Still questing for the best in desktop blogging tools...

ScribeFire installs into the Firefox browser, which is interesting because you can click between tabs in the upper area, while editing your posts below:

But this means you are dealing with a squished web browsing experience as well as a squished editing experience. Opening a new Firefox window for ScribeFire would take care of this, I imagine.

Account Setup

Setup using the account wizard's "Custom Blog" options was pretty straightforward. I didn't encounter any errors.

Post Editor

The WYSIWYG editor includes the expected basic options (no tables, etc, though for blogging that isn't necessarily a bad thing), with the ability to switch over to HTML view or "Live Preview" as well. (It doesn’t preserve your location in the document when switching to HTML view and has no syntax formatting/highlighting, however.)

Due to the limited WYSIWYG options, the code stays pretty clean. I noticed that if you copy and paste HTML into a post (from a webpage, for instance) it preserves the HTML associated with it (h1 tags, etc.) There doesn't seem to be CSS integration, so you can’t easily assign your own classes (without editing the HTML), though you can set formatting changes to be saved in CSS rather than HTML (in the Settings).

It had problems with code - if I pasted HTML code into the WYSIWYG editor, it correctly encoded it and showed the code, but after publishing, it had converted it so that the HTML output was displayed instead. This is actually a HUGE shortcoming which will make this software useless to techie-bloggers.

Images

You can easily copy & paste images directly into the posts, however I found that upon publishing, the images were not automatically uploaded and resulted in missing chunks (represented by little grey boxes):


So, you can upload an image via FTP or the API while adding it to your post. No fancy formatting or cropping options (or alt tags/captions either).

Spell Checking

Inline spell check is provided by Firefox:

Posting

Clicking the "Publish to " button results in some nice easy to understand options:

("View this Blog" opens your blog homepage in the web browser area above.)

But the problem I noticed was that if you "Keep Content" and make changes and then "Publish" - it creates another post rather than overwriting the existing post, which is really annoying. However, if you DO NOT choose the "Keep Content", and instead just click on your new post in the "Posts" list in the right sidebar, you will have the ability to "Publish as Edit" or "Delete Post".

Working Offline

Though you can easily access and edit existing posts by choosing them from the "Posts" tab:


I couldn't locate any offline saved post files which might be accessible while not connected to the internet.

Blog Options

I was able to check off my Categories (called "tags" in the software, which seems to have eliminated the actual "Tags" (aka keywords) which were nowhere to be found.)

Interesting Features

There is a button to "Save as Note", but I was unable to figure out what that might be, other than kind of like a draft of the post accesible from the "Notes" tab of the right sidebar.

Final Opinion

For Firefox lovers, FireScribe is a nice and generally bug-free tool. For those looking for a more robust blogging tool which can also be used offline, it might be less ideal.

How to Get It

Name: ScribeFire
Platform: Any with Firefox installed
Version Reviewed: v. 1.4.2
Price: FREE
Website: http://www.scribefire.com and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1730

So, here is another desktop blogging tool I am testing. Let’s see how it stacks up.

Account Setup

To use with BlogEngine.Net, you need to choose "MetaWeblog API" and I had a bit of trouble because it asks you to point to a file called XML-RPC:

Setting up Post2Blog for use with BlogEngine.net

And worse, suggests that it will be in a php file. So, if you put in a link to "metaweblog.axd" as is suggested by the BlogEngine.Net documentation, you will most likely get an error (at least I did). Here is how to get around that - put in "rsd.axd" instead. This should allow you to finish the New Account Wizard. Of course, then you will possibly get another error when you actually try to connect to your blog (to "Update Blogs and Categories", for instance) so this is where you Edit your profile and change it to "metaweblog.axd." At least these gymnastics worked for me.

Post Editor

The main workspace is a full-featured WYSIWYG editor, with the ability to switch over to HTML view as well. (Unfortunately it doesn’t jump to the current area in the HTML file when you switch over.) It includes all the goodies you’d expect and works well. Keep in mind, though, that as with most WYSIWYGs, the generated HTML can get unwieldy with extra tags and things like unexpected font tags, etc. There isn’t any CSS integration, so you can’t easily assign your own classes. Also, there isn’t any syntax highlighting or formatting in the HTML view.

Images

A very convenient feature (especially for people grabbing screenshots or pieces of larger images) is the ability to just copy & paste images into a post. When you click in your post and Paste, you get the image properties dialog box:

Image Properties Dialog

Which allows you some nifty options like automatically converting the image to a web-friendly type, assigning a caption, creating a linked thumbnail, and adding a (sort of ugly) drop-shadow. Some caveats - in order to have the caption show the way it does, tables are drawn around images along with some extra font tags, etc.:

Spell Checking

Inline automatic spell-checking (like in MS Word) is a great feature for those who like it (and can easily be turned off for those who don’t), and you can also set an option to run the spell checker before you publish your post.

Posting

I encountered some problems while posting, which might be due to some of the more crazy HTML, or maybe the problem with categories, or who knows what... It deleted the post title, which I had to restore in BlogEngine.Net. 

Working Offline

There is a nice interface to view & select the current posts:

But when opening posts, it seems that the images were all broken - they were pointing to local temp files rather than the published online images, which I think would be more correct, especially once a post has been published. There is an option under the Tools menue to "Download all images as local images", but clicking that didn't seem to do anything to fix the issue. 

