8.4 Using the XML-RPC API

Movable Type supports the Blogger XML-RPC API, the metaWeblog XML-RPC API, and several XML-RPC methods of its own. Because of this, you can use client tools such as those described in Chapter 2 to post to your Movable Type blog.

Although the Movable Type web application is more full-featured than any existing desktop clients, there are reasons you might rather use a desktop client for adding or editing entries. For one thing, desktop clients can provide a richer editing environment than a web application: a WYSIWYG editing environment and tools, automatic spell-checking, word counts, and integrated search and replace. Of course, Movable Type offers some of these tools (tools to embolden, italicize, and underline text; search and replace), but as a web application, support for these tools are browser-dependent. And what's more, the speed of response that you might expect from a desktop client is difficult to provide in a web application.

Configuration of the tools will differ slightly depending on the tool. In all cases, however, you will need the same three pieces of information: the XML-RPC Server URL, your Movable Type username, and your Movable Type password. Your Movable Type username and password are simply the username and password that you use to log into the web interface. The XML-RPC Server URL (also called the XML-RPC endpoint) is the URL that you use to access mt.cgi, but instead of mt.cgi at the end, it's mt-xmlrpc.cgi.

For example, if you typically use the URL http://www.foo.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi to access mt.cgi, you would use http://www.foo.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-xmlrpc.cgi as the XML-RPC Server URL.