WordPress, the world’s largest content management system by far, has a pretty rocky history when it comes to third-party apps publishing to sites. This is because of XML-RPC, the communication method used, and how it is prone to attacks. Luckily, development moves forward, and WordPress has had a REST API for quite some time now.
Apps, however, haven’t always caught up. Ulysses, the popular writing app, was one of those. I wrote a whole issue about how you could publish your blog posts using Ulysses, and for many, that was the case. For me, and for Switch to iPad, it soon stopped working because of XML-RPC and how attackers tried to brute-force the site.
Well, as of a recent update, Ulysses has switched authentication and communication method with WordPress sites to the REST API. This means that it just works, although you’ll want to remove and re-add your site, if you’re an existing user. By doing so, you’ll be prompted to log in to your WordPress admin interface, where you’ll approve and create the token needed for the communication.
I’m excited to report that this just works. I still recommend publishing your posts using the WordPress admin interface, but sending up a draft from Ulysses isn’t a bad idea. There’s limited support for WordPress features outside actual markup in Ulysses after all, and you might want a read more link, or to achieve something a little more fancy than just including an image or two. Still, it’s a great feature, and I’m happy it’s working for more people, myself included, again.
