I’m still looking for a faster way to write on my Blot blog. I think the friction in typing it in Bear/iA Writer and then moving it to Dropbox with all the proper tags is keeping me from writing more often on there.

@pratik One possibility: Drafts with a TextExpander script to create new post skeleton with metadata, then use Drafts actions to move into dropbox folder as file.

@Burk I already have a “template” in iA Writer that I use to start a post. But yeah, the moving to Dropbox always makes me use a laptop/desktop to do it right. I have tried Drafts before but have always been intimidated by it.

@cm That’s what I do on my laptop except with iA Writer. I had documented it here. But forgot how onerous it can be to reopen your laptop after you have shut it down after work. I still find the steps that you have listed or what I do as as slower way.

@pratik +1 for Drafts. I use prompts to add tags and permalink and the date is added automatically so I don’t have to ever see or worry about the header detail while composing.

@kordumb I may have to revisit it. It’s subscription-based now, right? I always subscribe to Bear for my note-taking so lets see.

@kordumb How do you have this setup in Drafts? I’ve got a basic action to upload to Dropbox but that’s it.

@Burk I have not thought about using TextExpander for this.

@pratik Drafts is subscription based now but well worth it my opinion. It’s $1.99/month or $19.99/year. All my Blog posts to Blot are done in Drafts. I have a Workspace in Drafts for blog posts that filters notes based on tags, and selects a specific action group for writing.

@pratik Drafts can definitely be overwhelming at first. I think it’s best to start using Drafts for a couple of things, like posting to Blot

@pratik I don’t know if you upload a bunch of photos to Blot but I use Drafts and Shortcuts to upload images. I run an action in Drafts that runs a shortcut which resizes & uploads an image to my Blot asset folder, copied the file name, then pastes a Markdown image link in Drafts

@pratik That friction is what pushed me away. I believe there’s a way to wire it into MicroPub, which would then make the Micro.blog app a potential client of sorts, but it seems like you may need some kind of server access to pull that off.

@jmreekes Here’s one of the actions I use. You’ll need to update the path, but it should work out of the box, although you’ll probably want to tweak to your own folder/header/date format configurations. I use a separate action for microposts that adds metadata and prefills a tag. Permalink prompt is also used for the file name along with the date. It could probably be automated based on the draft, but I like to mess around with my permalinks. // @pratik

@kordumb Thanks.

@pratik Pro sub is required to edit actions, but if you settle on the actions and tweak them to satisfaction during the trial, I think you could probably get away without the sub…

@pratik Here that resizes and uploads the image. You may need to re-do the path to your asset/image folder. This is the Drafts action that calls the shortcut. The shortcut works best with one image at a time. I’ve tried to create one to work with multiple images at a time but can never figure out how to get Shortcuts to create more than one image link

@kordumb This looks great. I don’t mind springing for a pro sub if it cuts back on the friction. I quite liked writing in Bear but it’s the post-writing that was frustrating for me.

@jmreekes I do upload photos but then have found myself linking to the photo on Flickr. But if you can, please share the action.

@pratik Here is the Shortcut. You may need to change the path in the Dropbox step. This is the Drafts action that calls & runs the shortcut.

@jmreekes Thanks a lot. One at a time works for the most part.

@pratik The Drafts action got messed up. This is the correct link. The shortcut can be run from the Shortcuts app but I prefer to do it from Drafts because the Drafts action pastes the link by itself.

@sku_b Yeah, ideally that would be great but I understand that it’s a non-platform-based system for blogging so Drafts action seem like the way to go for now.

@kordumb Can’t edit the Action without a pro sub but looking at it, it looks perfect for me. It just might be worth to go Pro and test it out to see its effect on my blogging :) Thanks for sharing.

@pratik would you consider micro.blog? Also love the way your photos are displayed on your blog, is that done automatically ? Check out craft app. Drop text and photos into it and export in many formats. Works well with iA

@Munish my short posts and the photo blog are on two separate blogs at Micro.blog. Blot is for my long form posts. I imported my WP posts from 2003 to Blot last year. I quite like it and it’s also cheaper 😊

@frostedechoes I have tried that approach and conceptually I like it but it doesn’t work in practice 😬 Practice being me wanting to blog more often.

@pratik Drafts works well. It’s how I post to Mb most of the time.

@sku_b Do you also use it for micro posts?

@pratik I do. The action I found has categories, so it has everything I need. I also like that it keeps me from the timeline, which can distract me from my initial intent.

@pratik I use both iA Writer and Drafts. iA is usually for longer posts and whether or not there will be images in between text. I can do the same on Drafts but it feels hacky. Most of my categories are added via filters I’ve set up in Micro.blog. If the content has said word or emoji, it goes to a specific category

@Gaby Your blog is on MB, right?

@pratik yes, and when I was using blot, it was all thru Drafts.

@pratik Have you considered using Ulysses or iCloud to reduce friction? I would be very interested in hearing more about your process.

