Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress – Version 1.5 Released
Posted by Rich Gubby on September 16, 2009 at 2:13 pmFiled under: Mobile Device and Browser Detection, Mobile Web Development, Wordpress Mobile
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been releasing updates to my wordpress plugin. A bug fix here, a new option there. You’ve got configurable menus, support for Cyrillic character sets and much, much more.
But the backlog of new features has been growing and it needed a big update to clear the decks! So yesterday signalled the release of the latest incarnation of my Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress – version 1.5!
I’ve fixed a load of bugs, added a stack of new options for configuration and written a really cool new feature that gives you the option of building your mobile WordPress blog in a completely new way! You can read the scoop below or download it for yourself from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/
Major Improvements
- You can now build your home page by category. So say you’re a newspaper running WordPress and want to display the latest sport articles as well as the latest news articles. Well now you can! And you also get to choose which category you want on your home page and how many items in that category to display! Linking to the articles works exactly the same way as normal, just a different home page!
- The last release of the 1.4 code was to add support for Cyrillic characters. So not wishing to leave our French and German friends out, I’ve added support for those two languages! Don’t fear though if you need others (Italian or Polish anyone?), they’ll be coming shortly.
- On a language note, if you want to change the text for any part of the blog that you hadn’t been able to before (Submit text on a search button for example) you can change it whatever you want. If you want it in Ukrainian you can – but equally if you want to just change “submit” to “find”, that’s something that is now available.
- After an email conversation from someone who wanted to simply redirect the web version if a mobile visitor viewed their blog, I’ve added the ability to redirect your web blog to a mobile version. Most of the time it won’t be needed as the plugin handles everything mobile, but for those who really want to redirect, you can.
Minor Improvements
- Caption images in an excerpt are tricky, so I’ve given you the option of removing them. Oh, I’ve added better handling of excerpts too. And images. Much better all round.
- Don’t want to display the post date on the home page (and archive page too for that matter)? Turn it off then as I’ve added an option for it.
- Added the option for displaying a header logo AND the header text. Not everyone has their website text in their logo so you might need both. Or one. Or neither. The choice is yours.
- Show a post thumbnail. The first image from your post can now be displayed (and configured) so that you display a nice thumbnail on the home page.
- Bug fix: Sometimes pages were displayed as if the text was at the top and everything else was at the bottom. Should be fixed now but it’s down to another plugin outputting text too early.
- Bug fix: Some pages were displaying a “more” link on the home page without any text first. Fixed!
- There were a few other bugs that appeared when you entered some characters in either post titles, or page titles, or entered an apostrophe in the mobile blog title / description. They’ve all been fixed and tested!
- Lastly, I’ve improved some areas of documentation. A few fields were misleading and don’t really tell you what they do. I’ve made a few amendments and no doubt there will be more to come. (I like to code, not document!)
Version 1.6? Maybe 2.0?
The next major code release will include an administration panel, so you’ll be able to write and manage posts from your mobile. I’ve got a framework in place for it, it’s not just a case of identifying which admin pages to mobilize, getting on and doing it! Something that big might mean moving to version 2.0 and not just a 1.5->1.6.
If you’ve got any feedback for any of these features, or suggestions for new ones I’ll add all of them to the list in some shape or form. As usual, there are features that people have requested that didn’t make it into this release, but it’s all down on the roadmap and will be addressed at some point!
Related posts:
September 16th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Hey Rich,
Had to drop by again to congratulate you on this fine plugin! The mobile stylesheets do a fabulous job lining up to the standard stylesheet. I look forward to more great things with this add-on!
Keep up the great work!
September 16th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Hi Ryan – thanks for the kind words, they are very much appreciated!
There is plenty more to come with this plugin – I’ve made a start on an admin section so that you’ll be able to manage your blog with the plugin.
What kind of actions do you need for mobile admin? Creating a post, editing an old one? If you could let me know that would really help!
Thanks!
September 18th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
In terms of a mobile admin panel, the ability to create/edit posts and pages are key to my day to day use at least. Simple commenting moderation is a good feature too! Other than that, the features you have are terrific!
I did notice when I upgraded to 1.5, that my mobile view is no longer showing the same heading fonts as my desktop view did with version 1.4. It used to do that automatically, but I’ll try to play around with the custom stylesheet and see if I can get the changes to appear.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Thanks for the suggestions – I’ll definitely be including those.
If you have any issues with your styling, let me know and I’ll take a look at it!
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Hi again!
I noticed that when my page of recent posts appears, the bottom link that says “older posts” doesn’t bring up the earlier posts. When I try to click the link for the 2nd time, it doesn’t work at all. I loaded the mobile version on my BlackBerry and my desktop browsers (IE and Firefox) just to check and there was no success.
