More info here

Read more about it and download it from here

People have continued to use this plugin, and some have even made suggestions on how to fix it in the comments of that page.

I have collected some of that information here if anyone is still interested in using this plugin. I do not have time to update the plugin, but I am happy to include fixes that others have made to it.

There are two main issues that I know of now.

1. The domain on which the images are hosted is not constant. It has changed over time from blogspot.com to blogger.com
2. The links to the full size images are actually links to html pages that contain the image

Some commenters have pointed out some solutions. Those are

1. Run the script once with the image server domain set to blogspot.com and again with it set to blogger.com. Ultimately, it would be best if the script were updated to support both, or possibly any other domain as there is no reason to restrict it to just those two, but then it might import images that were intended to be linked.
2. If the name of the image contains “s1600-h” remove the “-h” and convert it to “s1600″ when importing. It seems that Blogger is currently storing the images at those locations.

Here is a link to a version of the script that was sent to me by JT and described on the comment page

blogger-image-import.zip

I have not tested it, so use it at your own risk, but it looks good and shows the changes that were made to the original. Look for “MODIFIED:” comments in the script for a description of the changes.

I welcome any updates that people make to improve the script. If you find any issues, or fix the existing issues better, please let me know and send a copy of your fixes so we can share them with others.

I have posted a page for CSLua at the link below. This includes the full Visual Studio 2008 (I use express edition, but any version should work) test solution and library project. It can be used as stand-alone source or build the managed DLL from the project.

http://notions.okuda.ca/csharpprojects/cslua/

I am posting this from the train station where I took this photo. Translink and the RCMP have been running a set of ads recently where they show silly situations that do not need to be reported to the police. However, for the most part, the “real” situations have been pretty criminal. Seriously? Taking photographs is now a suspicious behaviour?

If you wish to comment, please consider using Reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8yziu/wtf_translink/.

I wanted to load my own HTML page and call JavaScript functions within it and for the JavaScript to be able to call functions in C#.  Specifically, I wanted to be able to interact with a public JavaScript API from Google (Google Maps) from the application.

Most of this can be accomplished using a pure JavaScript implementation in a web page, but the user interface is limited as is access to local computer resources, such as files.  With a web server you can process uploaded files, but that requires server resources and a scalable infrastructure if you distribute your application.  It is easier and cheaper to do file processing on the client, which is even more important in a freely distributed application to eliminate extra cost.

I searched around online and it was difficult to find details on how to call JavaScript from a containing C# application.  It turns out to be really easy and worth sharing in case anyone else ever wants to do something similar.

Calling JavaScript from C# (See the next section for how to call C# from JavaScript).

So how can you call JavaScript functions in your WebBrowser control?  Call the InvokeScript method on the HtmlDocument.

C#

namespace System.Windows.Forms
{
  public sealed class HtmlDocument
  {
    public object InvokeScript(string scriptName);
    public object InvokeScript(string scriptName, object[] args);
  }
}

For example, let’s assume that you have a System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser object named webBrowser1 and you want to call a JavaScript function in the HTML page loaded in your WebBrowser called "showMe()"

JavaScript

function showMe()
{
     ...
}

C#

webBrowser1.Document.InvokeScript("showMe");

Adding parameters gets a bit more complicated, but not much.  You can create an array of parameters as the API suggests and they will be passed in to the JavaScript function.  However, there is an even simpler way to do it.

We will start by calling the following function

JavaScript

function showMe(x,y)
{
    ...
}

Let’s write a wrapper function in C# using the params keyword to let the compiler do the work for us.  It will automatically convert any extra parameters into an array of objects, just like InvokeScript is expecting.

C#

private object MyInvokeScript(string name, params object[] args)
{
    return webBrowser1.Document.InvokeScript(name, args);
}

…

int x = 50;
int y = 100;
MyInvokeScript("showMe",x, y);

Note that the InvokeScript will return the value that the JavaScript function returns.  According to the documentation, if it is a native type such as a number or string, it will be returned as a string, but it can also return an object.

JavaScript

function createPoint(x, y)
{
    // Assume I have a Point object
    var p = new Point(x,y);
    return p;
}

function setPoint (p)
{
    // Do something useful with the Point p.
}

C#

object o = MyInvokeScript("createPoint", 50, 100);

It is possible to query information about the object using GetType and InvokeMember but I like that the object can be passed back into JavaScript

C#

MyInvokeScript("setPoint", o);

This is very powerful and, combined with the ability to call from JavaScript into C#, can allow you to embed many web applications that provide a JavaScript API into your C# application.

Calling C# from JavaScript

Simply put, you can expose a C# object to the WebBrowser that the JavaScript can call directly  The WebBrowser class exposes a property called ObjectForScripting that can be set by your application and becomes the window.external object within JavaScript.  The object must have the ComVisibleAttribute set true

C#

[System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
public class ScriptInterface
{
    void callMe()
    {
        … // Do something interesting
    }
}

webBrowser1.ObjectForScripting = new ScriptInterface();

JavaScript

window.external.callMe();

What next?

With the ability to call JavaScript from C# and C# from JavaScript you can now embed and extend web applications into native applications with ease.  A native application gives you more control over the environment and access to computer resources that you cannot access from a web page.  You can merge, or "mashup", web applications with computer hardware or software in new and interesting ways.

