Welcome to the home page for Travelling Blogger.

Travelling blogger is a mobile blogging client for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. To use Travelling blogger you need the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 Redistributable and an appropriate Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device.

Travelling Blogger supports all blogs which implement the MetaWeblog or WordPress APIs. This of course includes WordPress and a number of other blogs. If you’re not sure check with your blog provider. Travelling Blogger will autodetect the most appropriate blog API to use when you set up your blog.

There is no charge for using Travelling Blogger, all I ask is that you let me know you are using it and post comments is you find any problems or have any suggestions.

Getting Travelling Blogger

Travelling Blogger may be installed in one of two ways:

1. By navigating to the download page in Internet Explorer on your mobile device. Download the CAB file and it will install automatically.
2. By downloading the CAB file and transferring it to your mobile device using ActiveSync. From there click on the CAB to install it.

When you first start Travelling Blogger you must accept the licence agreement. You will then be taken to the home page where you can start blogging.

Features

Travelling Blogger includes features designed to make mobile blogging as easy as possible.

• Support for popular blogs via the MetaWeblog API.
• Extended support for WordPress.
• Upload of photos and other media from your phone’s camera or storage.
• Easy editing of content and categories.
• Off-line operation with optimised sychronisation when connected to the Internet.
• Fully featured FTP client allowing upload and management of images and other files.

The features of Travelling Blogger will be actively maintained and extended over the course of time. Planned enhancements include inclusion of further blogging APIs and integration with Office Live. If you have any suggestions for enhancements, please post a comment and let me know.

Usage instructions

The following sections are the user manual and frequently asked questions for Travelling Blogger. Please read them carefully before starting. I’ve tried not to make them too long.

1 - Installing Travelling Blogger

The best way to install Travelling Blogger is to navigate here in Internet Explorer on your mobile device. Simply click the link on the page and Travelling Blogger will install automatically.

1. When asked if you want to download the CAB file click yes to open it after it is downloaded.
2. The installer will start. You will be warned that the CAB is from an unverified source and asked if you want to proceed installing it. Click yes.

When installation is complete, Travelling Blogger can be started up by clicking on it’s icon in the programs folder.

Alternatively, you can download the CAB file to your PC and copy it to the mobile device using ActiveSync. Once the CAB is on your device, click it to install and follow the same instructions as above.

2 - Setting up your blog

The first thing you need to do is to set up a blog. To do this, click “New blog” on the Home Page of Travelling Blogger.

The blog settings page will be displayed:

Enter the name, home URL, user name, and password of your blog. If you are connected to the Internet, click the “discover” button. Travelling Blogger will now attempt to check the settings of your blog using the Really Simple Discovery (RSD) protocol. If it manages this the remaining settings will be completed. If not, or you are not connected to the Internet, you will need to fill them in manually by checking with your blog host. Check the “save password” box if you want Travelling Blogger to remember your password. If not, you will be asked to enter your password every time you synchronise your blog.

Once your blog settings are completed, click “ok” at the top right of the screen. Travelling blogger will then ask you if you want to synchronise your blog. If you are connected to the Internet, click yes and your last 20 posts will be downloaded along with any pages (WordPress only) and a list of your categories.

You will then be returned to the home page where your new blog will have been added to the list of available blogs.

3 - Creating a post

From the home page of Travelling Blogger, click on the blog in which you want to create a post. The following screen will be displayed:

This screen shows a list of your existing posts and pages. To create a new post, click “menu” and select “new post”. The post editing screen will be displayed:

Enter the title of your post. The “slug” (for WordPress and other blogging tools that support it) will be entered automatically. The post date will be set automatically, but you can change it if you wish.

Next we need to enter some copy (text) in your post. To do so, simply select the “copy” tab. A screen similar to the following will be displayed:

Travelling Blogger supports three copy areas:

1. Main text - the main content of your post.
2. Extended test - any extended text (or anything after the “more” tag in WordPress).
3. Excerpt - an brief description of your post- used if your blogging software supports it.

Only the main text is required. You can insert text using the keyboard (if your device has one) or the SIP panel (popup keyboard, get to it by clicking the keyboard icon next to the menu at the bottom of the screen).

There is a dropdown list of commonly used HTML tags on the toolbar. To use these tags, select an area of text in the editor and click the tag. The tag will then be inserted around your selected text.

There is another dropdown list of images which have been inserted via the media tab available on the toolbar. Selecting an image name in this list will insert an image tag into the text at the current cursor location.

Next you can put your post into categories if you wish. To do this, click the “categories” tab. You will see a screen similar to the following:

Click the check boxes to select categories. If you want to add a new category, type it’s name in the box at the bottom of the screen and click the “create” button.

