Occasionally the CommBlog has had an issue with the WordPress interface that allows you to edit articles. The visual editor gets stuck and the interface stops working. I use the WordPress Desktop App. This application allows you to edit and manage a wordpress.com blog, but it also allows you to edit and manage a self-hosted WordPress blog through JetPack. This app will allow you to post on the CommBlog from your laptop without any problem. The requirement is to have a wordpress.com account.

Installation

There is no package or installation required, just download the binary and run it. First download the latest version of the app from the wordpress desktop app site. Choose the tar.gz file. At this moment, the latest version is 2.7.1

After downloading the file, unpack it:

tar xzf wordpress-com-linux-x64-2-7-1-tar.gz

This will give you a folder called WordPress.com-linux-x64, which has the binary app called WordPress.com inside of it.

WordPress Folder Content

You also need to have the dependency, libXss.so.1, that is provided by libXScrnSaver. This is available via a dnf install:

sudo dnf install libXScrnSaver

Finally, you just need to excecute the WordPress.com file.

Configuration

To configure it, just execute the app and follow the steps shown on the screen.

Login:

WordPress.com App Login Screen

You will be prompted to use the My Sites widget to add a new site:

My Sites changer widget

Click on “Add New Site” and in the next screen select “Add an existing WordPress site with Jetpack” and write communityblog.wordpress.com:

You will prompted to login with your fas account (in the default browser) and then it will make the link between your wordpress.com account and the Jetpack plugin in the CommBlog. After a few minutes you will see the blog configured in the app:

Final Screen with Blog added

You will need to close your browser and then you can use the app to write and manage the CommBlog without any problem.

The Cons

Right now the only failure I found is that I can’t upload media to the Media Library. My solution has been to upload the media files from the browser and then switch to the app to write the articles.