WordPress and the Performancing Extension

I’m a bit of tinkerer when it comes to tools like the performancing extension for firefox, so I have no fear of installing software and seeing what happens (I do have backups coming out the wazoo though…);  The only real problem I see with this tool is that (for WordPress, anyway) people won’t believe how easy it is to use…

To that end I’ve thrown some words together – a Dummies version of implementing the extension for WordPress.  The only hard part is to remember is that if you are running a blog under the wordpress.com domain (like scoble), you are a wordpress.com blog, otherwise you are a wordpress custom blog.

It’s this simple….

1. Install the performancing extension.  This does require FireFox 1.5, but since my extensions (Adblock, ColorZilla, IE View, Sage and Greasemonkey) are now all supported, I had no problem with this.
2. Restart firefox.
3. The top menu item on your right-click menu is now performancing.
4. The first time you select this menu item, you will need to tell the extension where your blog lives so select the Launch Account Wizard button,
5. Select the blogging service type – remember, are you using a wordpress custom blog (i.e. hosted, like me), or a wordpress.com blog (like scoble) ??
6. Add your API extension.  This should be http://mywebsite.com/xmlrpc.php – except that if your blog is installed at a sub directory level (like http://martin-english.com/whatsup/ ), then this should be reflected in the name ( http://mywebsite.com/myblog/xmlrpc.php )
7. The next screen asks for your wordpress user (such as admin) and password

   and validates the connection.

8. if all goes well, you’ll get a screen that says you’ve added your blog to the extensions.

Repeat steps 5 to 8 for each wordpress (or other blogging service) blog you want to access from the extension. Every time you successfully add a blog, you’ll get a new entry in the right hand window –

Now, whenever you come across something you want to blog on, or even just to save as a link-list on your blog or within the extension, just right click, select performancing and blog away.

Once you’ve successfully posted, your blog is updated right away:

You can post to various categories (listed on the right):

You can see your history for further editing (even if it wasn’t posetd via performancing):

If you want to update a previous entry, select it from the history tab. You can publish it as brand new content or Publish as Edit (see the button in the image below)

For further (mor generic) help and tips, see Drag and Drop Blogging and Tabs, Windows and Browsers (other options for the editor if the split window isn’t your thing).