We've been listening to all the great feedback from our users and added a number of requested features, bug fixes, and a lot of work under the hood.

Here are the major new features (more information available at our forum):

• Spell Check. Yes, finally! This is our first version, with more advanced spell checking in the works. It has a simple dialog-based UI that you can run or set to operate automatically before posting.

• XHTML Editor. For our more technically advanced users, we now allow you to edit the XHTML code. Features include HTML tidy, auto completion, and validation.

• Extended Entries. Now you can split your posts in MovableType and WordPress with an introductory section with a link to the rest of the post using the <!-- more --> marker.

• Localization. We have externalized all our user interface messages, captions, and strings to support language translation and localized versions. We do not have any official translations yet but we are working with volunteers to help us with translations. If you are interested in helping, please contact us at contactATzoundryDOTcom.

I invite you to try this version and let us know if you find any bugs or have any suggestions for improvement. We hope to launch 1.0 very soon!

Technorati : blog editor, xhtml, xhtml editor, xhtml validator

New Support for MSN Spaces

We have been working with MSN Spaces for the past two months in a closed beta to support their implementation of the MetaWeblog API. Many thanks to Dare and the MSN Spaces team. We were especially happy that they they paid attention to time zone issues and unicode support because we have a lot of international users.

They just announced that their API is now widely available so we have updated our Blog Writer (Build 145) for official support of MSN Spaces.

Here's how you set up the Blog Writer to post to your MSN Space:

First, you need to turn on email publishing for your MSN Space. Sign in to your MSN Space and go to Settings>Email Publishing. On that page, enter a secret word where prompted.

Now download and install Build 145 of the Blog Writer. Go to Blog Account Settings (under the Tools menu) and click on the New Account button to start the wizard.

Enter the following for Blog Account information:

• Account name: Whatever name you want to display in the sidebar for your MSN Space
• Account type: MSNSpaces
• Account username: the name of your MSN Space, typically found at the end of your MSN Space URL, e.g. http://spaces.msn.com/members/<your name here>
• Account password: the secret word you entered on the email publishing page.

Notes:
1. MSN Spaces does not allow fileupload so you need to set up a separate FTP server in the media repository to host your images.
2. MSN Spaces allows only one category per post. Click on the Refresh Online button in the category dialog to see your list of categories for the first time.
3. You cannot set a future date and time for your post - it will default to the current date and time.

Let us know if you have any questions by writing to our support email.

Technorati : MSNSpaces, Zoundry, blog client
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New Zoundry Deals Blog

We have started the Zoundry Deals Blog to post special affiliate offers we get from our merchants. Share these limited time offers with your readers to pass along the savings! Our merchants are being extra aggressive during the holiday shopping season so check the blog regularly or subscribe to the feed.

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