The Inception of WordPress for Windows Mobile

I’ve had a smartphone with Windows Mobile for awhile now with the intention to make it as my new development platform. Well, today is the day. I shall begin the process of developing WordPress for Windows Mobile. (I still have to figure out a more original name.)

I installed moBlog on my Samsung Omnia to get a feel of my contender. The application works–good enough to be used, but I could see many ways to improve it. Let the work begin!

A Joint Venture with “Role Manager”

The following will be likely the last feature incorporated to Custom Write Panel before the plugin enters beta phase.

In WordPress, a user could be assigned a role and, accordingly, that user will or will not have the capability to write a new Post.

With this upcoming new feature, a custom write panel could be accessible to certain roles only. For example, a custom write panel “Music Review” is created and a role “Music Review Writer” is invented. This custom write panel could be set to be visible to this new role only.

To accomplish this, another plugin needs to be installed in conjunction with Custom Write Panel, and that plugin would be “Role Manager.” Custom Write Panel will be responsible for creating a new capability as a custom write panel is created. Role Manager will allow adding that capability to an existing or a new role.

Upgrading Alpha Versions

Several alpha versions have been released the past few days which include upgrade instructions. Generally, there are two ways to upgrade to higher version. The easiest would be to completely uninstall Custom Write Panel plugin, de-activate it, upload new package, and then re-activate the plugin. Complete uninstallation is performed by doing the following steps.

  1. Go to ‘Options’ > ‘Custom Write Panel’
  2. Type uninstall in the last textbox
  3. Click ‘Update Options’
  4. Deactivate the plugin from the ‘Plugins’ menu

The upgrade method above will delete previously created custom write panels.

Another way of upgrading will involve running some queries via phpMyAdmin (or similar tool) in WordPress database. This method will preserve all custom write panels created. One thing to note when upgrading by the latter method is you can’t skip the upgrade instruction between the old version and the new version. Say, you’re upgrading from version 1.0.0a7 to 1.0.0a10, you will download 1.0.0a10 package, upload it, then you will performed upgrade instruction (when provided) specified for version 1.0.0a8, 1.0.0a9, and 1.0.0a10.

Upgrade script could’ve been included but I’d rather not clutter the code with so many upgrade routines between alpha versions. A proper upgrade script will be supplied for official release to make upgrading smoother, which may only involve de-activating and re-activating the plugin.