Desktop Blogging Clients
I’m having trouble settling on a single desktop blogging client. The truth is, I have trouble settling on any kind of software. Even my blogging is all over the place. I manage seven blogs, three of them are powered by Blogger, two by WordPress, one by Movabletype and one by Thingamablog.
What type of features am I looking for?
- The ability to post to multiple blog clients and handle multiple accounts.
- Another important feature is the ease of creating and editing posts. Does the software have wysiwyg editing, with the ability to easily tweak the underlying code? Or, is it only HTML editing?
- How easy is it to upload and link to or display files, particularly image files?
- Can I easily add an alt attribute when uploading and inserting image files?
- Can I easily add a title attribute when creating a link?
- Does the software allow me to easily add social tags, either Technorati or del.icio.us.
I’ll admit, this is not an exhaustive list of features and they are the features that are important to me. Same thing with the clients listed, these are five I have tried and that come close to meeting my requirements.
|
Version |
WYSIWYG | Edit HTML | Spell Check |
File Upload | Image Upload | |
| BlogJet | 1.5 |
y |
y |
y |
|
y |
| ecto | 1.8.4 | n | y |
y |
y | y |
| Qumana | 2.0.2.90 | y | n |
y | n | y |
| w.Bloggar | 4.00.0191 | n | y |
y | y | y |
| Thingamablog | 1.0.2 | y |
y |
y |
y | y |
| Image Alt | Link Title | Social tags | Price |
Other Features | |
| BlogJet | y | n |
n |
$39.95 |
Browser plugin |
| ecto | y | y | y |
$17.95 |
Post templates |
| Qumana | y | n | y |
Free |
AdGenta ad intergration |
| w.Bloggar | y | y | n |
Free |
Custom HTML tags |
| Thingamablog | y | n | n |
Free |
Blog creation software |
(NB: Thingamablog is not really a desktop client. It is blogging software that runs on your desktop and transfers content via ftp to your server. If you're looking for a way to create and manage a blog, without having to go through the process of installing scripts, etc., TAMB is a good choice.)
While ecto and w.Bloggar do not have wysiwyg editing, they each have a number of menu items for adding the most common types of html tags. Qumana uses a pop-up dialogue box that lets you insert HTML tags in the rtf editor. My big complaint with the wysiwyg editors is the tag soup they create. For example, selecting an entire post and changing the font results in font tags around every paragraph or line break, etc. Qumana seems to insert DIV tags around everything. The HTML-only editors give cleaner code, at least as clean as I make it.
While ecto comes out on top of my feature list, w.Bloggar is a close second. However, in the price department, w.Bloggar's free trumps ecto's $17.95. If ecto for Windows ever reaches the feature set of ecto for Mac, I may need to re-think that.
When working with my desktop client of choice, the Copy URL+ Firefox extension is an essential tool in my blogging toolbox. This extension copies the current web page's address to the clipboard, along with additional information such as the document's title, selected text or both. I can select text to quote from a web site, right-click, choose a Copy URL+ option and paste into my editor.
As a side note: I'm composing this post in Writely, the Web 2.0 document editor. Writely has a feature that allows you to post a document to a blog. If you're reading this, I guess it works. ;)
Update: 11/21/05 Dmitry points out, in a comment below, that BlogJet does support file upload. I guess I wasn’t looking in the right place. I’ve changed the comparison table to reflect that.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging, Blogging+Software, Desktop+Blogging+Clients
Comments
Agree, w.bloggar absolutely rules on Windows platform.
Posted by: Amit Agarwal | November 20, 2005 06:40 AM
Hey Ian,
You might consider checking
out Elicit by bingo bango software.
I've been using it for a month and it seems to fulfill everything you have asked for.
Downsides?
It's new, with a small user base, and a glitch here and there.
Jim
Posted by: Jim Van Wyck | November 20, 2005 11:34 AM
I have been using rocketpost. It’s an amazing desktop blogging client, with some of the best tools out there.
It works with nearly every blogging platform out there. I personally use it on MT, WP and Blogger blogs that I run
Tables, thumbnails, image gallery, affiliate links, and much much more all built in. The developers constantly send auto updates.
It also allows cross posting to multiple blogs.
Rocketpost home edition is a mere $ 37. Check it out here
Posted by: arZan | November 20, 2005 12:35 PM
Thanks for the overview. With my one blog, I was blogging old-style ... never really knew how advanced these tools were.
I've now downloaded both Qumana and w.bloggar to see which works best for me.
You learn new things everyday on the web :-)
Posted by: Martin | November 20, 2005 02:34 PM
Thanks for the list. I just started using wbloggar and love it. I mostly like having a syntax highligting and spell checking editor on the desktop. Makes adding new posts a snap! Thanks for the review of the products.
Posted by: Jon | November 20, 2005 02:45 PM
Ian, thanks for review!
Correction: BlogJet supports file upload - see Tools > Attach File...
Posted by: Dmitry Chestnykh (BlogJet) | November 20, 2005 04:23 PM
There is also another important feature that is to have an included aggregator and the chance to read feeds, edit them and create new posts.
I have yet to find one desktop software that can deal with unlimited feeds and have a connection with Wordpress.
I only know of a server side script called ReBlog. But I never heard of a desktop application similar to reblog.
Posted by: Enrique Flouret | November 21, 2005 05:11 AM
I have tried many of those that you have suggested and come away disappointed. But I have an interesting one that I am trying out Anconia Rocketpost that really has an interesting feature of being able to create a list of related posts with one or two clicks. This is a powerful way to significantly increase the keyword density of one of my blog pages. I have implemented it on one of my blogs and saw an increase of over 1000 uniques a day after about 3 wks of use.
I must admit that it lacks the ability to edit anchor text for either links or images. That would put this gem on steriods and would be a killer must have for professional bloggers.
Posted by: Gary Fugere | November 21, 2005 07:28 AM
No wonder your desk is messy. :-)
Posted by: Julana | November 21, 2005 05:30 PM
I have a question about these desktop clients though. With the exception of ecto, how do the others do pings? I see that bloggar only allows one ping site? What about BlogJet? I didn't even see that option. Does the site still get pinged by Wordpress when published?
Posted by: Baz L | November 21, 2005 11:30 PM
Thank you as well for the review. Qumana also supports file upload. Any file can be uploaded by dropping it onto the DropPad. Once you are in the editing window from the Posting menu you can select Upload File and upload images or other files. The copy icon (the double piece of paper button) after the URL box will let you copy the URL for use in your post.
If you have any questions let me know ...
Posted by: Tris Hussey (Qumana) | November 22, 2005 10:58 AM
Terrific Blog you have. Peace Out.
TreeFrog
Posted by: TreeFrog | February 21, 2006 08:42 PM
Kewl blog you got goin on up here.
Peace, JiggyWittit
Posted by: JiggyWittit | March 6, 2006 03:26 AM
Hey there.
Ian's post got me on the search for a client myself.
I checked out a few different ones that were not mentioned here.
You can see my post here
Posted by: Dan | April 1, 2006 07:28 PM