TypeMetal 2.0.5 is now live on the App Store, with critical fixes for the security-related WordPress sync issues described in our previous post. If you use TypeMetal with WordPress, you’ll want to be sure to install this important update!

There’s a new authentication (login) process for WordPress.com accounts. — See the updated “Connecting to WordPress” page of the TypeMetal User Guide for a walkthrough.

As always, please let us know about any remaining problems you encounter! You can email “support” at coherencelabs.com, post on the TypeMetal Support Forum, or tweet @CoherenceLabs. We’re here to help!

TypeMetal 2.0.5 will be coming soon to the Mac App Store, with critical sync fixes for WordPress users.

The Internet is no place to run a server. Malicious hackers are all too eager to test and compromise your system’s defenses, hammering away repeatedly and relentlessly with script-based attacks that will cause grief for the unprepared.

In response to rising attacks of a particular kind on WordPress sites, WordPress.com and other WordPress hosting services have necessarily tightened their security, which unfortunately caused TypeMetal’s WordPress sync machinery to begin failing. (If you’ve been performing normal syncs and drafting/publishing tasks with an already-established TypeMetal WordPress project, you may not have encountered any trouble. But first-time syncs with a newly added account, or “exhaustive” syncs triggered by holding the “Option” key while clicking “Login” or “Sync”, suddenly began failing, because the prior means to obtain the list of a user’s blogs had been disabled.)

We’ve worked out a fix for this, which will appear in TypeMetal 2.0.5 as soon as it makes it through App Store review. There’s a new authentication process for WordPress.com accounts, which you’ll be able to read about on the “Connecting to WordPress” page of the User Guide as soon as the new version has been released (though we hope we’ve made it straightforward). There’s a fix for self-hosted blogs too.

We apologize to those who’ve been affected by this regression, and hope the new version will have your WordPress projects up and running again soon! As a reminder: Always feel free to email “support” at coherencelabs.com, post on the TypeMetal Support Forum, or tweet @CoherenceLabs, regarding any problems you run into. We’re here to help!

A couple of articles on the nature of the attacks being guarded against, for those interested:

• Sucuri Blog: New Brute Force Attacks Exploiting XMLRPC in WordPress
• Cryptobells: More WordPress XMLRPC Brute Force Attacks

We’re delighted to announce the release of TypeMetal 2 — a brand new version of our revolutionary OS X HTML editor that brings a first-rate WordPress experience to your Mac!

With TypeMetal, there’s no separate “preview”: You write and edit directly in your posts as they’ll appear to readers — fully styled using your site’s theme, or in an uncluttered, focus-conducive “Clear View” mode. You also get a complete, synced copy of your posts and pages that you can easily browse, search, and edit on your Mac, even in the absence of an Internet connection. Think of TypeMetal as Mail.app for your WordPress sites — a self-contained experience that provides easy, pushbutton publishing.

In continuous development since the release of TypeMetal 1.0, and building on technology we’ve had in R&D since the project’s beginnings, this new version of TypeMetal provides a whole new way for you to own your WordPress content, while paving the way for integration with other publishing destinations and content management systems in the future. We’ve been using development builds of TypeMetal 2 behind the scenes for a while now, to write and publish news articles such as this one, and we think you’ll enjoy the experience it provides as much as we do. (Like its predecessor, TypeMetal 2 also remains, and will continue to be, a powerful and versatile editor for general HTML files.)

An easy-to-install-and-use, versatile, highly customizable, field-tested, open-source publishing platform that powers millions of websites, WordPress is rightly regarded as a nimble and powerful tool by people who publish everything from personal blogs to company websites. We’re delighted to be able to contribute something to the growing WordPress ecosystem, by providing a seamlessly integrated Mac-native writing experience for WordPress authors to enjoy.

To celebrate its launch, TypeMetal 2 is on sale for a limited time. Get it today on the Mac App Store! And in gratitude to our pioneering first users, TypeMetal 2 is also a free upgrade for everyone who purchased TypeMetal 1. — Thank you for your indispensable support!

You can learn all about TypeMetal 2 by browsing its newly updated online User Guide. — See in particular the brand new section on “Using TypeMetal with WordPress”.

If you’re new to TypeMetal, you’re likely to find past articles on our News feed helpful — in particular, those that have discussed TypeMetal’s approach to semantic HTML, suggested a different way of thinking about HTML authoring, and illustrated the use of snippet sets. (See also: “TypeMetal’s Approach” and “Rise of the Plain Text Editors”.)

We’ve been working very hard on this new version and hope you’ll enjoy it! As always, please reach out to us on the public TypeMetal Support Forum, tweet us @CoherenceLabs, or send us an email if you run into any trouble at all. We want you to enjoy using TypeMetal, and we’re here to help!