It was already one of the better options available for bloggers who were looking for a desktop solution for their Mac, but now Blogo is even better thanks to a recent update which brings it up to version 1.2.5. The new version brings support for custom slugs, Movable Type tags, and universal support for any kind of Ping.fm accounts.
That’s good news for most bloggers, since very few people I know use the default slugs offered by services like WordPress, and prefer to set their own custom slugs.
And its great news for Movable Type users, who until now haven’t been able to tag posts from Blogo, which is kind of a big deal when it comes to blogging software.
Full Ping.fm support means being able to update more than 30 social networking sites from one location. That and Twitter integration definitely give Blogo at least one advantage over MarsEdit, which also recently rolled out an update of its own, albeit a beta release. If you’re a MarsEdit fan, you can check out more about that over at TheAppleBlog.
As a blogger, I’m curious about the usage statistics of programs like this. Personally, I tend to check them out, use them for a while, and then switch back to web interfaces because I’m ultimately more comfortable with those, even if it does mean having to keep track of a bunch of different admin backends instead of one central app.
Is anyone out there a dedicated Blogo/MarsEdit/other convert, and if so, what’s the appeal?
When I used Windows exclusively, I used Windows Liver Writer. I still believe it is the best of the desktop editors. On my Mac, I tried ecto, didn’t like it for some reason, but I do like blogo, and i actually bought it and have been using it. It still has a way to go to come close to WLW, but I think it is the best offline editor for Mac that I have seen. When in a crunch I will use WP’s in web editor, or even the new Quick Press on the dashboard.
I think the appeal to blogo is the same as WLW, you can just focus on the blog you are writing, not all the open tabs in your browser, you can be disconnected (I know you can use gears with WP now, but it isn’t the same).
I can’t comment on the Mac options but for Windows I use BlogDesk for all of my post writing. It creates very clean code, the interface is sparse but useful and the built in image handling makes adding photos a snap. It even uploads them directly to WP for me which is a joy compared to struggling with the media manager.
It’s funny, I prefer an offline writer because I’ve never really been a fan of most WYSIWYG blog editors, especially the one in WordPress.
SB
I’ve tried Blogo and MarsEdit, as well as Mac Journal, and I just can’t see the appeal of using a stand-alone app (especially one I have to buy) when the WordPress interface works well for me.
As I was playing with the latest beta of MarsEdit a few minutes ago, I realized that a big part of it for me is that I make extensive use of custom fields, a series plugin, and quicktags; even if I wrote in an external editor, I would have a good bit of work to do once the post was uploaded into WordPress.
Dan: When you’re taking advantage of lots of server customizations like custom fields and special plugins, it can definitely be more of a challenge to make good use of a desktop client such as MarsEdit.
I’m currently working on support for custom fields in MarsEdit, which would at least close the gap a great deal for users in your situation.
However, at the end of the day some people will simply prefer the web interface to a desktop interface. I’m just glad to help provide an option for people who prefer the desktop experience.
Daniel Jalkut
(MarsEdit Developer)