Similar to how GDGT.com has it’s loading.gif while the page completes this method will do … Read More »
November 03
Over the last couple days I’ve had the dilemma of trying to figure out how … Read More »
October 21
No not the 1.1.1 firmware update that must have just been released after I left the house this morning, I’m talking about Mobile Admin for the iPhone.
Jared and I will be releasing a major update to the UI, some key updates:
While working on the CSS today I notice one major property that the iPhone does not support, even though Safari 3 does, contrary to what this article states, appearance does not work on iPhone’s Safari even with the webkit prefix. It was a big deal for me because it would have solved a lot of the issues I have with our approach to skinning the admin UI.
Jared and I were talking last night and he’s got some great plans for the plugin and I’m looking forward to how it unfolds.
[Updated 10/5]
Version 2.0 was just released.
Version 2.0 – multiple mobile browsers supported
After a week and a half of hard work Jared and I committed Version 1.0.2 to Wordpress Extend. we lapsed and forgot to test the plugin on the 2.2 branch and now we’ll need to pull it back for a later release when we get everything straightened out for the majority of users.
Mobile Admin started it’s development shortly after Matt requested on the [wp-hackers] mailing for the community to create an iPhone Admin theme in response to the MovableType iPhone beta theme released just a days prior.
Jared did the majority of hard core coding and I centered around the interface and CSS. Since I was the one with the iPhone I was the lucky one to exhaustingly check in and test new CSS changes for testing on the phone, since there aren’t any good development tools for iPhone devs; iPhoney is phony before anyone suggests it.
Here’s the current trac project home for bugs and management.
Here’s the support and suggestion forums. If you have an iPhone we really need your suggestions so please throw them out to us there.
Or if you have any contributions or changes you’d like to make directly just contact us.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Details:
iPhone / Mobile Admin UI for WordPress?
The plugin home page is on WordPress Extend.
Contributors
Jared Bangs and Dan Cameron
Gives a mobile-friendly admin UI to browsers by User Agent. The iPhone is the primary supported device for the first release.
Description
Mobile Admin adapts the WordPress? admin UI to be more friendly to mobile devices, specifically phones. The iPhone is the primary target (and only supported device) for version 1, with more to come in the future.
Most common WordPress admin features are supported:
… with more to come in later revisions.
Other resources
Please submit all usage questions to the support forums
The Trac server can be used for viewing changes and submitting tickets
SPECIAL NOTE – Testing and bug reporting is especially encouraged, as only one of us currently owns an iPhone.
Add RSS Detection
I’ve uploaded Add RSS to Wordpress Extend and updated it to version 1.5.
Description: Add RSS Feeds to your template header for Firefox and other browsers to detect automatically. Plugin facilitates adding your comments feed, per-post comment feed and allows for custom RSS feeds to be added. Feeds are not excluded to local RSS feeds of your site. Forexample you can add your Twitter or Pownce feed just as easily as adding a comments feed.
It’s a very basic plugin but I’m going to bet a lot of people would benefiting from it’s ease of use, especially the option to add per post feeds. And it works with any wordpress theme which is a plus.
AJAX CSS Switcher
I’ve also added CSS AJAX CSS Switcher (I’ve changed the name) to the repository and I’ve updated it to version 1.5. Hopefully this release will help the ailments of the last version which had problems with the version of prototype in wp-includes.
Description: This Wordpress Plugin allows you to add CSS switching to your theme without any reload. It also stores the users selection for future visits. This plugin uses UDASS The Unobtrusive Degradable Ajax Style Sheet Switcher.
“The Unobtrusive Degradable Ajax Style Sheet Switcher combines the power of Server Side processing and DOM scripting to swap style sheets on the fly with the power of Ajax. If JavaScript? is disabled – UDASSS degrades gracefully to improve your website accessibility. Needless to say, it is very sexy indeed.”
