How do you configure MarsEdit to work with the Typepad blogging platform? As I’ve started to try to get back into blogging more, I found that MarsEdit, the tool I’ve been using to write blog posts for 10+ years now, was no longer connecting to Typepad. And in a sign of how far the mighty (Typepad) have fallen, a Typepad blog can’t be auto configured by MarsEdit, and isn’t even listed anymore on the MarsEdit manual configuration page. And… there is nothing whatsoever in the Typepad knowledge base about external editors, XML-RPC, “Movable Type”, or anything else.
So for anyone still remaining on Typepad who wants to do this, here is what you need to do.
1. Get the blog ID from Typepad.
I couldn’t find this in any of the settings, but you can get it from the URL. Once you are logged into Typepad, and are in the settings for one of your blogs, the URL in your browser will be something like:
https://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a01d1212acd6e53ef00d12345de09f92/dashboard
The hex string that I show in bold is the part you need. (And that is not the actual value for one of my blogs.)
2. Add a new blog in MarsEdit
In the main MarsEdit window, press the “+” in the lower left corner of the app to add a new blog. Type in the name and URL of your Typepad blog and press “Continue”. The auto-configuration will fail, and you will be prompted to manually configure the site. Under Connection Settings, you need to use:
- System Name: Other
- System API: Movable Type API
- API Endpoint URL: https://www.typepad.com/services/xmlrpc
- Blog ID: <the hex string that you copied in step 1 above>
Here’s a screenshot of the preferences screen:
3. Login With Your Typepad User Info
After you save those settings, MarsEdit will prompt you to “login” to your blog. This is where you enter your Typepad username and password.
4. Start Writing with MarsEdit
Once this is done, you should see the MarsEdit interface load the most recent posts into the editor window. (If not, you may need to hit the refresh circle.)
That’s it. You should now be able to create posts in MarsEdit and publish them on a Typepad blog.
And really… 5. Figure Out How To Move Away From Typepad!
The complete lack of any information in the Typepad knowledge base about working with external editors does concern me. Add to that the fact that the “Everything Typepad” site hasn’t been updated with a new post since October 2021. And that the @typepad Twitter account only gets occasionally updated about trouble issues.
And.. that the Wikipedia article about TypePad notes that Typepad stopped accepting new signups as of 2020.
So they are really just existing for the people like me who just haven’t gotten around to moving our blogs to some other platform. 🙁
Perhaps this IS the year when I finally figure out how to migrate my 5 remaining Typepad blogs over to Wordpress… sigh…
