{"id":182,"date":"2008-08-03T10:28:07","date_gmt":"2008-08-03T18:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/?p=182"},"modified":"2008-08-03T22:14:52","modified_gmt":"2008-08-04T06:14:52","slug":"wordpress-for-iphone-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/blog\/2008\/wordpress-for-iphone-released","title":{"rendered":"7 Missing Features from the WordPress for iPhone App"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Wednesday morning before last, I was excited to see that <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=i1Py\/0jev0U&#038;offerid=146261&#038;type=3&#038;subid=0&#038;tmpid=1826&#038;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewSoftware%253Fi%253D257941932%2526partnerId%253D30%2526id%253D285073074&#038;mt=8\">WordPress released an official iPhone application<\/a> to the world.<\/p>\n<p>I instantly downloaded it, and added several of my WordPress blogs to the app. Aside from the annoying <a href=\"http:\/\/alexking.org\/projects\/wordpress\/readme?project=twitter-tools\">Twitter Tools<\/a> glitch (which sent an empty <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/mlaaker\/statuses\/865333799\">tweet<\/a> on blog setup), I was surprised to see some big omissions that would impede regular usage for site administrators&#8230; at least from my standpoint. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Dashboard functions<\/strong> <br \/>As readers here know, I don&#8217;t post every day. I do, however, very regularly check my <a href=\"http:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Administration_Panels\">WordPress Dashboard<\/a>. The Dashboard wraps up basic stats, such as the five most recent comments, incoming links, number of new unapproved comments, and WordPress news for the package itself (and 3rd-party plugins).\n<p>I find this data invaluable to know if there&#8217;s anything I need to take action on (such as marking a new comment as &#8216;approved&#8217; or &#8216;spam&#8217;) or learning about a security exploit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Global Drafts<\/strong> <br \/>\nThe second-most popular task for me in WordPress is creating and editing a draft post <em>on the server<\/em>. It generally takes me several revisions before I post a &#8220;post&#8221; here. (This one, for instance, has taken 10+ edits over 1.5 weeks.) <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, though, the iPhone WordPress app only can edit and save local drafts (i.e. those on the iPhone itself). This is probably the biggest deal-breaker for me. I don&#8217;t <em>want<\/em> to write and edit on my iPhone, as the keyboard is so awkward. I would, however, as it makes it convenient to drop in a quick edit or two, or get started on a new idea. But, preferably, I&#8217;d take a full, non-finger-crippling, physical keyboard experience over the on-screen, cramped digital keyboard. Because of this, I wouldn&#8217;t now dream of starting a post on the iPhone knowing I couldn&#8217;t switch back to the desktop keyboard later. <\/p>\n<p>Maybe one day Apple will allow Bluetooth keyboards to pair with the iPhone. (Maybe even starting with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B000V01RLK\/0713m611l-20\">their own keyboards<\/a>, in fact!) Until then, this app will just serve as a monitoring and quick editing environment.<\/p>\n<p>(Side note: It appears this issue may be larger than that of this app. I&#8217;ve noticed similar drawbacks plague <a href=\"http:\/\/infinite-sushi.com\/software\/ecto\/\">ecto<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.red-sweater.com\/marsedit\/\">MarsEdit<\/a>, too. Anyone know why this is, and\/or a workaround?)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Links (add, remove, order)<\/strong> <br \/>The iPhone has a number of built-in controls and UI elements for creating and managing lists. WordPress, too, has <a href=\"http:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Links_Manager\">great built-in support for Links<\/a> which populate a blog&#8217;s Blogroll section. Why not blend the best of both worlds? List management for your blog using the iPhone&#8217;s easy list management UI features? It sounds delightful.