I purchased MarsEdit today from Red Sweater Software. MarsEdit is a very powerful blogging tool for your Mac. MarsEdit will allow you to manage and post to your blog in a really slick environment. There are 3 general things about MarsEdit that I love. It’s simple, it’s good and it allows you to get away from you browser based editor’s. Let me go into more detail:
MarsEdit has an amazing UI. Just incase you do not know what UI stand for, its user interface. The best way for me to show you how great this user interface is, it to show you some screenshots:
The first screenshot shows the main screen of MarsEdit. Here you can manage your weblog. Here, you can select the weblog you want to manage (you can edit multiple blogs) and then you can see a list of your most 10 recent posts. In a Mail.app-like UI, you can select a post and get a preview of it below. You can delete the post, edit the post or create a new post. If you decide to create a new post, you come to the next screenshot:
Here, you can see two windows. The one on the right is your editor. Here you can edit your HTML text as you please. On the top right of this window you will see “text markup.” This is where all the standard HTML tags are located for your easy use. You can also set shortcuts for these tags. For example, if I wanted to make command+return a line break, I could do that. On the right side of the window, you will find your topics and server options. The server options include some cool features such as making the comments closed (not like I would ever do that) and choosing whether or not to allow trackbacks. When you are done writing and are ready to publish, simply press “send to weblog” in the upper right hand corner. The window on the left is your preview window. Here you can see a live preview of your post. In the picture you can see a bunch of code in the beginning, but you can also see that it is translated into the MarsEdit icon in the preview window. This is a great feature, especially when you don’t fully understand HTML.
This last screenshot is of the “Media” window. Here you can do 3 things:
1) Upload photos and insert them
2) Insert old uploads
3) Insert photos from flicker
This is really easy and much faster than wordpress’s upload feature.
So as you can see, MarsEdit has a very easy and simple interface, but also has some great features. But, there is still one more feature that MarsEdit has that makes it a must-get.
MarsEdit allows you to get rid of any browser based editors! The Wordpress editor works, but it isn’t exactly the best way to edit your blog. If you compare all the features of MarsEdit and Wordpress, all of MarsEdit’s features are much easier and simpler to use. Not only Is MarsEdit better in features than Wordpress, it doesn’t require you to be online! You can edit your blog and then publish it when you get an internet connection. Think about the possible situations: write on the plane, publish when you get home. No need to go be online to blog
MarsEdit is compatible with many blogging engines. It works with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal, Vox and more. MarsEdit is $29.99, but has great value. If you are a frequent blogger, MarsEdit will make you life much more simpler. MarsEdit has a 30-day Free Trial, so check it out!
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I’ve been using MarsEdit for quite a while now, and their are a few things I think should be included in future releases:
*Support for Custom Fields in WP (This is being rolled out in XMLRPC in WP 2.5, coming in March, so Daniel might dev it soon enough :))
* Image Thumbnails when uploading.
*This is a long stretch: WP Pages support … once you begin to write in MarsEdit, you won’t ever want to go back to the WP-Admin for writing.
*The UI could be better … less windows. Weblogs Window, Post Window, Media Window, Preview Window. Could be more like 2: Post/Media/Weblogs and Preview.
As for being online to blog, there really has never been a need — you could always write something in TextEdit or Pages (not formatted), then copy+paste it, but I see your point
MarsEdit FTW!!
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:09 am
I know your not a fan of WYSIWYG editors, but man would I love for MarsEdit to have one. I really like not having to work with the HTML when I’m blogging, but thats just me. Even with a WYSIWYG editor, you could still see the source in case you want to make any changes to the code.
I guess the preview pane in MarsEdit makes up for it, but im sure a lot of people agree that a WYSIWYG editor in MarsEdit would be awesome.
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Gabe,
One of the things I hate about WYSIWYG editors is it spits out ugly code. Also, if you go to the code view (I’m using the WP-Admin as my example), then edit something, then go back, sometimes the WYSIWYG editor messes it up.
Also, Shawn Blanc posted a great review of MarsEdit the other day, and touched on the lack of a WYSIWYG editor.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hi!
Without taking into account the issue of establishing a stone by God, which he won’t be able to pick up, how do you think, may be something in this world, what can God never see?