Pukeko at the edge of Lake Puna o te Ora. 🐦
Pro tip: when Micro.Blog seemingly just refuses to publish your post — make sure it’s not set to Draft. 🤣 (Wasted a fair bit of time earlier…)
Apparently this orange plastic cylinder I spotted washed up on the beach today is a Burley Pot. The idea is to put bait in it to attract fish.
On this morning’s beach walk I walked in amongst a big spread of driftwood of all sizes. When I turned round I spotted this wonderful orange fungi on a log.
Whew, I thought we’d just watched the last ever episode of Vera. In fact it was the last available episode. Vera S12E04.
After the disappointing movie yesterday we had excellent Thai food at Tuk Tuk Waimea in Waikanae. I had stir fry chicken with fresh vegetables and ginger. A smidgeon too salty but very delicious.
Micro.Blog pals — a 1 day coupon for MarsEdit!
I usually only offer discounts of 10% or 20%, but in celebration of Micro.camp 2023 I’m offering a 50% discount on MarsEdit. Use this link and see the 50% discount when you continue to checkout: redsweater.com/store/
How to customise the MarsEdit Preview
When you write a blog post in MarsEdit you can see a Preview right in front of you as you type.
I like to arrange my windows side by side, with the editing window on the left and the Preview on the right. As I type or paste in text and add images I can see how my Post is shaping up.
The Default Preview Template
The Default Preview Template controls how your Blog Post is displayed. It comes with a handful of styles defined, and a very basic layout.
The Title of your Post appears in white on black, and there's a bit of space between the text and the edges of the window.
Add styles from your Blog
The default preview styles are fine to start with, but before long you'll might wish the Preview looked a bit more like your blog's web page.
That's easy to fix.
Locate the CSS file for your blog and copy its contents (or just relevant parts, if you know what they are).
At the bottom of the Preview window is a button labelled Edit Template. Click that button to be able to edit the Preview Template.
Now add a style portion in the head section of the template and paste in the CSS rules from your blog.
Use Placeholders
There are additional improvements you can add to the Preview.
I work with several sites and like to display the name of the blog in the Preview, just so I can be sure I'm working on the correct site. I also like to display the categories I've assigned to the Post, and the Permalink too.
The Permalink displays only if the Post has been saved as a Draft or Published.
Categories and the like are available through Placeholders.
At the top left of the window is an Insert Placeholder drop-down menu. Put the cursor where you want the placeholder to be used, and then choose an appropriate item from the menu.
Note: the Permalink is available as the 'URL'.
The screenshot shows that I set up a special 'header' area for items like title and tags, so they are enclosed in a div with an id of titleContainer. The bulk of the Post, its body, is enclosed in a div with an id of bodyContainer.
I control their appearance within the styles at the top of the Preview Template.
My Preview template actually doesn't closely match how the Post is actually displayed on the live site, though some parts are very similar.
But that doesn't matter to me. The point is that you can edit that Preview template to suit how you work, and what you need. Mine works well for me.
And it's really useful that there's a separate Preview template for each blog you work with in MarsEdit. If you wanted, you could set each up quite differently.
This post was originally published on my now defunct KnowIt blog on 06 May 2010. I've updated it, made fresh screenshots and adapted it slightly.
Resources for my MarsEdit presentation at Micro Camp 2023
See my presentation on YouTube.
These resources go alongside my Micro Camp presentation, Take the Captain’s Chair of your Micro.Blog with the MarsEdit App for Mac: Time Travel, Replicators, Warp Speed and More :
We went to see the movie Aftersun 🎥 :
a 2022 coming-of-age drama film … an 11-year-old girl, on holiday with her father at a Turkish resort on the eve of his 31st birthday. … It was also named one of the best films of 2022
Load of twaddle. Go see something worth watching.
I’d totally forgotten that MarsEdit can do TypeWriter Scrolling in the composition window. It’s right there under the View Menu. Don’t care for it myself, but I know some love it.
Just now pondering at a very shallow level, whether there’s a role at future Micro Camps for a brief pre-Camp Zoom checkin session where we can discover we need to download a newer version, have forgotten our passwords, how to raise our Hand, Un/Mute, reply to people in chat and other techie things.
Excellent start to Micro Camp 2023 today. Thanks to everyone who participated but especially to all those who helped organise!
The sessions were interesting and engaging. I enjoyed hearing everyone's thoughts on all the topics raised.
I had read this somewhere recently, but thanks to @billbennettnz for Apple satellite SOS service now live in New Zealand:
NZ-based Apple iPhone 14 users are now able to use the company’s Satellite Emergency SOS service. The service lets phone users who are outside mobile or Wi-Fi coverage send an emergency satellite message to an Apple’s relay centre. From there, staff will contact local emergency services to send a rescue team or other help.
Recycling — maybe not always a good thing…
I love Aotearoa but this is unconscionable — The twin crises that fuelled the hostel fire:
10% of our population are so poor and stressed they can’t afford a place to live or food without government help to pay their rent, or to eat without food parcels donated from leftovers being thrown out by supermarkets.
Back in September 2017 I came across this little cutie on a driftwood log on the beach. The Kekeno | New Zealand Fur Seal pups often come ashore on our stretch of beach to rest during winter and spring. I haven't ever seen more than one at a time though.
Doesn't it look happy in the sun!
The MarsEdit Browser extension
While checking posts from my now defunct KnowIt blog I spotted this mention of MarsEdit from 01 February 2008, emphasis from today:
To post this blog entry I visited the MarsEdit 2 What's New page, selected some text and clicked on my MarsEdit bookmarklet in the browser. MarsEdit came to the front (because I always have it open), with a new Post window open that contained the selected text.
Which reminded me … I completely forgot to mention this very handy feature in my upcoming presentation — I've only been using this feature for at least 15 years now! 🤦🏽♀️
Visit the MarsEdit Help menu and choose the Web Browser Integration… item for instructions on how to enable this Bookmarklet (on older systems) or Extension (newer systems).
Settings for how the browser extension passes the title, url and selection into a Post are found under MarsEdit - Settings - Blogs - Post Templates.
Hmmm, not entirely sure about this step in the online recipe for Crispy Chicken Nibbles… 🤔
Just enjoying a pleasant lunch time on the beach with my good buddy Willow. 🐶
