Just an heads up that ‘WordPress for BlackBerry PlayBook’ 2.1 has been approved. We need to post a tweet from the BB account, and we should publish a small post on the BlackBerry blog, since this new release adds nice stuff. I already prepared a draft, @ievolver feel free to review and publish the post when you have the time.
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Danilo
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Isaac Keyet
WordPress for BlackBerry 1.6 is just around the corner. We took the opportunity to update the app icon to focus on simplicity while still following BlackBerry’s UI guidelines. Have a peek:
Old:
New:
Old (ribbon):
New (ribbon):
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Dan
Woah nice! The shadow really helps it stand out better.
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Isaac Keyet
Thanks for the tweet, too.
Like I said below, we can probably use something very similar for Android, although I think the shadow doesn’t really fit in.. And we want that slight “over the top” perspective for Android, too. Anyway, I’ll have a look but it’ll be somewhat similar I think.
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Matt Thomas
I really like the new flat icon. One thing I noticed is that it appears to have a standard 2-D drop shadow around the edges in addition to the 3-D shadow, which seems a little weird. Otherwise, good stuff.
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Isaac Keyet
If I remember correctly, this is a part of the guidelines. You’ll also notice that it has a slight radial gradient towards the edges of the logo on the inside – this is in line with the guidelines as well, making it “smokey”.
Bottom line: we can’t use these exact ones for other platforms, but if you approve of these we can do something very similar.
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Matt Thomas
Gotcha, maybe it’s for making them stand out against the background color. I’m cool with these.
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Isaac Keyet
Great. Then we’ll proceed. *evil laugh*
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Martin
Looks cool
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Kamal Gaur
I’m highly disappointed with the upgrade. My phone drafts seem to be lost and I need to find a way to undo this upgrade with the hopes of WordPress accessing the drafts folder again, or find another way to retrieve those drafts.
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Danilo
That’s weird, ‘Local drafts’ should be there. Make sure that permissions are all set to ‘allow’ by following the steps below:
- On your BlackBerry go to “Options > Advanced Options > Applications” (on newer devices go to Options->Applications). Scroll through the list, highlight and select “WordPress for BlackBerry”. Next, click on the app, and choose Edit Permissions and ensure they are set to “Allow”.
- Reboot the phone by removing and reinserting the battery.
If that doesn’t help, you can attach your device to your laptop, navigate to the app temp folders, and look through the files:
(1) Navigate to folder //store/home/user/wordpress/
(2) Navigate to folder //SDCard/BlackBerry/wordpress/-
Kamal Gaur
Danilo, I changed the Permissions to Allow, rebooted the phone, but still couldn’t access Local Drafts.
I also connected the phone to my laptop and looked for the folders you mentioned – couldn’t find either.
The only WordPress folder I could find was -
D:\BlackBerry\app_world\downloads\23b042aa\WordPress_for_BlackBerry
which contains the files
meta.app.rem,
WordPress.cod.rem, and
WordPress-1.cod.rem to WordPress-12.cod.rem.
However, when you open them using NotePad, they’re filled with gibberish.-
Danilo
The app doesn’t delete those folders on disk. You should have a file system structure like the one shown in the following picture: https://skitch.com/daniloercoli/89r5p/tmp-xmlrpc
The upgrade process doesn’t delete the blog folders/drafts.
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Kamal Gaur
I am able to see that file structure under Device Memory/home/user/wordpress.
However, the ‘tmp-xlmrpc’ folder you mention seems empty.
There is another folder next to it called ’263c86………adc2′ which contains 2 folders called ‘d’ and ‘p’.
‘d’ contains files marked with a Question Mark icon, numbered between 1 and 39, with a few files missing. When I try to open any file, it gives the error message “Unable to display file”.
‘p’ is empty.
There are also 4 files next to folders ‘d’ and ‘p’ called ‘blog’, ‘comments’, ‘gravatars’ and ‘short_ico’ – again, none of which, can be opened.-
Danilo
The folder called ‘tmp-xlmrpc’ is a temporary folder used when upload pictures to the blog. That folder should be empty. Drafts are not there.
Files within the folder called ‘d’ are the drafts of the blog. Each draft of your blog is stored in one file in that folder.
You can open those files by using NotePad on windows, or TextEdit/vi on mac/linux, and copy and clean the content.-
Kamal Gaur
Thank you, Danilo. It finally worked. Couldn’t have done it without your help!!
