Understanding WordPress for Android – Part 1
Posted: June 7, 2011 Filed under: Android, GSoC, wordpress Leave a comment »The app itself
The latest release is version 1.4.1 and it was released on April 18 2011. It is available for free in the market. I own a Samsung Galaxy Ace running Froyo and it works flawlessly on my mobile. You can use the app to maintain multiple blogs including both, self-hosted blogs and those hosted at WordPress.com.
The Description of the app in the marketplace reads thus:
“Write new posts, edit content, and manage comments on your WordPress blog.
WordPress for Android is an Open Source app that empowers you to write new posts, edit content, view stats, and manage comments with built-in notifications.
WordPress for Android supports both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.9.2 or higher) blogs.”
Get the app from the market
There is nothing more important than having a first-hand experience of any product that you are working on. So, download the app directly through your mobile’s Android market or from https://market.android.com/details?id=org.wordpress.android and install it in your Android mobile.
Run it and check whether it works fine in your mobile. Browse through the app. It shouldn’t take you more than half an hour to figure out all features in that app.
Get the source code from the dev site
If you want to start developing, get your Eclipse IDE set up for Android app development. If it is your first time, refer to http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html to setup your development environment. Hope you have installed subversion and know how to use it too. If you don’t, you can read up on this: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/
Head towards http://android.trac.wordpress.org/. You will find that their source is located at http://android.svn.wordpress.org/. <strong>Note.</strong>Do not use the svn site for browsing the source code. It is not created with that purpose in mind. If you want to browse the source code, you can do so at http://android.trac.wordpress.org/browser.
The trunk folder provides the latest build and you can work on it. To get the code into your system, do this from your terminal:
svn checkout http://android.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/
Rename the folder to the project name of your choice. Now open Eclipse. Press Ctrl+N and create a New Android Project. In the next step, select the option “Create project from existing source:” and point it to the location where you have checked out your wordpress android app code. Provide necessary details such as Project name, Build Target, Application name, Package Name and other details. You are ready to develop on the Android app of WordPress now.
