StarBlog Extra (5): From 1.6 to 1.10, Publisher's Six-Month Evolution

Preface

It's been six months since I last introduced StarBlog Publisher

Over these six months, this article publishing tool has iterated from v1.6 all the way to v1.10.7

Quite a few practical features were added, and a lot of odds-and-ends issues were fixed

Today I'll recap and talk about what Publisher has gone through over these six months.

One-Sentence Summary

If you don't want to read the details below, here's a one-sentence recap:

AI capabilities are much stronger (cover generation, keyword extraction, title templates), image processing is smarter (compression, regex matching, gallery), the framework is upgraded to .NET 10, and Scoop install was added.

Key Updates

AI Cover Generation (v1.8)

This is probably the most interesting feature of these six months

After writing an article, the cover image has always been a headache. Hunt for images, and copyright plus quality are hard to control; draw it yourself, and you don't have that skill

Now Publisher has integrated AI image-prompt generation. You just need to:

1. Write the article
2. Open the cover prompt window
3. Pick a style template (Urban Elegance, BeCreativeGirl, etc.)
4. Generate the prompt in one click
5. Toss the prompt to Midjourney / DALL-E / Stable Diffusion

The generated prompt is combined with the article content, so what comes out is related to the article's topic and won't be too off the wall.

And quite a bit of work went on behind this feature: the PromptTemplate system was refactored, multiple cover style options are supported, and the article body can also be woven into the prompt.

AI Keyword Extraction (v1.7)

When writing articles, keywords often get ignored

But they're actually pretty important for SEO. Now Publisher can use AI to automatically extract keywords from the article content, so you don't have to come up with them yourself.

Title Optimization Templates (v1.10)

There was already an AI title-polishing feature, but only one default polishing style

Now there's template selection, so you can pick different title-optimization styles. Want something more eye-catching, more professional and rigorous, or more conversational? Just pick a template.

Image Compression (v1.10)

If images in the article are too large, they load slowly

Now Publisher automatically compresses images before upload, using SixLabors.ImageSharp, shrinking file size while trying not to hurt visual quality.

The whole process is seamless—you don't need to do anything extra.

Image Gallery (v1.9)

A new image gallery window was added, so you can visually inspect all images in the article

Makes it easy to check which images need replacing, which failed to upload, and how the overall look is. Way more convenient than flipping through them one by one in Markdown.

Regex Matching for Image Paths (v1.10.4)

Previously, image path recognition used standard Markdown parsing

But some articles write images in unusual ways that the standard mode can't pick up. Now a regex mode was added; enable it via EnableRegexImageParsing for broader coverage.

Scoop Install Support (v1.10.7)

Windows users can now install Publisher via the Scoop package manager:

scoop bucket add starblog-publisher https://github.com/star-blog/starblog-publisher
scoop install starblog-publisher/starblog-publisher

Updates are convenient too—just scoop update.

Framework Upgrade

.NET 10

Upgraded from .NET 8 to .NET 10

This is a fairly major upgrade, bringing performance improvements and new API support.

Dependency Updates

The main dependencies were all bumped:

• Avalonia 11.2.1 → 11.3.10
• CommunityToolkit.Mvvm 8.2.1 → 8.4.0
• Refit 8.0.0 → 9.0.2
• Markdig 0.40.0 → 0.44.0
• SixLabors.ImageSharp (new, for image compression)

CI/CD Improvements

Users won't notice this, but it helped development efficiency a lot:

• Auto-generate release notes from Git commits
• Strip debug files (PDBs, etc.) from release packages to shrink download size
• Fixed the regex for fetching tags

Version Timeline

Wrap-up

Six months, 20+ versions—Publisher went from a “usable” tool to a “good-to-use” tool

AI capabilities were the focus of this half-year of iteration. From the original title polishing and summary generation, to keyword extraction, cover prompt generation, and title optimization templates now, AI is deeply woven into every step of publishing an article.

Image processing has gotten smarter too. Auto compression, regex matching, and the image gallery together mean handling images in an article basically needs no manual intervention.

There are still quite a few features planned, such as batch publishing, more AI provider support, article templates, and so on.

Feel free to download and try it: https://github.com/star-blog/starblog-publisher/releases

Issues and PRs are also welcome—help make this tool even better~