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نايف
السلام
نايف, 
Danilo
1.6 Beta 2 is ready for testing. Please test the following changes:
- Fix for an issue reported last week where picture would appear rotated in QuickPhoto on devices with a gyroscope #222.
- QuickPhoto is now available for devices with OS5 or higher (yay!).
- Keyboard shortcuts keys added on the Post/Page/Comment Lists.
- “N” – move to the next item in the list.
- “P” – move to previous item in the list.
- “T” – move to the first item of the list.
- “B” – move to the last item of the list.
- Fix for an issue on the location module where the device location is not sent to the blog #223.
- Improved the WordPress.com Mobile Reader experience.
- Added new icons on the main Dashboard.
To install Beta 2, point the BB Browser to the this page and select the app package for your device:
juan philz
nice..hmm lets try n thanks anyway
Martin
These shortcuts are the best thing, it’s so much easier to get around things. Thanks, this post was really helpful!
Yanky
I tried using it on my 9930 but it didnt work, but on my bold 9650 these work
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Danilo
Did you receive any particular error messages on the 9930?
Santos Guerra
hello, is it possible to work in the translation into Spanish of this application?
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Danilo
We use GlotPress to keep track of translations – http://translate.wordpress.org/projects/blackberry/dev
Could you please introduce yourself to the polyglots’ blog ( http://wppolyglots.wordpress.com/ ), and ask to be added as translator for the WP4BB prj.
Manhart
I use a 9800 Torch with OS6. The 1.6 (2) beta (4) works fine on my BB. But there is still the bug regarding the comments (like in 1.5). I disabled the comments in my blog in the global settings of WordPress. When i create and send an articel from my BB with this beta, the comments are enabled for this articel and i have to disable the comments by hand in my WordPress. Please fix this bug. Thanks.
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Danilo
We can’t fix this at this moment since changes on the core side of WP are required. You can disable comments and pingbacks for a single article in the BB app by going to the ‘Settings’ screen and unchecking both the ‘Allow Comments’ and ‘Allow trackbacks and pingbacks’ fields.
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Manhart
I can see only the option “allow comments” on my BB. The other option in the same frame is named with “Positionsangaben erlauben” (allow position data). The option “allow comments” is disabled yet, but independent of this flag, WordPress for Blackberry enables the comments in postings send from the BB.
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Martin
By me it worked, but my friend has some problems installing it
Dan Levy
New version works pretty great! Thanks Danilo and the entire WP 4 BB Dev team! No bugs that I can see as of yet.
Suggestions for future versions:
Currently when you create a new post the default setting for the post’s “Status” is “Published” so there’s no “Send” option in the menu, just a “Publish” option. I would love if we had the opportunity to set what we want the default setting to be when we start a new post be it “Save As Draft” or “Save As Local Draft” or “Publish”
-It’d be a great if the Media Insertion (specifically for photos/images) was inline in terms of wherever the cursor is when we go to the menu option to add media. Why will the app only allow them to be added at the top or bottom?
In terms of the media setting it would be great if the custom setting for pictures/images maintained the ratio doing that annoying math for us. I know this is something we can do for ourselves realistically but if I’m going to make requests I may as well shoot for the moon. Yes, I can do – and have done – the math myself but it is, as I said annoying. As an example, if the – right now imaginary – “maintain aspect ratio button” is checked when I change the custom Width from 640 to 600 the Length should automatically go from 480 to 450. 
Danilo
1.6 beta
It’s time for the 1.6 Beta! This new version has a revisited UI and some great new features.
To install the new beta simply point the BB Browser to the following page and select the app package for your device:
- For BlackBerry OS v4.5
- For BlackBerry OS v4.6
- For BlackBerry OS v4.7
- For BlackBerry OS v5.x
- For BlackBerry OS6
- For BlackBerry Torch with OS6
- For BlackBerry OS7
Some things to test:
- Are all of your blogs still in the app if you upgraded?
- Try to post a quick photo.
- If you have a WordPress.com blog in the app, try out the new Read function. Change filters, like some posts, view Freshly Pressed, and more.
- Try the new File Picker, is it fast? Responsive? (It now sort files by last-modification date.)
- The Posts/Pages/Comments lists now have infinite loading. Check to make sure it keeps loading your content.
- Is the new Dashboard rendered like it should? See example.
Your help in testing it out before we release to the RIM AppWorld is greatly appreciated.
