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.

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Comments

Thanks for the tip on ecto. Am looking at their site now, but it is unlikely I will try it outside of curiosity.

I use SharpMT, and find it more than does all I need. Offline desktop writing/editing and uploads to MT weblog as needed. Best of all it is free :-). I have no need for a wysiwyg editor, as I know what it looks like on site anyways, if that makes sense?

The MT editor does all the rest. The article does make me think though, maybe a better desktop client for the site would be good...hmmm

Posted by: Bruce on December 24, 2004 6:18 PM

A new beta version of ecto is out. I think you will like this even more, even though WYSIWYG editing is still in the future.

Posted by: Alex on January 6, 2005 11:42 PM

Just to announce: w.bloggar v4.00 is now available! Please check it!

Posted by: Marcelo Cabral on January 7, 2005 4:37 PM

And, yep, BlogJet 1.5 has all the features marked as "no" in this post ;)

Posted by: Dmitry Chestnykh on April 1, 2005 6:11 PM

I'd love your rating of Qumana. http://qumana.com/qumana.html

Posted by: Phil Wolff on April 14, 2005 11:58 PM

Why isn't Radio Userland included in this review? Not only is it a web-based service, but it is also supports a local, PC-based web server that supports multi-category blog posting, with a WYSIWYG, HTML editor. Also, each category can be host independently.

Posted by: Alan on April 16, 2005 2:06 AM

There are some big inaccuracies with your roundup of SharpMT. I use SharpMT as my primary desktop blog client and have written a mini-review of it.
http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2004/10/mt-desktop-client-review-sharpmt

2. It does give access to the Keywords field (this is vital for me--I use it with every single post).

5. It allows you to set primary and secondary categories.

7. It absolutely lets you edit previous articles (via the Blog Links).

It does basically everything I ask it to do and does it as well as a commercial product (ecto) does.

Posted by: tom sherman on April 29, 2005 12:14 AM

There is more to blogging than Moveable Type, you know.....

Posted by: Scott on July 13, 2005 2:34 AM

2 others out there for blog clients

RocketPost
http://www.anconia.com/rocketpost/

Qumana
http://www.qumana.com/

Posted by: Kevin on June 20, 2006 1:13 PM

BlogDesk is another good alternative.

One of the features I like is resizing and uploading of images.

BlogDesk is at http://blogdesk.org

Posted by: Ken on August 1, 2006 8:30 AM

We don't need a 10/10, but an 11/10 bloggimg cliente. I believe near all blog clientes forget something about languages: an option that allows one to select the windows language codes: UTF-8, Latin-1, etc.

Posted by: Pablo Bouvier on August 19, 2006 6:57 AM

..ran into another client called Alive Diary but their web site was a bit vague, so I sent them your criteria for review. The product curiously includes a local diary tool, separate from the blog. This is their response:

---
Thank for your questions. I will speak about the current version of Alive Diary 2.2 and Alive Organizer.
Please read more about Alive Organizer from our site:
http://www.vitolab.com

1. Runs on Windows
Yes.

2. Access to all of MoveType's article fields
Yes. The current version has access to MoveType.

3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor
Yes.

4. Spell checker
Sorry, but no.

5. Access to article categories
Yes.

6. Ability to set publish date
Yes.

7. Access/editing of previous articles
No.

8. Image/file upload support
Yes. The current version of Alive Diary and Alive Organizer can upload IMAGE to FTP, Blog or Yahoo Flickr!.

9. Support for multiple Blogs
No.

10. Usable, intuitive interface
I think that Alive Diary and Alive Organizer has intuitive and usable interface.
---

So - not a winner. Not sure if they got question 2 right.

Posted by: David on September 30, 2006 1:20 AM

Anyone tried WinJournal from Mariner Software?

http://www.marinersoftware.com

Here is how WinJournal stack up on the requirements list:

Requirements

1. Runs on Windows - Yes
2. Access to all of MT's article fields - No, title and body (no comments or tags)?
3. WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML Editor - No - RTF based but posts HTML... and has HTML templates.
4. Spell checker - Yes
5. Access to article categories - No
6. Ability to set publish date - Yes
7. Access/editing of previous articles - Yes
8. Image/file upload support - Yes, to FTP site (going to a blog site directly is a limitation of ATOM implementation on all the Blog Servers)
9. Support for multiple Blogs - Yes
10. Usable, intuitive interface - Yes

7 out of 10

WinJournal also has Password Protection, encryption, Podcasting Support, and lots of other nifty features.

Posted by: carp3tshark on March 13, 2007 5:03 PM

Have you tried / tested Quamana ?

If yes, please post a comment

Thanks in advance
Regards
Vinayak

Posted by: Vinayak on April 12, 2007 8:33 AM

I tried Qumana just yesterday and must say that its a little buggy. When clicking on "Post" to post your new entry, it sits there cycling eternally until you kill the application. When you go up to your blog, the post is there in its entirety(for LiveJournal BTW). For Blogger, it only supports basic editing. No tagging, nothing else. In my opinion, it still needs some work.

Regards,
numberwhun

Posted by: Numberwhun on September 5, 2007 2:46 PM

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