Mobile Blogging with ExpressionEngine Moblog

For mobile blogging, or updating web site content on the fly, the ability to publish content via email is a must. Easy to use, yet not always easy to implement. The Moblog module in ExpressionEngine is a good solution that’s easy to deploy and customize. Here is a brief overiew.

The concept is this (as the module is described by EE): You send an email containing the text of your entry along with a file or image attachment to a specific email address you’ve set up as your Moblog account. ExpressionEngine will then check that email account looking for any Moblog messages, which will be submitted to your site based on your set-up preferences.

The Moblog module has its own set up area in the control panel. Settings include how often to check for email and whether to post to a weblog or a gallery. The moblog is associated with a weblog, to which the email (moblog entry) is posted. You can specify the category, which weblog field is posted (title, summary, body, image, or custom), entry status, and author, among others.

Then enter the email settings. Specify the email address, server, username and password, subject prefix (to restrict which messages get posted), and which text in the email to ignore. There are also attachment and image settings if you need to handle these.

Implementation: for a restaurant site, the client needed a fast, convenient way to update the daily specials from the kitchen. The site was built with ExpressionEngine, so we configured the moblog module to pull email from an account set up for that purpose. To update the specials, the client simply lists them in the email (no special formatting required), and the next time the page is loaded, the new moblog entry appears. It proved to be the perfect solution.