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Blogging on Windows Mobile

June 29th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

For a little while now I’ve been wanting to write a mobile blogging client for Windows Mobile 5. Why? Well I just wanted to be able to write blog posts on the move.

I seem to remember spending considerable amounts of time on trains from London to Glasgow at the time with the resulting mind bending boredom, so I guess it grew from that. I’m not the only one that thinks this either, one of my friends Stuart has been looking for something similar for a while- too many toys not enough time. Anyway, I fired up the new Windows Mobile 6 SDK refresh and had a crack at it.

The result is a little application I’m calling Travelling Blogger (or TBlogger). It’s a Compact Framework 2 application for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. I’ve designed TBlogger with a few basic needs in mind:

  • The ability to take my blog with me.
  • Editing and creation of posts (and pages in WordPress).
  • Uploading of images and other files.
  • Creation and management of categories.
  • Off-line and on-line operation with easy synchronisation.
  • Support of draft posts and pages synchronised to the server and published when complete.

I use a Windows Mobile phone with a built in camera, so I also wanted to be able to directly upload photos I’d taken on it to my blog. The camera just saves photos in “my pictures” so this turned out to be quite easy.

Now I’ve mentioned before that I use WordPress for my blog. For this reason I decided to support the MetaWeblog API and also the WordPress API. This should let TBlogger to work with a fair number of blog packages out there and also allows me to create and manage WordPress pages. TBlogger supports the newMediaObject method of the MetaWeblog API which allows the uploading of images and other media to blogs. In addition to this, I’ve provided a full FTP client in TBlogger since not all blog software supports newMediaObject and those that do so are sometimes limited.

TBlogger uses a “smart synchronisation” method which allows it to keep a copy of one or more blogs on a mobile device whilst allowing changes to be sent and received from the server using the minimum of bandwidth. TBlogger operates disconnected. You just write your posts and when you’re ready click “synchronise”- it takes care of everything else including batched image upload and naming. This is all particularly useful if you have a 3G mobile phone and can upload from anywhere, but it’s pretty good on an IPaq as well where you can synchronise through wireless or ActiveSync when you get back to base.

As well as creating new posts, TBlogger allows you to keep older posts in memory and edit them at any time. It even includes an undo feature allowing you to revert to the original post without contacting the server if you mess it up.

Now that TBlogger is finished, I’ve decided to distribute it so that anyone can use it. For this one I’m not going to publish the source code, but I am going to allow free use and sharing. I’ll be releasing TBlogger as an automated install and CAB download on this site very shortly. At the moment it’s undergoing final testing and getting a help file so that folks know how to use it.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be posting a number of technical articles about some of the more intersting parts of the project. These will cover aspects such as Mobile UI design and XML RPC. I’ll also be extending TBlogger to work with Office Live and some more blogging APIs as time goes on.

For now, here are some screen shots to show you what it’s all about.

TBlogger home page Editing blog settings
TBlogger home page Blog settings and auto discovery
Posts list Pages list
Posts manager Pages manager
Posts editor Pages copy editor
Editing post info Editing copy
Categories Image upload
Editing categories Uploading images
Synchronising FTP settings
Smart synchronising FTP settings
FTP client
Full FTP client

There Are 30 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Ste73 on 4 July 2007:

    I want it !!! Please, i’m leaving on friday for a long vacation and would like to blog with it.
    :)
    Ste

  2. Comment by John on 8 July 2007:

    I was looking for a program like TBlogger and found MobiBlogr Premium (at MobiBlogr.com). MobiBlogr gets the job done, but certainly misses out on many of the features that you have incorporated in your app.
    Overall finish also looks much better judging from the screen shots.
    I can’t wait to try it out - and like ‘Ste73′ I also hope that it will be released in time for my upcoming vacation (in two weeks) :-) - John

  3. Comment by John on 8 July 2007:

    37 minutes after my first post - incredible timing.
    Downloaded, installed and…. testing :-) Thanks a lot - looking forward to this.
    I will post my feedback very soon…
    Cheers
    - John

  4. Comment by Keijo on 19 July 2007:

    Hi,
    Thanks for the awesome program!

