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Domain Mapping vs. Google Docs Posting?

  1. boles
    Member

    This wondering is posted in the ideas section and not the support area.

    Does anyone have any idea if you can post a blog entry from Google Docs if you have domain mapping on WordPress.com?

    Posting to a proper *.wordpress.com blog address used to work great via Google Docs, but I keep getting an invalid password/username error when I now try to post from there to here with my domain active.

    I know we can login to WordPress.com via our domain name or via our original WordPress.com name, so nothing should've really changed with domain mapping active as far as WordPress/Google are concerned, right?

    Thanks!

  2. boles
    Member

    UPDATE:

    It's working again! I love it when magic happens! It's sometimes nice to be able to post from docs.google.com in a pinch and publish directly to my WordPress.com blog.

    FYI -- and this is informational and not an advert -- any Google Doc is "publishable" to your blog and you set up your blog settings once and you're done.

  3. sunburntkamel
    Member

    good to hear. i haven't used google docs at all. what's the advantage?

  4. sunburntkamel
    Member

    ok, gave the tires a kicking, i couldn't get it to work.

    what settings did you use?

  5. boles
    Member

    The advantage to Google docs is -- if you're like me -- all your documents are stored there and not locally. It's easier sometimes to pull and paste and search in that interface and post than to transfer stuff over here for storing and then posting.

    I'm also really familiar with the write interface and you can insert images and align them and such just like you can in the WordPress.com editor.

    You can insert comments if you're working on a blog post over a long period of time to remind your self of a point you want to make and, most importantly, you can share and collaborate with others online for revision and feedback. You can even publish your stuff via RSS for broadcast feedback before you make a blog post.

    I like sending documents to my Google docs account via email so if I'm out and about with my Blackberry and I find something cool I can fling it in my Docs account and then process it/call it up later for blogging.

    To set up Google Docs for blogging, you just go into Settings | Documents and pull down WordPress.com as your blog host (or fill in the details for your own private WordPress server) and enter your username and password and click the Test button and you should be in and on your way.

  6. boles
    Member

    FYI:

    I've been having some trouble with the rich visual editor here on WordPress.com -- yes, it's been reported to support -- so one workaround I found if you don't want to work in raw HTML here is to go use Google Docs to write everything and then copy and paste the raw HTML from there over here in the raw code view and save and publish that way.

    Works great!

  7. sunburntkamel
    Member

    wow, i missed the "HTML" tab. that's nice. definately makes cleaner code than copying and pasting from word/openoffice.

  8. boles
    Member

    Hi Adam!

    Everything on Google Docs is saved as HTML. Even files you upload get translated to HTML. You can save a file as: HTML Zipped, RTF, Word, Open Office and PDF.

    From the File menu you can Copy a Document (great for boilerplate text you want to change and save in a support blogging role), Count Words and they just added the ability to Find and Replace.

    Don't forget to check out the REVISIONS tab when you have a file open. You can go waaaaaaaay back in time and that is a much more forgiving system than cutting and pasting text to save to remember how you said something you're not quite sure you wanted to save or not.

    You can also "Discard Changes" to any document you work on.

    For WordPress.com blogging stuff, check out the INSERT tab when you have a document open -- it gives you some real easy "blogging functionality" for publishing here with power.

  9. sunburntkamel
    Member

    right!
    i meant in relation to the way word/openoffice mangle html
    http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/11/09/why-not-to-use-word/

    since google docs have the option to upload *.DOC and *.ODT files, it's a decent way to recommend people get their posts from word to their blog.

  10. boles
    Member

    Understood!

    I know lots of people use Word to write HTML or they write in Word and copy and paste into the visual editor here and have great trouble later.

    You can automatically "clean it up" via file upload at Google Docs and then copy and paste it here as you suggest.

  11. timethief
    Member

    @kamel
    How would you like to share any advantages there may be when it comes to using google docs as opposed to using the off-line editors like BlogDesk, BlogJet, Flock, Quamana, Windows Live Writer yada, yada ... I'm thinking blog post. What say you?

  12. growthmadness
    Member

    Thanks for the info, boles. I've used Google Docs a little, but hadn't tried it for writing blog posts. These days, I usually write in a program called Brainstorm:

    http://www.brainstormsw.com/

    Then I have it save a regular text copy to notepad. I then paste to the WordPress interface and plug in any html.

    But I think Google Docs could have a place in this process. I do like being able to store docs online and, as I use gmail, Google docs coordinates well.

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    Doesn't Google have some scary copyright issues? I seem to remember something about giving up copyright to all emails transmitted through Gmail or summat. Or am I dreaming?

    Frankly, if it's true and you happen to be talking to the Google guys, tell them to watch their backs.

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