Please try out all of the new features and try to break the Beta. If nasty things happen or if you have any feedback, please post a comment here. Remember it helps to know which device and BlackBerry OS version you are running.
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Bobby
its a wonderful app!
but still difficult to search for pictures from library if we have many in files and folders, it will be more helpful if there is a search function for pictures in library.
thank you-
Danilo
Thanks for your feedback. I filled a ticket here: http://blackberry.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/221
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Mario
I tried the beta on my Bold 9780 with OS6.
My Blog was there after update.
Quick Photo Worms great.
Infinite loading works. It’s awesome.
By the way, my Blog is not running wordpress, it’s running serendipity wich has an Interface for wordpress apps.
Kevin Roundhill
Tried it out on my BB Torch 9860.
All my posts are still there.
The quick photo thing worked but my photo was rotated sideways (I took it with the camera held vertically but it was placed in the blog horizontally).
Love the new read function! Wow!
Don’t know what “file picker” is?
Pages loaded just fine, appeared infinite.
New dashboard looks great. Rotates like it should going from horizontal to vertical.
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Danilo
Thanks for your feedback Kevin!
Pictures should look right only when taken in landscape mode with menu button to the right.
http://blackberry.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/222
Michael
It is very inconvenient not having a insert more tag. That is a major feature that should be added.
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Danilo
A button in the toolbar to add the “more” tag would be useful?
(You can insert the more tag manually, or use the “Excerpt” screen).
Bobby
Tried on BlackBerry Bold 9930, all posts are still there
On touch device, we used to be able to hold on the screen to access menu (to refresh and such) but not in this v1.6
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Danilo
We disabled the “Hold” gesture on some screens. We will probably re-introduce it in the final release.
primariayu
Download failed on my 9780 
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Danilo
Which version of BlackBerry Device Software (OS) is installed on your smartphone?
Could you please post the error message?-
primariayu
OS 6. It said 907 ivalid COD
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Danilo
I’ve just installed the app on device running OS6 without any issue. Take a look at this video guide – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvICWq02Kyg It may help to fix your issue.
You can also search for a solution on internet by using the words “907 ivalid COD”
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Dan Levy
Tried it on a BlackBerry 9900.
The file picker is way, way better!
In the Posts section “T” doesn’t work to jump to the top and “B” doesn’t go to the bottom. (This is a typical BB shortcut that works in most other places on my BB like in the Messages app.) Manual scrolling is required.
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Danilo
Nice, will add those shortcuts in the next beta release.
Isaac Keyet
Added some screenshots to discuss around to #213, but thought I’d post them here as well so more people will see them and discuss!
Danilo
@ievolver (Ref #211 and #213 ) – I think we can go with two iconsets only. The first iconset could have icons with dimensions of 92px, and the 2nd iconset might have icons at 64px.
The space available for each grid item will be calculated at run-time, and the icons could be down-scaled if necessary.
I thought the best grid configuration is something like this:
OS7: Quick Photo – Posts – Comments – Page – Stats – Reader – Options – Dashboard – Refresh
OS6: Quick Photo – Posts – Comments – Page – Stats – Options – Dashboard – Refresh
OS5 or lower: Posts – Comments – Page – Stats – Options – Dashboard – Refresh
(Quick Photo could be added on OS5 devices in the next app release)
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Isaac Keyet
I like the plan. Should be a ton easier to update the icons and add additional ones in the future should we need to.
Why is Refresh a dashboard item, and not, say, at the very top?
Can we look over the labeling as well? It’d be nice to use the same terminology across the platforms (e.g. “Options” = “Settings”).
What should the icon spacing be inside the icon graphic, do you have a good %?
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Danilo
Why is Refresh a dashboard item, and not, say, at the very top?
There isn’t a valid reason for that. The refresh icon was in the dashboard since the version 0.1 and I kept it there. I can move the refresh icon on the top, but on older devices the space reserved for the blog’s title will be reduced a little bit.
Can we look over the labeling as well? It’d be nice to use the same terminology across the platforms (e.g. “Options” = “Settings”).
Good catch. Will change it soon.
What should the icon spacing be inside the icon graphic, do you have a good %?
I don’t have a %, but don’t think you should use much “icon spacing”, since the bitmap sub-element (the icon in the grid item) uses at maximum 2/3 of the item space.
