Over a year ago my colleague and friend Novak helped me set up this blog on my iPhone. Very keel, but also very revealing of the limitations of the teeny tiny iPhone keyboard for anything more than a quick message or tweet. But now That I’ve been iPadded my interest in this app has been rekindled. And I even managed to get the darned thing working without a plaintive wail to Novak or his ilk.
Setting up an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad’s WordPress app requires two processes: configuring your UBC Blog to communicate with the app, and setting up the app itself on your device. While setting up the app on your device your device will need to be connected to the internet: the WordPress app verifies settings during set up–and will not allow you to save settings that haven’t been verified.
In addition to the set up instructions, some rudimentary entry posting instructions are found below.
Configuring your UBC Blog:
- Log on to UBC Blogs with your CWL
- Click Dashboard/Users
- Click Edit under your CWL username
- Scroll down to Services Password
- Enter a password in the two blank fields
- Click the Update Profile button
- Click Settings/Writing
- Tick the box next to “Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.”
- Click the Save Changes button
Setting up your iOS device:
- Download the WordPress app via iTunes and sync onto your device
- Tap into the WordPress app
- Tap I already have a WordPress…
- Enter the URL as blogs.ubc.ca/[yourblogshortname]. NO http://. So mine is blogs.ubc.ca/egan
- Enter your CWL username as your Username
- Enter your SERVICES Password as Password
- Tap Save the top right of your screen
Posting an entry from your device:
- Launch WordPress
- Tap the MyBlog button (if you have multiple blogs configured, then tap the title of the blog you wish to post to)
- Tap the New Entry button (the box with a pen in it, to the right of your blog title)
- Enter a Title, any Tags, any Categories into the corresponding fields
- Type the body of your entry into the main window. If you want to add a hyperlink start typing http:// and you should get a prompt to Make a Link: tap the Make a Link button and fill in the Text to be link, Link URL and tap the Save button
- You can tap the Save button near the top right of your screen to save as a draft at any time.
- When ready publish, tap and hold the text Local Draft in the Status field. When the Status menu pops up select Published, Private, Pending Review or Draft to upload the entry
- Click the Save button and the entry will be uploaded
Note: drafts are saved on your device only and aren’t loaded up to the server until actually published.
Note: the formatting options for the app are rudimentary: the bullets and bold formatting above I did within the regular WordPress web browser interface’s WYSIWYG editor.
