Update: A newer, better version has been created. You can download it here.

I use the excellent iPad app Editorial as my preferred text editor. I want to be able to upload images directly from Editorial to WordPress, using xmlrpc, so the images ends up in the media gallery, the files in the correct folders, thumbnails made and a Markdown link with the correct URL is created. So I’ve written a workflow you can download that gives you the ability to select some text (that will be the alt text for the image), and either upload the image in the original size, or resize the width to the dimension you specify. After the image is uploaded, the Markdown image code is inserted. Another good thing is that you have the ability to name the image file, which I haven’t seen in other solutions, like in Poster App, where you get the cryptical iOS internal name of the image. Not so SEO friendly. The easiest solution was to use the wordpress_xmlrpc module, so that needs to be installed before you can use the workflow! but I’ve written a guide about how to install the module/library here. If you forget to install it beforehand, you will get this dialog box with instructions on how to install it if you start the workflow.

Adding site URL, username and password

You need to edit the workflow to set the site URL, username and password before you can use it. Enter your WordPress username in the field for the username variable in the workflow.

Do the same for the URL to the xmlrpc.php file of your Wordpress blog.

The final thing you need to do is to set the password variable.

Now your done.

What! Putting my password in the open?

Well, I first wrote the Python code to use the Keychain, but soon realized that if some nefarious person wanted to get the password, all they had to do was use

keychain.get_password()

To get access to the password, so not much security there. So don’t let people fiddle with your Editorial workflows.

Remember to enable remote blogging

To be able to upload images, you need to enable remote blogging. So go to your Wordpress Admin panel: Settings>Writing> And make sure the box is checked next to XML-RPC.

Uploading images

When everything is ready all you have to do is to:

Select text that will be used as alt text for the image.

Start the workflow.

Select the image you like to upload.

Choose if you want to upload it in the original size or make the width smaller.

If you choose the resize option, you can enter a new width value. That value is saved in a preference file so the next time you run the workflow, that’s already filled in.

Now give the image a name. The image is uploaded as an JPEG file, you can add the .jpg extension but otherwise it’s done automatically.

The image should now upload and an Markdown image link created automatically for you.

I hope this workflow can help some of you bloggers who like to work mostly from your iPad. I know it has for me.