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Danilo
Version 1.6 In the Works
Howdy folks, we’re about to start a development cycle on the next version of WordPress for BlackBerry. It’ll mostly be a “refresh” type release to offer a better experience on devices running OS 6 and OS 7. One feature we’re hoping to introduce is the WordPress.com Mobile Reader.
These are the improvements we have planned so far – patches welcome!
- Option/setting for # of comments to download
- Infinite scrolling on posts/pages/comments
- Add Images Alignment options
- Integrate the WordPress.com Reader
- Add the ability to make a post sticky
The full list of items in the 1.6 milestone is available here: http://blackberry.trac.wordpress.org/query?group=status&milestone=1.6
Over the past 2 months 60K unique users has downloaded the app from the RIM AppWorld, not counting those who have downloaded the app from our site. We have an average of one thousand downloads per day, and many are running OS 6 and higher:
- OS 4.5 – 6%
- OS 4.6 – 5%
- OS 4.7 – 1%
- OS 5 – 38%
- OS 6 – 32%
- OS 7 – 18%
If you’d like to get involved, just comment here or jump on IRC (#wordpress-mobile on Freenode, ping daniloercoli).
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brcewane
I was wondering if WordPress has considered providing the same web page interface on the PlayBook that is currently provided on the iPad?
Right now the page does some kind of “mobile scaling” when the PlayBook hits it and I constantly move back to the full version. But I’ve seen the iPad version and it would be great if you exposed this to the PlayBook browser. It should be more than capable of handling it.
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Danilo
Are you referring to the iPad “OnSwipe” theme that WordPress.com users could use on their blogs?
http://en.support.wordpress.com/onswipe-theme-for-ipad/-
brcewane
Yes, that’s the one. If I enable it on my blog ( http://batberry.wordpress.com ) will it apply the theme when a PlayBook views the site?
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Danilo
Unfortunately the OnSwipe theme on WordPress.com is not currently available for the PlayBook (or any Android tablet). An update that should enable OnSwipe on the PlayBook is on the way, but no ETA right now.
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Mike
Will there be a feature that lets you set multiple mode to the default for managing comments? For whatever reason I get a lot of spam comments and that’s one feature I’d like. The ability to manage plugins on the fly would be great too, but I suspect that is a tiny bit harder.
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Danilo
Probably the comments screen should remember the last selected mode, and show it the next time is launched. Will try to add this feature in the next app release.
Yes, plugins management requires changes on the WordPress core. Definitely out of the scope of this release.
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Dan Levy
A number of things:
Make it easier to browse for pictures, at this point WP for BB seems to arrange pictures in directories in a completely haphazard order which defies logic making it damn near impossible to find the picture you would like to attach.
Allow for putting pictures in-line not just at the top or bottom of posts.
Allow for URL editing so we can improve our blog post’s SEO.-
Danilo
Pictures should be alphabetically sorted in the File Picker Screen. I think we can change the sorting logic and show the pictures sorted by date, or add sorting options to the FilePicker component.
The ability to set the PermaLink for posts and pages will be added in a near future – http://blackberry.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/209 – but probably not in the next app release.
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Dan Levy
They aren’t….I have tried with a BlackBerry Torch 9800, Bold 9790, & Bold 9900 and they aren’t.
See screenshot http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/194/imag0379k.jpg/ and you tell me.-
Danilo
OK, I created a trac ticket here: http://blackberry.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/219#comment:1
Thanks.-
Dan Levy
Thanks except sorting alphabetically will still end up UBER annoying because of the way the BB names things.
It has to be by date of the file to make the most sense and to make it the easiest to use. Think about it, BB names things based on the GPS coordinates (the city) or uses the title IMG & *then* follows it with the date and then a number which indicates what number image it was taken that day. If you do it alphabetically the order will go all haywire but if you do it based on the file’s timestamp everything should organize in a way more logical fashion.
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Danilo
Agree. I think we should mimic the “Picture Library” app as close as possible. We should sort files by date.
I said alphabetically sorted (that is wrong) because I checked the “Files” app, and from what I can see the native “Files” app shows files alphabetically sorted.
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Martin
I hope the OS 6 or 7 work will work good with my 8530.
Danilo
Anyone with a PlayBook running the “Android Runtime Beta” want to test a beta of WordPress for Playbook?