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Widget addition, order, removal<\/strong> <br \/>Similar to Link management, the ability to re-order, customize, and enable\/disable <a href=\"http:\/\/widgets.wordpress.com\/\">Widgets for WordPress<\/a>. Honestly, re-ordering widgets using the WordPress Web-based manager is rather awkward&#8230; having used the iPhone&#8217;s list control UI before, I imagine I&#8217;d prefer handling all Widget activity on the iPhone altogether. <\/li>\n<li><strong>Plugin control and updates<\/strong> <br \/>Plugins are well-known to cause performance issues for some WP blogs, and occasionally they can cause sites to come to a screeching halt. Being able to toggle a plugin on and off remotely would allow site administrators to quickly re-enable a site simply by flipping a plugin off (and\/or back on). Further, WordPress now allows most plugins to be updated (when updates are offered) via the Web interface. As such, being able to click a couple links to bring all your plugins up-to-date would be very useful.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Run backups<\/strong> <br \/>The thing about backups is: you never think to backup your files till its too late&#8230; why not just offer the &#8220;Save to server&#8221; and &#8220;Email backup&#8221; options (sans &#8220;Download to your computer&#8221; due to limited iPhone storage opportunities)?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stats<\/strong> <br \/>Last but not least, the WordPress Stats plugin has become invaluable to me. I&#8217;m a big fan of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/analytics\">Google Analytics<\/a> (who significantly raised the bar on visualizing web usage data several years ago), but there are few times that I head over to the Google site to check out how my blog is doing. The <a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/stats\/\">WordPress Stats plugin<\/a> gives me my most basic visualizations (such as visitors over time, top posts, top searches, and most active) right on the Dashboard. It&#8217;s not a 3rd-party plugin, as its made by <a href=\"http:\/\/automattic.com\/\">Automattic<\/a> (the folks behind WP itself and <a href=\"http:\/\/akismet.com\/\">Akismet<\/a>), so no (legal) reason not to include in this package.\n<p>I know the plugin currently uses Flash to render its chart, but I&#8217;d happily deal with a static, cached PNG or GIF if that got me some level of site monitoring via the app.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Please, don&#8217;t get me wrong. I understand I&#8217;m looking at a 1.0 release, not a 2.x or 3.x version. Many of the features I&#8217;m describing are fine to release after supporting basic posting functionality. Further, <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=i1Py\/0jev0U&#038;offerid=146261&#038;type=3&#038;subid=0&#038;tmpid=1826&#038;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewSoftware%253Fi%253D257941932%2526partnerId%253D30%2526id%253D285073074&#038;mt=8\">the app is <b>free<\/b><\/a>&#8230; which means the good folks at Automattic <a href=\"http:\/\/developer.apple.com\/iphone\/program\/\">dropped at least a benjamin<\/a> simply to offer freeloaders (like myself and all other WordPress user) a means of managing our blogs on the go. (So, to the good folks developing this app, &#8220;thank you.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Automattic has been kind enough to provide a <a href=\"http:\/\/iphone.trac.wordpress.org\/report\/3\">list of upcoming bug fixes and features<\/a> for the app. I didn&#8217;t see any of my ideas already listed there, but don&#8217;t doubt that as time passes, the app will become considerably more usable. <\/p>\n<p>What features of the app do you find missing? And\/or invaluable while on the go?<\/p>\n<p><i><b>Update:<\/b> Daniel Jalkut, author of <a href=\"http:\/\/osx.iusethis.com\/app\/marsedit\">MarsEdit<\/a>, kindly <a href=\"#disqus_thread\">offered a solution to the issue of Global Drafts<\/a>, which ended up serving as a great workaround. (Thanks, Daniel! Anyone else know how to solve the remaining open 6 features?)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wednesday morning before last, I was excited to see that WordPress released an official iPhone application to the world. I instantly downloaded it, and added several of my WordPress blogs to the app. Aside from the annoying Twitter Tools glitch (which sent an empty tweet on blog setup), I was surprised to see some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,355,223,224,305],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-apps","tag-cms","tag-iphone","tag-itunes","tag-wordpress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laaker.com\/micah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}