    I have couple of questions:

    1) Is my phone broke or what, Tblogger takes to starts up like 2-3min, is this normal ( i have HTC 4350 which i thik is same that Qtek Wizard or something like that)?
    2) Have you thinked implement blogger.com in tblogger?

    BR,
    Keijo

  5. Comment by juanpa on 19 August 2007:

    I was looking for something like this. i couldn’t believe it didn’t exist.
    I just need it to support blogger too.
    Thanks for your work.

  6. Comment by Guy Adams on 20 August 2007:

    Hi,

    Again a great application, thanks!

    Do you know how difficult it would be adjust / adapt the code to work with Blogger.com. Googles contribution to Blogger was the GData API which so far no mobile blogging clients work with.

    Thanks

  7. Comment by pointbreak on 6 September 2007:

    Dear,
    This is great work :-) but i can’t use it because i live in South Korea and i need unicode character set.
    After setting up, i ran travelling blogger and added my blog.
    Addding my blog was successful but synchronization failed.
    I think the reason may be the supporting of unicode character set.
    If possible, please support unicode :-)
    Thanks, have a nice day.
    Truly from South Korea.

  8. Comment by Matt Seigal on 26 September 2007:

    Great little app that simplifies blogging from my WM5 Softbank 9000 (aka Hermes 200).

    My only concern is that does not appear to support copy and paste from the clipboard. Other than that, I am really happy to use it.

  9. Pingback by austarrs.net » What the . . . ? on 12 June 2008:

    [...] and out’s here as it would be better coming from the developers site. Just head on over to Darren Johnstones site for all the inside [...]

  10. Pingback by GSD-Blog » Blog Archive » Mobiles bloggen II on 29 July 2008:

    [...] habe vor einiger Zeit die Windows Mobile Software Travelling Blogger erwähnt, die ich immer noch sehr gerne benutze. (Sie kann übrigens hier heruntergeladen [...]

  11. Pingback by Iconoclastech » Blog Archive » Blogging from a phone on 6 August 2008:

    [...] array of usual new cellphone goodies. So far, I’ve installed Evernote Portable, Twobile, and Traveling Blogger—a mobile blogging application that supports [...]

  12. Pingback by TBlogger moblog test on Aquila Online | A South African Blog on 3 October 2008:

    [...] on a Windows Mobile device (HTC TyTn) using Tblogger - Travelling Blogger for Windows Mobile. Spread the love: These icons link to social bookmarking [...]

  13. Comment by Benjamin Howarth on 7 October 2008:

    Hey,

    I think it’s a great little app, but I’m running Windows Mobile 6 and the program crashed on startup :-(.
    If you want to exchange the source I could work on a WM6 edition?

    Cheers,

    Benjamin

  14. Comment by Political Disgust on 11 January 2009:

    Hi I have a question. i am trying to install this great program on my new HTC Fuze (same as the htc touch pro).

    My blog is http://www.politicaldisgust.com and when I try to add a new blog I get a bunch of errors including:
    1) Could not synchronize blog: System error: No such host is known

    Maybe I have the RPC URL incorrect. Currently I have this listed as http://www.politicaldisgust.com/wordpress/xmlrpc.php . Is that incorrect?

    Any help would be greatly appreciated as I would love this to work with my blog.

    Thanks!

  15. Comment by Political Disgust on 11 January 2009:

    I am not sure that this program works with the new Windows Mobile phones like my HTC Fuze.

  16. Comment by Parrotlover77 on 11 January 2009:

    This is so awesome! Can’t wait to try it out! I heard about this via wmpoweruser.com blog.

    Keep up the great work! I couldn’t tell from the screenshots, but if it doesn’t support wysiwyg, that would be a request for a future release. Heck, I’d PAY for that feature, so keep that in mind if you consider commercializing this app. :-)

  17. Comment by Ashish on 12 January 2009:

    Hi

    I tried this on my HTC Kaiser running WM6.1. As I enter my blog details and try to sync - I get an error saying “Could not synchronise blog:Specified URL scheme is invalid”

    Will appreciate any help in sorting this out.

  18. Comment by HiShadow on 14 January 2009:

    This looks to be a great app, and pretty much what I was looking for. I’ve loaded it and it seems to work fine, but will not connect to my blog. I’ve looked at two other offline blogging tools and they work, so I suspect there’s something else going on.