MrSimmonsSr, 
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deddy avianto
I’d like to try the WordPress for PlayBook definetely. Thanks in advance
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deddy avianto
i’d like to try the wordpress beta for playbook. TIA
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Danilo
Here you go: http://bit.ly/A1r0cu
Instructions on how to sideload Android apps on PlayBook here: http://bit.ly/zpolPO
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MrSimmonsSr
I already packaged the latest Android release that I could find into a BAR and signed it myself for my own use on my Playbook with the OSv2 dev beta Android Player. I’d rather be using your official beta, so add me to the list if you don’t mind. And I’m happy to report that the version I packaged up for my own use has been working very well. It was based in v
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MrSimmonsSr
Oops.. Was going to say it was based on v2.0.4, I think..
Danilo
Shhhh. Secret screenshots of new interface update
We have cleaned the user interface from unused elements, and completely redesigned it using points and not pixels, so lists and texts within the app should adapt their size using the predefined dimension of the device. In particular, lists are now better on higher resolution devices.
avcascade, and 3 others are discussing. -
Dan
Nice!
runen
Nice. Many congratulations for your efforts and results.
avcascade
Great work. Question: Are you working to make WordPress for BlackBerry compatible and available on the PlayBook? That would be sweet…
Danilo
we are waiting that RIM adds the support for java application to the PlayBook. Most probably we can use the same codebase and change only the UI.
Muhammad Hakim A
hi Danilo,
I want to get involved in blackberry wordpress app; what should I do ?
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Danilo
You can start by picking a ticket from the trac site here: http://blackberry.trac.wordpress.org/ , or you can propose new enhancements that are not in trac yet.
We can even arrange a quick chat on our IRC channel (WordPress-Mobile on irc.freenode.net), so we can discuss in depth the future developments of this app.Unfortunately RIM has dropped the support for Java apps on the next generation devices (BBX), so probably for the time being we should only fix bugs, and add only few “hot features” to this app. UI improvements are welcome too.
I’m not 100% sure we should spend a lot of time working on an app that is already old, instead I think we should start working on a new BB app, that will be build with other technologies, like WebWorks ( compatible with QNX ).
Danilo
New development snapshot is ready for testing!!
This snapshot includes the following changes:
- Added the support for PostFormat http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Formats
- Added the support for Discussion settings (enable/disable comments, pingbacks and Trackbacks)
- Categories are now alphabetically sorted
- Changed the image resize feature, by adding predefined dimensions loaded from the Blog Media Settings.
- Added the possibility to change the image resize settings for each image
- Fixed an issue on the Permissions settings screen that now appears once at first startup.
- Small UI resign
- The sharing feature is now disabled. We are working on it, will be reintroduced soon.
Full list of changes since latest stable build here.
Dan, 
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PB
Would still like to see image alignment
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Dan
Is image resizing turned on by default in the app? From my brother:
I found the box to check about resizing images. Maybe that box should be checked as a default? It is quite buried in the menus and you have to go look for it.
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Danilo
+1 It is not turned on by default in the current stable release.
We have improved the photo resize feature in the dev release. Resize is now checked by default, and “always ask” is also set as default value.
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Dan
Brilliant, I’ll let him know to look for the update
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Dan 8:25 am on May 3, 2012 Permalink |
I have a draft post for the Android blog that you can steal from!
Isaac Keyet 8:00 pm on May 3, 2012 Permalink |
The announcement is now live: http://blackberry.wordpress.org/2012/05/03/v2-1-wordpress-for-playbook/
Hamza Dhedhi 11:46 pm on May 3, 2012 Permalink |
I had phone drafts in my blackberry 9700 but everytime I tried to send them, there was some error. I deleted my blog on my bb wordpress and reinstalled the application. Only then did I realize that I am so screwed since I had written some posts. But I have lost them.
Is there any way one could get them back? Anyhow?
Danilo 8:34 am on May 4, 2012 Permalink |
@Hamza Dhedhi – unfortunately there isn’t a way to recover your posts because you’ve deleted the blog within the app.
Sam 6:26 pm on May 25, 2012 Permalink |
That is totally cool man, and I sure will check that out
Facebook verbinden 6:41 am on April 26, 2013 Permalink |
Nice write up. I study something like this here at North Carolina State
University. It’s truly exciting to understand content from other writers and see a little bit from their source. If it’s okay, I’d definitely appreciate it if I could use a few of the articles on your blog. And of course, I’ll post a link to
your site at wordpress.org on my own blog. Thanks for posting.