Woohoo, workaround for Squarespace API issue, back blogging in Marsedit

I've been down from my writing because I haven't been able to use MarsEdit

Large icon for MarsEdit application

“Nearly every word I write for Daring Fireball is published through MarsEdit.”John Gruber, Daring Fireball

MarsEdit 3

Desktop blog editing for the Mac.

The best way to write, preview, and publish your blog.

I've been trading e-mail with Daniel Jalkut, ex-Apple guy like me, but we didn't overlap our time in Cupertino to see if he sees the same problems as I do.  He just go a workaround that fixed the problem.

To get things back to normal for your Squarespace 5 blog in MarsEdit:

  1. Open MarsEdit
  2. Click the Squarespace blog icon in MarsEdit’s main window.
  3. Select Blog -> Edit Settings from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
  4. Change the API Endpoint URL to:

    http://five.squarespace.com/process/service/PostInterceptor

    Note that this is identical to the malfunctioning URL with the exception that the “www.” has changed to “five.”

  5. Close the settings window and Refresh the blog to confirm it works.

This works and I am back using an Editor.  Yeh!!!

I like Squarespace, and I agree with Daniel, I don't think they understood the severity of the problem.

I have been in touch with Squarespace through their regular support channels, but they do not yet seem to appreciate the scope of the problem. In short: all Squarespace customers who rely upon 3rd party editors (not just MarsEdit) that use the API interface, were met with a sudden stoppage of functionality for those apps. The reason? The API through which the service is provided suddenly stopped working and instead redirects to a 404 landing page: