[util] AutoBlog

This was posted with a new utility I just wrote, AutoBlog. I got the idea from Raymond Chen's pre-recorded blogs while he was on vacation. Since I've got two kids under the age of 4, I don't always get consistent free time to blog regularly (blame it on the youngsters, they can't defend themselves). I often have to save blog fragments until I get time to flesh them out, which means I then have a pile of posts all at once. I'd rather spread them out a bit, hence this tool.

This is a simple console application, all configuration is in the AutoBlog.exe.config file. You configure your .Text username, password, url, and a directory to post from. The app finds the oldest BJD file, parses it, and posts it using the SimpleBlogService webservice interface to your .Text blog.

I chose to use BlogJet files rather than write my own because (1) it has nice HTML editing features (2) I use it for my "normal" posts already, and (3) it has nice support for categories - it retrieves your category list and saves them out with the post file. AutoBlog supports post categories.

I was thinking about adding an optional footer to the config that would get appended to all autoblogged posts [Autoblogged] or something (I manually typed it at the end of this post). If anyone wants that I'll add it in.

How to use:
1. Download it.
2. Unzip to the directory of your choice.
3. Configure AutoBlog.exe.config.
4. Set up a Scheduled Task that points to AutoBlog.exe. The account will have to run as a user that has write permissions on the posts directory so it can rename the BJD file.
5. Be sure to test it - right click on the scheduled task and click "Run".

Code:

using System;
using System.Configuration;
using System.IO;

namespace AutoBlog
{
    class Console
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string username = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Username"];
            string password = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Password"];
            System.DateTime fileTimestamp = System.DateTime.MaxValue;
            string filename = "";
            string[] categoryArray;
            string title;
            string body;

            DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["PostsDirectory"]);
            FileInfo[] files = di.GetFiles("*.bjd");

            foreach(FileInfo fi in files)
            {
                if (fi.LastWriteTime<fileTimestamp)
                {
                    fileTimestamp = fi.LastWriteTime;
                    filename = fi.FullName;
                }   
            }

            if (filename != "")
            {
                using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(filename))
                {
                    sr.ReadLine(); //**BLOGJET POST**

                    sr.ReadLine(); //Blog name

                    title = sr.ReadLine();
                    categoryArray = sr.ReadLine().Replace("\"","").Split(',');
                    sr.ReadLine(); // -

                    body = sr.ReadToEnd();
                }

                net.asp.weblogs.SBSSimpleBlogService webService = new AutoBlog.net.asp.weblogs.SBSSimpleBlogService();
                webService.Url = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["ServiceUrl"];

                //Rename the file first, since this is most likely to fail as a scheduled task
                System.IO.File.Move(filename,filename + ".bak");

                try
                {
                    if (categoryArray.Length > 0)
                        webService.InsertCategoryPost(username,password,System.DateTime.Now,title,body,categoryArray);
                    else
                        webService.InsertPost(username,password,System.DateTime.Now,title,body);
                }
                catch
                {
                    //Post failed - rename back to BJD extension
                    System.IO.File.Move(filename + ".bak",filename);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

UPDATE:
I've changed the order so the rename is done before the blog is posted. That's for two reasons: (1) it's more likely to fail when run as a scheduled task, and (2) if it fails, the same thing will get posted again and again. I figure it's better to have nothing posted than duplicate posts.

[Autoblogged]