Post to WordPress: Chrome extension guide

I thought it would be useful to post up a quick image post (from the Chrome extension) to hopefully help people who may be having issues with getting the extension to Post to WordPress from Chrome.

General

The Chrome extension creates two “browser actions” when you add it to your Chrome.

1.) Right click on a page without an image brings up the Post to WordPress post form

2.) Right click on an image and it brings up the Post Image to WordPress post form (try right clicking the image to the left).

The two forms are ever so slightly different. The simple quick post (without an image) uses the WordPress API to create a new post.

The Post Image to WordPress form creates a new post using the link2featured image plugin.

Why are they different

Well the WordPress API uses XML-RPC and should (ideally) be very easy to create new posts from an extension. However the ability to add an image using XML-RPC requires some fancy binary work which appears to have some issues in the current version. There also appears to be an issue with the XML-RPC response on certain installs where it will return a non-XML object and cause the create a new post to fail.

Also in the modern age of large images, the XML-RPC sends a base64 encoded image string and can cause issues with size of transfer (especially on mobile devices).

The extension doesn’t work

If the extension doesn’t work for you please try the following

Do both ways to post fail?

If both ways to post fail, then this is caused by one of two things.

1.) Your settings are incorrect – the XML-RPC and the post to wordpress plugin check your username and password, and if you have the authority to edit posts. If you don’t have this permission or your credentials are incorrect the create a new post will fail

2.) You have the post 2 wordpress plugin saved in a non standard folder. The extension pings www.example.com/wp-content/plugins/post2wordpresspro/

3.) Is allow url_fopen set to ON on your php.ini file (you may need to ask your host here)

4.) Does your server have cURL installed? If not, speak to them about installing it

If it gets a true reply, it knows that the plugin is installed and knows how to talk to it to create posts.

Only the image post fails

If only the image post fails this could be because of a few things. The main one being you do not have the latest version (v1.5+) of link2featured installed.

If you have it installed, is it in the usual place (i.e. www.example.com/wp-content/plugins/post2wordpresspro) as the extension checks there.

For image posts, there’s a “create new post” check button. Is this checked? If it’s not checked then post button will simply add the image to your WordPress media library and not create a new post. This is so that the extension can be used to create image posts as well as easily add images to your WordPress media Library.

Only the Post to WordPress method fails

If you’re using the Chrome extension without the post to wordpress plugin and are having issues with it creating new posts then it could be a couple of things.

1.) Are you using WordPress v3.5+ the XML-RPC is only enabled by default in WordPress v3.5+ if you’re on an older version you need to enable the XML-RPC under settings -> writing.

2.) Are your credentials correct (username/password) site URL.

The extension has been tested on a couple of different machines using a couple of different blog setups however this is still an early release of the Chrome extension and is likely to have issues that I’ve yet to encounter.

Please do post up any issues you’re having to this post and help me improve the extension