    I can set up a blog manually, but the discover button doesn’t find anything. On the other two tools they find the correct blog and blogID numbers and such. I have verified manually and my blog is outputting the appropriate RSD xml.

    I’m running this on a iPaq 211 with Windows Mobile 6. I’ve tried WiFi, Bluetooth to cell phone, and even tethered to a laptop connections. None of them seem to pass any data when I do a discover or a sync. It seems like the request isn’t even making it out of the handheld.

    I think your app looks great and would be willing to test anything you send my way. Feel free to e-mail direct. -hishadow

  19. Pingback by TBlogger version 1.0.0 | Symbian & Pocket PC Download on 16 January 2009:

    [...] Support of draft posts and pages synchronised to the server and published when complete.” … more [...]

  20. Pingback by Maik’s Blog » Blog Archive » TBlogger a blogging application for Windows Mobile on 26 January 2009:

    [...] can download the application here. Happy blogging on your [...]

  21. Comment by Restaurant critic on 28 January 2009:

    Hello, Darren.

    You created a real wonder ) thank you!
    It even has the image upload function, synchronization for offline posting etc.

    My blog in a stand-alone Wordpress blog, and I am having trouble configuring RPC connection.

    There is no Blog ID, if I am not mistaken in stand-alone Wordpress blog. I have entered the info as you have suggested: Blog ID = 1, and RPC URL: http://gourmet-project.com/xmlrpc.php, selected the Wordpress platform, but still getting an error when I press “Discover”: Sorry. Could not get XML RPC service http://gourmet-project.com/xmlrpc.php?rsd: HTTP protocol error. 404 Not found.

    Strange, I do have http://gourmet-project.com/xmlrpc.php pingback link rel in the site header.

    What could be wrong.

    Would greatly appreciate you help.
    Thank you again for the great program!

    Sincerely yours,
    RC

  22. Comment by Restaurant critic on 28 January 2009:

    To Political Disgust:

    http://www.politicaldisgust.com/xmlrpc.php
    would be correct, imho.
    You have your blog installed in the root.

    Try it, and, please, let know if it works.

  23. Comment by dmm on 30 January 2009:

    Looks great! Will you be doing versions for other platforms (e.g. Palm’s new webOS)?

  24. Comment by Palmdoc on 30 January 2009:

    Works on a Palm Treo Pro. Good job. Do please implement Copy & Paste and it will be perfect!! Cheers.

  25. Comment by R. Smith on 3 February 2009:

    Hi,

    I wanted to know from waht I have read so far. Will this program work with sites that have blogs like Yahoo 360, MSN, Blogger, and Wordpress.com (not regular wordpress)?

  26. Comment by darren on 15 February 2009:

    Hi Roger, I’ve only tested this with WordPress. I’m not sure about the other blog engines. Sorry.

  27. Comment by HTC blogger on 17 February 2009:

    Hi,

    This works as charm, except does not support international characters - what a pity!

    I have not found a way to remove an obsolete blog from the list. Is there? If I select a blog, it jumps directly to it and there is no delete option.

  28. Pingback by Holly’s Blog » Erster Beitrag vom Handy aus on 1 March 2009:

    [...] Leider gibt es keinen wirklich komfortablen Client für Windows Mobile. Habe außer moBlog und TBlogger nicht wirklich was nettes gefunden. Leider werden diesescheinbarnicht mehr weiterentwickelt. [...]

  29. Comment by headburroantfarm on 2 March 2009:

    Hi Darren,

    First off, thanks so much for all your hard work on this - there is a dearth of Wordpress blogging tools for the Pocket PC and yours goes far beyond any of the others.

    Secondly, could I ask a couple of questions?

    1) When it starts, it takes a long time to get going - 1 minute or more. It also stops and ‘thinks’ for a long time every now and then for unknown reasons. Is this a normal function of the program or an issue you are aware of?

    2) Copy & Paste doesn’t work - again, is this an issue you are aware of?

    I’m running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.

  30. Pingback by The Trials of Mobile Blogging « Backpacking Burro on 3 March 2009:

    [...] TBlogger. This is a very clever WordPress only app that has everything and the kitchen sink in. But it also [...]

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