What's this?

WhereBlogger is a tool for Android phones, for keeping a location-based journal.

WhereBlogger can automatically collect GPS points for you, or you can add them manually. When an internet connection is available, maps will be downloaded for each logged point, and you can annotate each point with a title and a longer description. The program aims to be kind to your phone's battery and does not require a data connection or switch the GPS on at random times, as both electricity and data can be scarce while traveling.

Everything recorded by WhereBlogger can be published online (to a blog of your choice), or exported to the SD-card and copied to your PC to use as you see fit.

You can download WhereBlogger from the Android market (or just view the listing here).

Monday, November 30, 2009

WhereBlogger 0.9.12 and 0.9.13

Two releases in quick succession today, as a comment on the market made me realize that the app had many problems when first started up (or with empty trips in general, but initial startup was the common case).

These are primarily bug-fix releases, fixing all the force-closes I'm aware of at the moment.

The only new feature is a viewer for easy reading of entries on the phone, as well as previewing what the HTML will look like online.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

WhereBlogger 0.9.11

OK, last update before I go to the jungle for real!

Highlights:

  • Added support for tags, they work with Blogger and Wordpress and any other MWA blog which supports the mt_keywords MWA extension.
  • Fixed a bug in the editor where the toggles dialog sometimes wasn't updated properly.
  • Added an 'Insert' menu-item to the editor, to help people learn/use the non-obvious parts of Markdown syntax without having to read instructions.
  • Improved the Blogger publishing support, it now conforms properly to Google's specifications and updates which might have failed before should work. Note that due to how Blogger works, it may take a few minutes for updates and new posts to become visible. Be patient!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

WhereBlogger 0.9.10

New in this release:

  • Basic support for Blogger.com blogs!
  • Fixed off-by-one months in MetaWeblog API publishing code. Dumb bug, sorry!
  • Made some of the publishing auto-configuration/testing code more robust.


This is the "Typhoid release", as being sick with Typhoid kept me from entering the jungle as planned. I'm getting better. :-P

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

WhereBlogger 0.9.9

Minor bug-fix release this time:

First of all, dates are now correct for published entries. Yay!

Somewhat more interestingly, passwords are now stored using (very simple) encryption. This won't stop any serious attacks, but it is better than nothing. For the most part, we are relying on Android's excellent built-in security mechanisms for protection, and this is the best I can do without prompting for a password every time you want to publish entries (not very convenient). If any users feel they need more security and want a password prompt, let me know and I'll add it to my list.

In other news, tomorrow I set off to spend a week or so in the jungles of Peru, far away from Internet connectivity. I will reply to any comments or e-mails when I get back.

Monday, November 16, 2009

WhereBlogger 0.9.8

Major release time: WhereBlogger can now blog!

Highlights of this release:

  • New points are marked as drafts by default, so random scribblings don't get published by accident.
  • Publishing activity, publish trips online!

    • Supports any Blog/CMS which uses the MetaWeblog API, which should be most of them. Support for other platforms (Facebook, Google My Maps and Blogger) is planned, but will probably take a few more weeks.
    • HTML formatting is done using Markdown; see here for info on how to create fancy blog posts with links and lists and things.
    • Each publishing target can publish one or more trips.
    • Published blog posts include lat/long coordinates, a link to Google Maps, and a link to this page; this may break on some blogs, please let me know how it looks on yours!

  • Better handling of background processes, now you can see progress in the form of notifications in the Android status bar. Also, backgrounds threads shouldn't crash anymore.


I will be adding links to the blogs of WhereBlogger users, as soon as any of them get in touch. Hopefully we will have a nice little community growing here within a few weeks.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

WhereBlogger 0.9.7

Fun new stuff in this release:

  • On the map, you can now set the date/time of added points by pressing the calendar or clock buttons before adding.
  • It is now also possible to edit points from map now: points can be moved around, their date/time changed, and the toggles toggled on or off.
  • Minor fixes to the path recorder, it wasn't properly respecting the minimum distance setting, which it should do properly (or at least better) now.

This release is a milestone for me, as I now consider the map-view more or less feature complete. Some secondary features (primarily to do with managing the tile cache for offline use) still need to be written, and there will of course always be bugs to fix, but the most important map-related work is now done.

If you feel some important functionality is missing from the map, feel free to leave a comment or two.