If you want to upload pictures as part of your post you can do so on the media tab. You can only upload media using this tab if your blog software supports the newMediaObject method of metaWebLog API. You can check this with your blog provider.

The media tab looks like this:

To upload an image, select it’s name from the list. An image tag will be inserted similar to the following <img src="{0}" alt=""/>. The number in braces is a placeholder which will be substituted with the URL of the image when the post is synchronised and your blogging software has provided the correct URL.

Once an image has been uploaded it will also appear in the drop down list on the copy tab.

To finish editing your post, simply click the “ok” button at the top of the screen. To cancel your changes, click “cancel”.

You will then be returned to the post list where your new post will appear as a draft (a pencil icon will be next to it). When you synchronise, your post will be uploaded to the server where you can further edit it if you wish, it will not be published though.

If you wish to publish the post on the next synchronisation, select publish from the context menu of the post in the list. The icon of the post will change to a green arrow to signify that it will be published on the next synchronisation. To undo this, select “unpublish” from the context menu and the post will be returned to draft status.

The post context menu has some other useful options:

• Edit - opens the post for editing.
• Delete - marks the post for deletion from the server on the next synchronisation. Can be undone by selecting undelete for a deleted item.
• Delete local - deletes the local copy of the post from your handheld. All changes (including marking for server delete) will be lost. This action cannot be undone.
• Revert to original - reverts the post to it’s state when brought from the server or it’s first save.
• Refresh from server - if you are connected to the Internet, this option will get a new copy of the post from the server. This option is only available for posts which were downloaded from the server or have been synchronised.

WordPress pages are created and edited in exactly the same way except that a page is created using the “new page” option on the menu. Pages are listed on the “pages” tab separate from posts.

4 - Editing an existing post or page

An existing post or page can edited by selecting “edit” from the context menu. Once a post is edited it’s status will be returned to draft. If the post is synchronised to the server the server post will also be set to draft. To make sure the post is published, select “publish” from the context menu. Otherwise the process is exactly the same as when initially creating a page.

5 - Synchronising your blog

Travelling Blogger normally works on your posts off-line. This means that you don’t need to be connected to the Internet which can save money when you’re working on a 3G phone or similar.

When you are ready to publish posts you need to synchronise your blog with the server. Travelling Blogger needs to be connected to the Internet to do this, but will only stay connected as long as is required to perform the synchornisation.

There are two types of synchronisation - quick and full. Which one you pick is up to you.

• Quick - sends new and edited posts or pages to the server and gets new versions of those. Also updates the local list of categories. This is a light weight and quick mechanism of synchronising which works best if no changes have been made at the server since you last synchronised.
• Full - sends new and edited posts or pages to the server and gets new versions of those and all other posts and pages. Also updates the local list of categories. Basically, a complete refresh of the blog is taken. This method obviously takes more time and bandwidth, so is best used sparingly or when connected with wifi or cable.

To synchronise, select “Quick Sync” or “Full Sync” from the menu. The synchronisation will take place once you confirm and the results shown on a screen similar to the following:

In the event of an error occurring during synchronisation, a red cross will be displayed next to the item in question. The local item will be retained and not refreshed so that changes are not lost.

6 - Using FTP

As well as being able to upload images and media from the editing page, Travelling Blogger includes a full client for those who have FTP facilities on their blog.

To set up an FTP site choose Menu–>FTP Manager from the home page. A list of FTP sites will be displayed. To create a new FTP site, select “New FTP site” from the menu. A screen similar to the following will be displayed:

Enter the details of your FTP site. The most important options are name (just a display name to help you identify the site in a list), remote host (the IP or URI of the ftp site), user name, and password.

Once you have entered the required details click ok. You will be returned to the list of FTP sites. You can edit the settings at any time by selecting “edit settings” from the context menu of any of the individual FTP sites in the list.

To connect to an FTP site, click on it in the list. The following screen will be displayed:

The remote FTP site is shown in the top pane. You can navigate around it by clicking on folders and files. Remember that clicking on “..” takes you to the parent folder of the one that you are in. To manage files on the FTP site, use the context menu of each item in the list. From the menu you may rename, delete, or download a file as shown in the screen shot.

If you want to make a new directory on the FTP site, select “make new directory” from the file menu.

The files on your mobile device are shown in the file selector at the bottom of the screen. To select a new folder pick it from the drop down list. To upload of file, simply click on it. When you are in a local folder (not all documents) you can upload all the files in that folder by selecting “upload whole folder” from the “file” menu.

You can see a complete log of FTP activity on the “log” tab. This is useful for diagnosing any problems you might have.

Should an FTP command take longer than expected, you can stop it by selecting “interrupt” from the menu.

You can refresh the file listing of the server by selecting “refresh” from the menu.

When you are done with the FTP client, simply click the close button at the top of the screen.