A day in the life of a WordPress Blogger

Sometimes we work for customers who have high security environments, with restrictive settings that can cause problems for developers. An example recently occurred after a Microsoft security scare, and the security policy was tightened to exclude ActiveX controls and client side scripting. When I noticed the dreaded Information Bar drop down on IE7 helpfully warning me that my security settings do not allow websites to use ActiveX, I had that dread feeling you get when you realise you are not going to be able to do your planned jobs for today, without a lot of extra work.

Sure enough, all of our well crafted JavaScript based sites, clever dancing widgets and client side validation routines have ceased to work for my corporate customers. Even the years old multi-sites search on the TechCo Home Page has ceased to function. IE helpfully displays the search text in the URL querystring, but that is about it!

With a sinking heart I clicked on the log-in link of one of our WordPress blog sites, and attempted to log in. Well success, you can at least log in! Now for the acid test; can you post some information or edit a page? Sure enough, the wizzy icons above the edit window are no longer there. The Visual and HTML tabs do not allow you to flick between views because the other tab is not an active link. We are all Dooooomed!

But wait! The Save Draft facility on the right side appears to be a button. Click it and the reassuring message appears at the top of the screen that the Post has been saved. I can still work! How about the Publish Button? Yes, that works too! Praise be upon those wonderful developers at WordPress who had the foresight to consider the poor sap working a restricted environment with all the Ajax, ActiveX, and other JavaScript goodies turned off.

Think about that, you script kids who shout that a site without JavaScript and on hover events, is a legacy of the dark ages. Sometimes that old HTML Button has a place too!