Blog Client Reviews in Brief

This post was authored in FireFox and so far, with good reason. After not so lengthy a pursuit, we have yet to find a blogging client (free or commercial) with the features and usability that inspire us to click the browser to the curb and start authoring from a desktop app. As it turns out, we might have better luck if OSX is what we called home, but being Win32 geeks, we do tend to drag that perspective around with us.Desktop blogging tools use remote authoring APIs -- such as MT's publishing API, the ATOM publishing API, the Blogger publishing API, and other XML-RPC interfaces -- to create/edit/publish content to one or more weblogs. The idea is that a rich user interface such as a Windows Forms client or OSX GUI stand alone will be more productive, easier to use, and make more info accessible at content authoring time. This reasoning is certainly plausible. What's disheartening is that so far, it does not seem to have played out that well. People are bound to disagree with us for various reasons. Hoping to circumvent a few of these, we've included our evaluation criteria below. Requirements

1. Runs on Windows
2. Access to all of MT's article fields
3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor
4. Spell checker
5. Access to article categories
6. Ability to set publish date
7. Access/editing of previous articles
8. Image/file upload support
9. Support for multiple Blogs
10. Usable, intuitive interface

Here's what we've found to date. Admittedly, its not 100% comprehensive, so we'll accept fault there, and will hope to do a follow-on piece once a solid option is available. ecto (website) ecto is a commercial desktop blogging client for MacOSX and Windows. ecto is the successor of the popular Kung-Log, which earned a 4.5 mice rating in the MacWorld July 2003. Its release cycle tells the story: v2.0 is out for OSX and v1.0.8 is out for Windows. This may explain our less than perfect rating of ecto. If the OSX version has a decent WYSIWYG editor, then this tool is definitely leading the field.

1. Runs on Windows [Yes!]
2. Access to all of MT's article fields [Yes - with Advanced View]
3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor [No - Just a text editor]
4. Spell checker [Yes!]
5. Access to article categories [Yes - with multi-select!]
6. Ability to set publish date [Yes - in post properties]
7. Access/editing of previous articles [Yes!]
8. Image/file upload support [Yes - robust upload and image thumbnail tools!]
9. Support for multiple Blogs [Yes - strong profile support]
10. Usable, intuitive interface [Yes - Well done, up to date]

Score: 9/10 BlogJet (website) This is another commercial Windows application which stays faithful to the XP styling and usability. BlogJet supports MT, Blogger API, MetaWeblog API, WordPress, pMachine, TypePad, and a number of others. Its a solid application and being commercial, has a frequent release cycle and a promising road map. Where it falls down in our tests is that its geared more for the beginner. The authoring and editing capabilities are limited to post title and entry body. This is a show-stopper for anyone (such as CMSWire) who leans heavily on MT's other article fields.

1. Runs on Windows [Yes!]
2. Access to all of MT's article fields [No - only title and entry body]
3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor [Yes - simple WYSIWYG editor!]
4. Spell checker [Yes!]
5. Access to article categories [Yes - with multi-select!]
6. Ability to set publish date [No]
7. Access/editing of previous articles [OK - restricted to available fields!]
8. Image/file upload support [Yes - simple tools]
9. Support for multiple Blogs [Yes - multiple profile support]
10. Usable, intuitive interface [Yes - Well done, up to date]

Score: 7.5/10 SharpMT (website) SharpMT is a free Windows Forms app written in C#. It is designed for MovableType based systems. And has nearly all the features we're hunting for, but pulls in just shy of the dock in a few critical areas.

1. Runs on Windows [Yes!]
2. Access to all of MT's article fields [OK - Missing keywords]
3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor [No - Just a text editor]
4. Spell checker [Yes!]
5. Access to article categories [OK - primary category only]
6. Ability to set publish date [Yes - in Advanced view!]
7. Access/editing of previous articles [No - list for linking, but no editing]
8. Image/file upload support [Yes - very simple]
9. Support for multiple Blogs [OK - if on same MT instance]
10. Usable, intuitive interface [Yes - Well done, tabbed, up to date]

Score: 6.5/10 w.bloggar (website) w.bloggar is a free Windows application that is updated frequently. The current release is v3.03 and v4 is nearly out the door. It supports various online blog services, including Blogger, b2, MovableType, Nucleus, BigBlogTool, BlogWorks XML, Blogalia, Drupal blogs and others who support the Blogger API. w.bloggar is fairly popular and with good reason, but it fails to meet a few important criteria.

1. Runs on Windows [Yes!]
2. Access to all of MT's article fields [No - All content squeezed into Entry Body]
3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor [No - Text editor with HTML syntax high-lighting]
4. Spell checker [Yes!]
5. Access to article categories [OK - Single select only]
6. Ability to set publish date [No - No advanced post properties]
7. Access/editing of previous articles [OK - Only main content]
8. Image/file upload support [Yes!]
9. Support for multiple Blogs/Profiles [Yes - Nice profile support]
10. Usable, intuitive interface [Yes - Extremely well done]

Score: 6/10 So yours truly has come out the other side of this with a browser in hand. To ditch FireFox in favor of an authoring app is desirable. However a 10/10 is needed to do so. Without which we just don't get the productivity gains that justify a tool switch. On Windows, FireFox with tabbed browsing and a spell checker (somewhat depressingly) still cuts the mustard in a smarter fashion than the current field of blog clients.