Blogging on a Mac
I am a still very happy Mac user and as I mentioned before, I have been very impressed at the Mac software choices. So far, the only real weak part for me has been blogging.
There still is nothing like Windows Live Writer available for the Mac. The two top tools are MarsEdit and ecto. Neither supports WYSIWYG or make it easy to configure extended MetaBlog properties without implementing the full MoveableType or Wordpress extensions. I did look into implementing the full API, but I cannot see why you want to require three separate calls just to publish a post (one to submit, one with the category information, and another to publish)
Since I can use Live Writer via Fusion, it is not a total loss, but I would rather not have to load a virtual machine to simply blog.
For now, when I want to blog (like now) from OS X, I am going to use TextMate. It does not have WYSIWYG support, but it is very easy to use and supports the extensions I want to use; not to mention all the baked in TextMate goodness.
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Comments
Jeff Putz on on 12.18.2007 at 10:40 AM
It's strange that you mention that, because I've never been inclined to use anything other than a regular old text box for blogging. When I do need to link to something, usually the built-in rich text control is adequate. What you really get out of Live Writer? I never saw the point in it.
Scott Watermasysk on on 12.18.2007 at 10:59 AM
@Jeff
Personally, I prefer to write offline; I generally distrust the browser.
But there are also things like better image support (resizing, uploading, etc) as well some helpful plugins/etc.
Simone on on 12.18.2007 at 11:21 AM
Scott, I just received my Mac, and I'm an avid blogger. As you I prefer to write my posts offline, and WLW has tons of plugins that allow easy inclusion of other things like images, videos, code and so on.
I looked at Ecto website and seems quite similar to WLW. What did you find (except the custom plugins) that WLW is soo better to Ecto to make you turn on the VM just to blog?
Scott Watermasysk on on 12.18.2007 at 11:29 AM
Hi Simone,
I like having access to things like text-more (extended entries), keywords, and control over the slug (post name).
WLW lets you (via an xml manifest http://simpable.com/api/wlwmanifest.ashx) tell the client tool what features you support. Ecto and others rely on your implementing a custom MetaBlog extension which can be a mess.
An even better example is Graffiti requires a single category for every post. With WLW you can tell it this requirement and the tool reinforces it.
Thanks,
Scott
Stacy on on 12.18.2007 at 5:34 PM
WYSIWYG provides standard editorial formatting capability. Blogs are content and a lot of people who write content are not techy. Inline image insert, hyperlinks, tables, general formatting like bullets and the ability to save a draft before publishing are all very valuable features available in WLW. It's very basic Word stuff, which editorial folks are very used to. It's a little frustrating that there isn't something equivalent, yet, for a Mac which is supposed to be a user friendly platform! Thanks for writing about this, Scott.
Simone Chiaretta on on 12.18.2007 at 7:57 PM
Thank you Scott for the answer.
I think the thing I'll miss the most will be the ability to have plugins to insert into the post whatever you want.
And also, thank you for sharing your experiences on the Mac for a .NET developer stand point.
Adriaan on on 1.06.2008 at 5:48 PM
FYI, ecto does have WYSIWYG. The beta of ecto3 (see infinite-sushi.com) even uses WebKit as engine. Also, you don't need three separate calls to publish a post. That's a MovableType/TypePad-only requirement. In ecto3, WordPress-compatible blogs only need 1 call, a metaWeblog.newPost call. Mail me if you need more info.