Blog Options

Post2Blog didn’t read my Categories correctly - it shows the descriptions rather than the category names (which also means that any categories which don’t have a descriptions are totally missing). I’m not sure if this is an error with the program, or with the implementation of MetaWeblog that BlogEngine.Net uses...

I didn't see anywhere that Tags (aka keywords) could be assigned to a post.

Interesting Features

"Portable Version" allows you to create a version with all your settings that can be run from USB flash drives etc.

Firefox & Internet Explorer Add-ins for fast blogging from webpages.

"Quick  Snippets" allow you to define chunks of text/HTML which can be quickly inserted, and you can setup abbreviated text which when typed will be automatically replaced with the defined text/HTML. This is a good way to add support for additional HTML tags, or speed up the inserting of common stuff (for instance, a link to your company website whenever you mention your company).

Integration with popular online services includes special support for Flickr photos, Amazon, Adsense,Chitika eMinimall, and Tagging Services (Technorati, Del.icio.us, Buzzwords, 43 Things, etc)

Colored Syntax highlighting for various programming & markup languages. Just select some text and choose Insert > Highlighted Code... You can choose the language and font:

Keep in mind that the code isn't perfect - see my syntax highlighted HTML, above (also, I added the tabs & line breaks - it doesn't preserve them when you paste the code in)

Insert > Current Music exists, but when I attempted to use it, it insisted on opening iTunes, even though I already had Windows Media Player running, so I guess it only works with iTunes. 

Final Opinion

Generally there is a lot to reccommend this software, but it's implementation in relation to BlogEngine.Net isn't that great. There are some very basic things that hinder using it, specifically, how it handles images and categories and its lack of support for Tags/Keywords. Since this used to be a fully-supported paid product and is now in the unsupported freeware category, I have some concerns that it won't soon be updated or enhanced.

How to Get It

Name: Post2Blog [Bytescout]
Platform: Windows
Version Reviewed: v. 3.01
Price: FREE
Website: http://post2blog.com

w.bloggar is a desktop blogging tool. Since I am looking for ways to make blogging easier and more fun, this is a test post & review.

Account Setup

This is one of the very few blogging tools which specifically has support for BlogEngine.Net blogs, which can be chosen as the blog service when setting up the account. It worked flawlessly.

Post Editor

The main workspace is a HTML editor. The toolbar has the standard HTML markers (Bold, Italic, Underline, Strike-through), though unlike a WYSIWYG editor, it doesn't show the formatting, it adds in the HTML code, which won't be a big deal to HTML proficient people, but will throw off those who aren't. Of course, you can switch over to the Preview tab at any time.
w.bloggar - Editor

w.bloggar - Preview

Images

Unlike WLW, you can't just copy & paste a picture into a post. You need to save it with a filename, and upload it (though the upload box has the option to automatically insert either an IMG tag or a download (A HREF tag) link for the file you are uploading. However, since you are working in an HTML editor, you cannot drag to resize images, and instead need to manually calculate the correct width/height ratio and input it into the IMG tag. Also, if you want a smaller image in your post which links to the full-sized version, you need to manually add the link for that.

Spell Checking

The Spell checking feature is adequate, though it picks up some HTML tags and special characters:

 

and doesn't always suggest the best default change option:

 

Posting

Post & Publish worked quickly and smoothly, though I personally would rather that w.bloggar would leave the post open (since I might want to make changes again). Instead it automatically clears it out of the workspace and opens a new blank post. You can get it back by choosing "Last Post" from the Posts drop-down:

 If you choose one of the other options (Last 5, Last 10, etc.) a box listing the posts pops up so you can select the post you want to edit:

 

Although listing the posts by ID rather than title or even date is not the most usable. (There is also an option to get a post by typing in its ID, which, for Blog systems using a GUID (such as BlogEngine.Net), isn't as useable either.

Working Offline 

w.bloggar doesn't automatically save posts on your harddrive (which can be a good thing if you don't want to clutter up your computer). If you want to keep an offline copy of your post, you can save it to a .post file, which can then be opened in w.bloggar later. Generally this functionality will meet your offline working needs. 

Blog Options

w.bloggar handles Categories beautifully, even providing a "Reload" option to refresh the categories list if you added additional categories from inside your web-based blog interface while the program is open. It supports assigning multiple Categories to posts.

Tags (in w.bloggar the field is called "Keywords") are also handled nicely. There is a textbox for them on the "More" tab of the workspace. Just type them in separated by commas.

Interesting Features

Ability to create custom tags (which is a way to add in styles (div or span with class info) or html tags that aren't included (like PRE, CODE, H4, etc), though some might argue that all the basic HTML tags should already be available in the editor.

Ability to set properties (on a per-blog basis) for the Preview tab. You can make the preview more accurately match how your posts will look on your blog by setting refrences to your CSS or by adding style information directly.

Automatically add the music you are listening to. You can choose whether to add it automatically to all posts, or manually by clicking a button.

Here is an example:

 

Final Opinion

This could be a fantastic tool if it had a proper WYSIWYG editor. Unless you are an HTML purist, it seems to me that it's easier to use the web-based BlogEngine.Net WYSIWYG posting tool. However, it would be a decent tool to use in an offline-pinch.

How to Get It

Name: w.bloggar [Marcelo Lv Cabral]
Platform: Windows
Version Reviewed: v. 4.02
Price: FREE
Website: http://wbloggar.com/