Blog Quotes from RSS with Applescript

Updated 11-6-06

I’ve added a version for NetNewsWire, the only caveat being that it can’t handle selections, you have to pull in the entire entry and then cut it down if necessary. You can download it here: Blog Quotes From NetNewsWire

This is just a simple example of how to pull a selection from your newsreader into your blogging app using Applescript. You can substitute most applescript enabled applications for Vienna and TextMate. That just happens to be what I use. The way it’s set up right now it comes with a command for TextMate that you can use within a blog post to trigger the script. If you have highlighted text in Vienna it will grab it, or failing that the whole current article, and format it into a blockquote with a credit line linking to the article and the sites homepage, and then insert it into your current blog post. It looks like this:

Included with the latest build of TextMate (r1305) is a new system for presenting dialogs. The new system allows you to create a custom interface in Interface Builder and then ask TextMate to present it as if it was native. This is without writing any code at all.
From New Dialog System for Commands at TextMate Blog

There’s a command included that you can run and it will tell you where to put the script, just in case you get confused after svn updates and what not. I know I do.

Download the package here: Blog Quotes from Vienna to Textmate