Stylehack

Something that became fairly apparent to me early on (think MT 2.x blog) was that I don’t like having to use a web interface to post an entry; it’s futzy and frustrating to me. So the developments in the last year+ in moblogging have been of great interest to me. I figure the more functionality for someone posting an entry via email on their cellphone, the better my options will be for plain old-fashioned (!) computer-based email posting. The ability to email in a post was one of the things that weighed in favor of Wordpress during my research. The fact that it is already built-in (as of version 1.2.1 at least) is nice! It’s not quite “there” though, in terms of every bell and whistle. [This is not to say it won't be, but I'm addressing the "now" and available solutions.] Overview Enter WP-MAIL 0.2… and it’s a HACK! Oh be still my beating heart! “-) The first thing you need to keep clear is the difference between a “hack” and a “plugin”:

hack    1. modification to a base WP script; 2. a modification (perhaps variables or a function) added to “my-hacks.php”. When you upgrade WP the new version will overwrite hacked scripts, so be sure to keep notes of what you are using and modifying! plugin    modular piece of PHP code that is written using the base WP system; managed via the Plugin admin function. Note: There are now two versions of plugins you might run into out there — the old form and the new form which are auto-updating.

Let me give you a piece of advice: Plugins and Hacks are not controlled by the WP development team so don’t assume that just because it is listed on the Wordpress Wiki that it is the latest and most stable version! Hopefully there will be a link to the author’s site where you can check for updates; if not, download the file and read the documentation or the credit section of the script and look for the author’s site link. I learned this the hard way. sigh.