Notes RichText to HTML: the Philosopher's stone

For my own blog template, I wanted to add the option of entering a blog post via the Notes Client using Rich Text. In the IBM blog template this is the only option. In BlogSphere, you have the choice: HTML or Rich Text. Unfortunately, none of the two have exactly what I'm looking for: IBM Blog does not render inline images correctly an BlogSphere does not convert the HTML into XHTML. So I decided to have a go at making a mix to get the best of both.

The IBM Blog template hall of shame

At first, I wanted to take the IBM Blog code as the basis, mainly because it uses a class instead of separate functions as BlogSphere does. But during testing, very odd things happened

• If you edit a blog post, and someone enters a comment on it at the same time, you get a replication conflict.
• When clicking on it in the Notes client, even worse things happened: my post simply vanished completely. Lost forever.
• I also discovered that even when logged in as an authenticated user, the Blog template did not recognize me, but above all: it did allow me to enter an anonymous comment.
• When using inline images in Notes RichText, their paths are not computed correctly, so you get broken links.
• Whatever I do, I cannot get the categories to work correctly. And I'm looking for documentation on the internet in vain.
• I tried the web admin interface: it simply does not work, and I have no clue why. Is it supposed to work, but have I got my settings wrong?

Conclusion: maybe advise the guys selecting our corporate blog solution to forget about the IBM blog altogether.

How about BlogSphere?

The conversion of RichText into HTML in BlogSphere is simply brilliant: tables, inline images, hyperlinks, even your own custom HTML are rendered perfectly. Except for the fact that it does not output valid XHTML at the moment. But since I was invited to join the BlogSphere development team, this will soon change :-))

Conclusion

Sorry, no code this time (again). I am fighting with Notes Rich Text for the moment, to combine the IBM Blog conversion code with that of BlogSphere in a standalone application to make it re-usable in all domino web development. It will take me far more time than I expected.