Well, after having some terrible problems with the file upload tool on the new version of webpad, I finally have it working.
Turns out the main problem was that my cleanup script that removes temp files periodically from webpad’s directory was cleaning up the uploaded files before you had a chance to move them to their permanent location. Now that that’s under control, all’s well!
I am posting this from webpad Personal Edition 3.0, which I am trialling in raw beta mode on my server at the moment (minus blogging functionality until I decide what to do about that).
Development is progressing well, and at this stage, I hope to release at least an official beta within a few weeks, pending more rigorous file and security tests, as well as some browser compatibility tests.
Well, call me crazy, but I had some time off work, so I went ahead and worked on webpad Personal Edition 3.0. I got a lot done in the week or so that I was working on it, and it’s nearing a point that I will be happy with, barring one major hurdle: blog operations.
In version 3.0, I’ve decided to attempt to support 3 platforms for blogging, namely:
This isn’t a problem in itself (apart from the complexity it adds to those operations 
, but I don’t want to release anything for Blogger which is based on the current Blogger API, because they are planning on implementing the Atom API in the near future, which will be much better than what they’ve got now. In the meantime, blosxom is easy to support (filesystem-based, what could be better?) and I think MovableType is also going to be changing their API structure in the near future (as mentioned here).
I’m leaving all the blog operations until as late as possible in the development cycle for this version of webpad, but basically if the blog vendors don’t sort themselves out, I’ll just release this with blosxom support, and perhaps support for the existing APIs, then extend support and release a patch once Blogger and MT have implemented their new APIs.
This version also has some more advanced features like renaming and deleting files, creating new folders and XHTML compliance on all HTML that gets created directly by webpad. The interface has been updated as well to make it a little slicker, and hopefully load a little quicker (more reliance on CSS). The big news though, is that this version will be compatible with Mozilla browsers as well as IE (still working on some of the HTML tools for Mozilla though…). Coming along, coming along. Get on the mailing list at http://dentedreality.com.au/webpad/ if you’re not already, because I’ll be sending an email to that list with notification when webpad Personal Edition 3.0 is released.
I don’t know what the heck prompted me to actually start this project now, but I have started coding/planning on version 3.0 of webpad. The first release will be webpad 3.0 Personal Edition, which will only have a single user function, and will require manual modification of a configuration file for the username/password and other options. Following that, I will also release a separate, more powerful version, which for now I am calling webpad Pro 3.0. This version will include multi-user support, a complete administration and installation interface, and will be targetted towards power-users and businesses.
webpad Personal Edition will remain free for everyone to download and use, but webpad Pro will attract a small licensing fee which is yet to be finalised. I will also be slightly changing the balance of features in each version, so you will find that some features you would like to be available may only be in the Pro version, although I will keep as much as I can in the Personal Edition.
This is my first post to my new blosxom-powered web log using webpad. Hopefully this will work, and all will be well.
I think webpad offers a great way to manage a blosxom-powered blog remotely, since it offers a few easy-to-use HTML tools, while modifying the file directly on the server, which is just where blosxom wants them 
webpad was written quite a while ago now, and the new installations of PHP come by default with some settings which will mean that webpad doesn’t work straight away. The easiest way to get around this (on an Apache server) is to put an “.htaccess” file in your webpad installation directory which contains something like this;
php_flag register_globals on php_flag magic_quotes_gpc on
The next version of webpad will not require this, but for now it’s the easiest way around the problem.
If anyone knows of any other problems and/or fixes to problems with webpad, please email them in to me using the contact form or email here.
I have started the planning/initial development on version 2.1 of webpad. This will be mainly a bug-fix and consolidation release, while also bringing webpad up to a point where it will operate with the new default settings on PHP installs.
Once webpad 2.1 is released successfully, work on v3.0 will begin shortly thereafter, which will be a major code-revision, giving webpad a much more stable backend and coding structure, as well as a number of new features to improve its functionality and usefulness as a web-based text editor. I am also considering splitting the code-base into a “Personal Edition” and “Enterprise Edition” (names not finalised!) which would allow me to ficus each version on either single or multi-user environments (respectively). This would also most likely introduce a pricing structure for the Enterprise Edition (Personal Edition will remain free for the taking). I’ll keep you all up to date.
The main 2 sections of the site to be completed are the projects (still have some micro-sites to put together here) and the search system. I will also need to bring across the copyright info from the old site, but that will largely be copy/paste. The search system will be the most interesting part to develop, and I have some nice plans for it as well – We’ll see what I can do as far as combining 2 XML documents and an XSLT together (server-side using PHP of course!) to create the results.
The projects really could use a little work, but I just don’t have time to work on them right now. Once the site is live, I will be working on RESTments again to get that going, and then when that is up, the projects will all receive a make-over to ensure that they work with PHP’s register_globals off and magic_quotes_gpc off as well. I will also eventually get to working on new versions of webpad (which I have some great plans for) and AvantBlog (want to make a few versions, so that there is one for each major type if possible.
So now, with no other external contracts to take up my time, it is just a matter of not falling asleep and then all I have to do is my website, should mean that it’s up within a week or 2.
webpad has been sorely neglected, and it is starting to show. I have a bad feeling that it won’t work on a default install of PHP anymore, and there are a number of reported bugs related to the install and configuration process which have done anything *but* go away with time. I think it is getting close to time that I need to re-write the core code for little-ole webpad, and try to bring things up to scratch.
There are also a number of improvements I would like to make to the system at the same time, but priority one will be to bring all of the existing code up to a certain level, then move forward to a new version.
And so… the requirements (as far as I am concerned) for version 2.1 public are;
With that out of the way, I will then look towards a 3.0 release, which should look something like this;
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