Imagine accessing a GPS connected to your computer and view your current location in an embedded map powered by Google Maps.  What if that included turn by turn directions to your destination?  Why not go even further and convert the directions into speech?  Doing all this on the client saves costs and pushes processing from expensive server hardware to client hardware and opens up interesting mashups to average users who do not have the resources to support their interesting idea for thousands of users.

http://notions.okuda.ca/geotagger/

I’ve been working on this little tool for geotagging photographs on my long commute. It is an open source C# application that uses Google Maps to geotag JPEG files from GPX GPS data. It was built partly as an exercise in using C#, but mostly because I don’t trust most other tools to save the JPEG file. I have had experience with tools that made quite a few changes when saving, and I wanted full control. At the core of this application is a JPEG EXIF library that can parse, edit, and save EXIF data with minimal changes.

It is had limited testing with a small range of different file sources and has a few quirks. I am making it public to help fix some of those issues.

Just when I started to spend some more time on my open source GeoTagging tool, Microsoft releases their free GeoTagging tool called Microsoft Pro Photo Tools. I think they were concerned about the competition and wanted to get their tool out before mine

Microsoft Pro Photo Tools

I have only had a short time to play around with the tool but it seems to do what they claim it will do. The interface is not intuitive and it took me a while to understand how to make it do what I wanted, but I did eventually tag a set of test photos from a recent vacation (using a GPS track log).

It appears that it can do what my GeoTagger can do, and more, but I’m not sure it is enough to make me stop development. My GeoTagger is simpler and doesn’t have as many features, but I like that. It is intended to have only one feature – geotagging photos. I do like some of the features of the Pro Photo Toos interface and I may borrow them for my tool.

I like the time adjust tool. While placing the images on the GPS track it allows you to adjust the position by moving a “time” slider left or right in minute or hour increments. This is handy if the photos were taken in a different time zone or if the camera was set to the wrong time (forget to adjust for Daylight Savings?). It is interactive and visual. Rather than trying to remember what time zone the camera was set to, you can visually see where each of the images will be placed. If the location looks wrong then move the slider left or right until a few of the images appear in the correct location. This probably indicates that you have the correct time adjustments and it will apply to all the images.

One feature I didn’t expect, but think could be useful is the “Get location text” button. It will fill in the address, city, region, country from just the GPS coordinates. Trying this on some photos taken at Disneyworld’s Epcot Center gave me addresses like “Journey Into Imagination” which is the attraction near the photo. I’m not sure where in the EXIF header that data would be saved, but still cool.

A huge plus is that it doesn’t mess up the exif data like the WWMX tools. Below are the diffs from exiftool of an image before and after GeoTagging it with MPPT. I’m not quite sure why the thumbnail is so different between the two, but the other differences seem reasonable and relatively minor.

Command:


exiftool -r -g1 -w .txt *.JPG
diff *.txt


Output:


< Warning : [minor] Adjusted MakerNotes base by 4202
5c4
< File Name : IMG_4911.JPG
---
> File Name : IMG_4911_original.JPG
8c7
< File Modification Date/Time : 2008:05:03 04:23:37
---
> File Modification Date/Time : 2008:05:03 05:08:45
11c10
< Exif Byte Order : Big-endian (Motorola)
---
> Exif Byte Order : Little-endian (Intel)
51d49
< Offset Schema : 4202
186,187d183
< ---- GPS ----
< GPS Date Stamp : 2008:03:07
190,197c186,187
< Thumbnail Offset : 13746
< Thumbnail Length : 5354
< ---- XMP-exif ----
< GPS Time Stamp : 2008:03:07 07:43:43
< ---- XMP-xmp ----
< Creatortool : Microsoft Pro Photo Tools
< ---- XMP-tiff ----
< Software : Microsoft Pro Photo Tools
---
> Thumbnail Offset : 9728
> Thumbnail Length : 9253
202,207d191
< GPS Date/Time : 2008:03:07 2008:03:07 07:43:43
< GPS Latitude : 28 deg 23' 3.16" N
< GPS Latitude Ref : North
< GPS Longitude : 81 deg 32' 12.22" W
< GPS Longitude Ref : West
< GPS Position : 28 deg 23' 3.16" N, 81 deg 32' 12.22" W
213c197
< Thumbnail Image : (Binary data 5354 bytes, use -b option to extract)
---
> Thumbnail Image : (Binary data 9253 bytes, use -b option to extract)


The Good

• It is much faster and easier to use than the old wwmx.org tools.
• It has an interactive map (not available with wwmx).
• It seems to retain all the existing Exif data in the photos I tested after GeoTagging.
• The time adjust tool
• “Get location text” – is a button that will fill in the address, city, region, country from just the GPS coordinates. Trying this on some photos taken at Disneyworld’s Epcot Center gave me addresses like “Journey Into Imagination” which is the attraction near the photo.

The Bad

• Ugly interface – harder to use than I expected with a tool from Microsoft.
• It seems a bit “alpha” in the interface and the way the buttons are organized. Like someone put all the buttons that were needed randomly around the screen.
• The geotagging process itself was very confusing. I would select an image, and click “Place Images” which would select all the images, show me one pin on the map, and if I clicked anywhere before clicking “Done” it would move the selected image to the end of the list and remove the pin.

http://notions.okuda.ca/wordpress-plugins/blogger-title-fix/