Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 03:15 AM PST

Time and again, Windows users who switch to the Mac platform have difficulty settling on a desktop blogging application.

There are a few stand-out applications, but most of them are not free, and it’s difficult to make a one-to-one feature comparison between your current application and a similar application for OS X. Here are some blogging applications that are worth the time to investigate.

MarsEdit

If you are looking for an application that allows you to manipulate the HTML of your post easily, MarsEdit is a good choice for you. The editing window is really a HTML/text editor, and does not provide you with a WYSIWYG view of your post.

If you have to manipulate a lot of custom tags, or if you need to edit a lot of alt tags, having the markup in front of you is very helpful.

Mars Edit blog post window.

If you are a visual person and need to see how your post looks as you write it, you can get a rough idea of how it looks in the Preview pane of the Main window. The preview does not display the post as it would look on your blog.

It just displays the text and the pictures as they are positioned in the post. Even though MarsEdit is not the most robust or user friendly desktop blogging application, it is very usable. MarsEdit costs $29.95, but you can try it for 30 days before you buy it.

MarsEdit preview window.

ecto

If you like the comfort of a WYSIWYG editor and the power of an HTML/text editor, ecto is a good choice for you. This application has been around for several years, and was one of the first truly powerful desktop blogging applications on the Mac platform.

It also had a Windows counterpart for a while, but ecto was recently acquired by illumeniX, and their goal is to concentrate on blogging applications for the Mac and for the iPhone.

Ecto preview window.

ecto’s WYSIWYG editor is has a more familiar feel than MarsEdit’s, because it does not display any markup at all. The HTML editor in ecto, however, shows all of the markup in your post unlike MarsEdit’s, so it gives you eve more power over your posts.

It also validates your markup when you make changes to it, so you don’t have to worry about inadvertently breaking your post. ecto is $19.95, but there is a 21 day free trial.

ScribeFire

ScribeFire is a free Firefox extension that works on both Windows and the Mac. Even though it’s a browser extension, it’s an extremely powerful desktop blogging client, it has all the features most bloggers need, and it could easily replace any other desktop client you use, even Windows Live Writer.

Its layout looks similar to the layouts of the aforementioned blogging applications. You get a good idea of how your posts will look on your site in the WYSIWYG editor, and like in ecto, you can switch from that view to an HTML/text editor view to tweak your markup.

ScribeFire editor.

Perhaps the best feature of ScribeFire is its ability to give you an accurate preview, using your blog’s theme, so you can see precisely what your post will look like. Surprisingly, ScribeFire supports dragging and dropping images into the editor, which makes adding media to your posts very easy.

ScribeFire preview using blog theme.

All of these applications are very powerful, but all of them will work with various blogging platforms, like WordPress or MovableType, slightly differently. Before you make a decision, try all of them out with your blog, take advantage of the trial periods, and make sure that the one you chooses cooperates with your blog.

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Desktop Blogging Apps for the Mac