@dustinbucher Blot doesn’t support iCloud yet. Wish it does when Apple allows it. For now, it’s only via Dropbox

@gpittman Moved to Blot from WordPress. It works for most part for me apart from the reasons that this conversation started. I’ve found a theme that works and David (at Blot) is always more than helpful to make quick fixes.

@pratik I would be so thrilled if iCloud drive had the right hooks for David to use. It’s the only reason I have dropbox installed.

@Burk Same :)

@kordumb I edited your action and changed the path name. How do I remove the year and month from the permalink in Drafts? Or add the date in as well?

@pratik when you edit the Dropbox step, below the Path field you updated should be the Template field where you’ll see the header matter written out in the first three lines before [[draft]]. If you remove the two date tags, you’ll end up with just the permalink prompt text: “Permalink: [[date|%Y]]/[[date|%m]]/[[permalink_text]]” becomes “Permalink: [[permalink_text]]”.

Let me know if this doesn’t help.

There are ways to update a blog post from drafts by rewriting files, but there’s a bit of configuration needed and is easiest through a separate action. If you want some help setting something like that up let me know.

@kordumb Perfect. I was looking to edit in the Permalink prompt 🤦🏽‍♂️I’m sure it will work perfectly for next time. Thanks! Feel free to send any other actions that you use :)

@jmreekes I tried this out. I’m guessing this is iOS only coz I’m getting a not supported on this platform on the Mac. I’m on Big Sur 11.1 Not having a Shortcuts app on the Mac is the issue, right?

@pratik Yea, the image shortcut is iOS only, unfortunately. I’m sure there are ways to automate it on the Mac but I wouldn’t know where to start

@pratik there was that plugin that @amit made for Blot that removed ALL friction.

@kaa It was a web app, right? Used it once. Not sure if it’s still supported coz I think Amit moved off Blot

@pratik thats right hmmm that would be a shame, was it hooked up to his site in any way? I would sefinitey have used it if I was using @blot in that way (which I am not).

@pratik I see it is still up here, a subdomain of Blot. But I am not sure if it’s still working or if David is maintaining it. It was more of an itch (similar to yours Pratik) that I wanted to address. //@kaa

@amit Thanks, Amit. I recall making couple of posts using this but didn’t use it later. Possibly coz I couldn’t save drafts. @kaa

@jmreekes Do you have idea of why your shortcut would add a “-2” to the image name when I use it? I’ve set it to overwrite image if it already exists.

@pratik I do not. I’ll take a look when I get a chance and see if it’s doing the same thing to me

@jmreekes Thanks. No rush. I figured out that’s what was happening after much scratching my head at why the photos were not showing up.

@pratik That’s’ odd. It’s not happening to me and I have overwrite if file exists enabled as well.

@jmreekes Yup. I tried it again and with the iOS photos default names (img_1355, etc.) so those clearly don’t exists in my Assets folder. Yet it adds the “-2” to the file name but that’s not what it copy-pastes in the Drafts action with the markdown code.

@pratik I looked at the images I uploaded and it is doing the same thing, adding -2 to the image name when it uploads to Dropbox. I have no idea why

@jmreekes Well, at least we are having the same issue. And the -2 would be fine if it also copied it that way in the markdown code but it excludes it.

@pratik That’s an easy fix in Shortcuts. In the Shortcut Text Field that has the markdown code, add -2 after NAME. It should look 

@jmreekes Yup, for now. That will have to do. Few years later, I’ll be wondering why the heck did I suffix my images with -2 😆 Thanks for brainstorming.

@pratik I think I finally figured this out. For some reason Shortcuts is adding the -2 to the file name. The original shortcut was grabbing the file name from the original image. I changed the shortcut so it grabs the file name for the link from the saved file. Here is the updated

@pratik Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I don’t know why Shortcuts is adding -2 to the image (unless it thinks it’s a duplicate image). The updated shortcut should solve any future issues if Shortcuts messes with the file names again.

@jmreekes Thanks a lot. I’ll try it out and let you know.

@peterimoore Hopefully this works.

@pratik Has the updated image upload short been working better for you?

@jmreekes For some strange reason, it keeps using the older version of the iOS shortcut although I’ve overwritten it with the new version you sent

@pratik I decided to start over from scratch. Something in the old & new-old shortcut was causing the shortcut to add -2 (I think it was the IF step). This shortcut does NOT add -2

@pratik The new-new one converts any selected image to JPEG & adds to a variable , resizes that variable to 1000 x auto-height & adds to a new/final variable, and uploads the final variable to Dropbox without adding -2.

@jmreekes Yup. Works perfectly now. Thanks! 🙏🏽

@pratik I’m trying to work on getting it to upload multiple images and correctly create each markdown link.

@pratik You’re welcome.

@jmreekes While you are at it, in the current shortcut, maybe you can add a prompt for the image name? 😬 It’s mostly my OCD brain who wants to rename all those IMG_XXX image names in the folder.

@pratik Try this one. It works from Drafts as well

@jmreekes You’re awesome! 🙌🏽