If you haven’t noticed my site has dramatically transformed overnight to a “light” theme. The core of it is based off of IAMWW D2, which I had to heavily restructure and stylize to get what I wanted. Heavy props to the author because I was about to write my own sandbox theme with about the same layout and look. And even though I want to do a lot more here it is…
I want to post a more in depth about why I went to a light theme later but (since I’ve already been e-mailed and asked why) the main reason was I’ve see high-contrast completely different when I’m on the web and I don’t want people to feel the same about mine–including myself–. I actually want to go more simplistic and over the next few weeks it will be toned down a little.
The problems/to-dos:
Well the wait is over for me. I talked myself into buying an iPod last night after toying around with it for just a few minutes and my experience with it for 20 minutes today at the mall solidified my decision.
 Yes, the iPhone does do what many other phones do already. That’s clear but it’s the how that counts. The simplicity may be a drawback for some (or at least one I know) but like the BlackBerry OS it’s almost perfect. Just look at how the BB and the iPhone handle the filesystem: the Blackberry does let the user notice that a structure is there when digging through images (which is a must for finding images or files with the expansion card) and the iPhone doesn’t let you worry about such things, making you think it’s not there. The Treo is similar but the Windows mobile OS is heavily constructed around the computer OS mentality to find and finally display files or run programs through a tree hierarchical system. Maybe this has changed since the Pocket PC OS but from what I’ve noticed it hasn’t. Some say this is a drawback to the simplicity of iPhone, I disagree; the Treo made it clear you didn’t need to worry about anything but launching apps and the BlackBerry proved it. iPhone is just banking on it.
And no, Apple does not tell people what to do. They know what people want and they let you do it. Basically, it just works how you want it. If it doesn’t, so be it, because in my experience Apple doesn’t tend to make Swiss Army devices that have a great spec sheets without anything more to back it.
Personally, that’a why I like iPhone (and the Apple TV). I just want a device that works. If I can’t get some clumsy 3rd party app that makes my phone (Treo, PPC, WMD) freeze or hard reset I don’t want the phone. That’s why I believe they’re completely closing the phone to widgets (javascript and CSS) and the web, giving the OS a chance not to deconstruct and fail by bad programming.
iPhone doesn’t make you struggle, similar to the blackberry it’s a phone and an application device. It doesn’t try to be anything more through sacrificing usability.
Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of missing pieces to this puzzle. Many of which can and will be updated through software updates. And the pieces that need hardware updates will come along on the mystery train that Apple loves to use for product releases.
Those hardware functions that lack on revision one are the reasons that I’m giving up my plot to buy an iPhone. What are they? Well, Edge although very responsive to my tests this morning could be replaced with 3g but that’s not why I’m not getting one. And, the storage size limitation of 8 gigs isn’t practical for me but that’s not the reason either, since I would need to sync the iPhone every night to charge anyways. Is it the lack of stereo bluetooth on the first bluetooth iPod? No. Is it the price of that hardware? No, it’s actually worth it as a computing device. The simple small little detail that noone is mentioning is…
No video output.
And since I use my iPod Video daily to watch video at our lunch hour it’s not an iPod to me. And it can’t be to many others who use it to display all the iTunes purchased or other video on their TV. My guess, “why add it while we have the AppleTV?” which is just another shitty marketing cross-sell idea because they think it’s not that big of an issue.
It is a big deal to me. But who am I when millions of iPhones have been sold to very happy consumers.
So for now I’ll still be running with my BlackBerry curve that I still adore. It hasn’t failed me yet and although it may be “limiting” it does what I need it to do, except run full websites (Opera doesn’t count) like Google Reader or Google Talk or have the most highly resolution screen I’ve ever seen in a small device or have hand gestures or motion sensing or come smaller or have WIFI.
It took just about 40 seconds for the full page to load on ATTs edge which is pretty fast compared to my Curve which takes just about as long without rendering proper html.Even the ajax style switcher worked which wasn’t surprising since it is safari but it was nice to see the css change … Read More »
June 30
Is anyone using my ajax style switcher on this site? Is it just not noticeable enough?
… Read More »
May 24