Thanks as always for the phenomenal work and greater potential you’ve brought to WordPress.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hi Ryan – thanks for the heads up – I’ll check it out and let you know what the score is with it!
October 4th, 2009 at 5:04 am
Man, I must be a doof. How can you view your wappled site in a regular desktop browser for styling, debugging, etc.? User-agent switchers don’t work, right?
Awesome plug-in, though!
October 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
You can use the user agent switcher but depending on which user agent you choose, you might need to install the XHTML Mobile Profile plugin as well.
With regards to styling, you can use Firebug to work out which style is put where and change them on the fly.
October 4th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Ah, the XHTML Mobile Profile plugin is what I was missing. Much obliged!
October 5th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Hare are a couple of others to try:
Web Developer Toolbar – resize your screen to match that of an iPhone (or any other phone for that matter)
Modify Headers – Instead of relying on just the user agent, you can modify the headers to they match a handset closer (with a UA Prof for example)
And you’ve probably already installed it, but Firebug should be your CSS editing weapon of choice.
October 5th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Thanks for the suggestions. I couldn’t live without the web dev toolbar. The main issue for me has just been fooling my Wapple Architect site into thinking I’m coming from a phone. XHTML Mobile Profile + User-Agent Switcher + Modify Headers = still only getting to the desktop version of our site. Working on it…thanks for your help.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Hi Rich,
I updated to 1.5.7 and I noticed the plugin now has its own menu option in the admin panel. However, when I try to click the different options, I get a “page not found” which was not there before performing the upgrade. I can, in the mean time, check/uninstall some plugins.
I am looking forward to the next major release when it’s ready
!
October 6th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
This is the last question, I promise: It seems the ampersands in links get converted to & (for xml digestion?). They then no longer work properly when you click them. Any way around this that you know of?
You are too kind! Thanks again…
J
October 7th, 2009 at 9:42 am
You’re right, they are done because of XML.
Which links are you having problems with? In posts? If you could give me an example post that’d be great and I’ll get it fixed asap!
October 10th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
You’re the man, Rich! See for example the “View Larger Map” link here: http://mastomillers.com/2009/10/05/maya-brunch/
Link href shows up in mobile as: http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&q=maya+charlottesville&fb=1&gl=us&hq=maya&hnear=charlottesville&cid=0,0,15790503818439769&ei=YfnHSuOzFc7ZlAeqsbCSAw&ll=38.034149,-78.488796&spn=0.005915,0.00912&z=16&iwloc=A&source=embed
Much obliged,
Jed
October 10th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
As you probably noticed, my ampersand codes get transformed into regular ampersands in these posts. They should be
&in that link instead of actual &.October 12th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Hi Jed.
I think what would be best, is to provide support for google maps in a better way than just a link to a stand alone image that isn’t mobile friendly.
I’ll take the iframe that holds the map currently, and convert it into a mobile friendly static google map that will resize to any handset dimension.
Leave this one with me – it’s definitely in the to-do list for the next version!
October 12th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Awesome, dude. Better than I would have hoped for!
October 19th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Hey Rich,
Have a question…have you been able to investigate whether or not there is a way to allow youtube embeded videos to play on BlackBerry phones? Thanks again for allowing me to beta test your admin plugin. I have spread the word about this great plugin!
November 10th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
[...] recently installed the Wapple WordPress plug-in as I wanted more options for mobile visitors to this blog. There are a host of functional plug-ins [...]
November 12th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
[...] recently installed the Wapple WordPress plug-in as I wanted more options for mobile visitors to this blog. There are a host of functional plug-ins [...]
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:28 am
Is there a way to use Wapple Architect with custom fields? My image links are using custom fields and I need to integrate them into the custom theme somehow. Any chance without the risk of losing in case of updating the plugin?
March 9th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Hi Christian – working on custom fields as I speak – hopefully there will be something soon! Keep an eye on the changelog!
May 21st, 2010 at 4:31 am
I am very stoked about this plugin. Trying to get it working now. Got this strange error on my mobile now though: “wapl error: xmlparseentityref: no name” Wondering how I messed this up.
July 18th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I have not touched my website for quite sometime now. Recently I upgraded my wordpress and other plug-ins as needed. I attempted to use my Palm Pre to browse my home page and got WAPL ERROR:xmlParseEntityRef:no name The Page title says Page 1 in my WEBOS browser. I attempted to view my settings but there isn’t much to look at. What happened?
July 27th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
How can I include an iframe on a mobile site when I use WAPL or any of Wapple Services? Are iframes supported on many device browsers? and if not does Wapple provide support for it.
Thanks,
bm
July 28th, 2010 at 8:48 am
iframe support is really bad and causes all sorts of issues on mobile phones. We don’t support it in WAPL – but what are you trying to achieve – I’m sure you can do it with other techniques.