Up until recently, I have been using Qumana for writing and publishing to my blog. That was before I read Chris Thomson’s post about MarsEdit. After that, I was a bit wiser… I now knew that MarsEdit is better than Qumana(lol)… I don’t even know why I used Qumana in the first place. MarsEdit is much better. In fact, I’m using it now to write this post. That’s why I’ve decided to do a review of MarsEdit instead of Qumana. I was going to do Qumana but… oh well.
User Interface
MarsEdit has a very simple UI, which is pleasing to the eye. The developer at Red Sweater Software, LLC hasn’t fallen into the common trap of sacrificing the design of the program for lots of useless features, although MarsEdit truly is powerful. The UI isn’t cluttered with lots of buttons and only has the most needed and used ones which saves lots of space.
Ease of Use
I find this application very easy to use, mostly because of the interface. The interface is an important factor in deciding if an app is easy to use, and it seems the developer hasn’t forgotten that. It would be nice if you could place media by just dragging it to the actual post area. I’m not saying this app isn’t good, just that this feature is a basic one that I don’t know how the developer missed. I can’t for the life of me figure this out. Why on Mars didn’t he include this feature. Maybe it’s just one of life’s unsolvable mysteries like “Why is that person’s name Harry?”(I mean, no offense but, what a silly name)
Features
MarsEdit doesn’t really have many features, but the ones it does have are quite useful. Many developers don’t think it through, but instead, just try to bog the application up with useless features that you’re only going to need once in a blue moon. And believe me, that is not often indeed (if little green men from Mars want to know). I immediately saw that this developer had spent a lot of time planning useful features that would actually help the user. I believe that he had the user in mind from the very start. One of the best features is that it has AppleScript support, which allows developer users to make their own custom features. The only annoying thing is it doesn’t have WYSIWYG support. This is what the developer says about it in the FAQ:
Does MarsEdit Have a “WYSIWYG” HTML Editor?
The short answer is no, but it’s in the works.
MarsEdit features a specialized text editor with many features designed to make blog editing more streamlined and productive. A major benefit of MarsEdit’s text-only editor, is you can be confident that your web content is sent to your blog just as you typed it. MarsEdit won’t “mess up” your finely crafted HTML.
Then he goes on to say that they recognize the values of WYSIWYG and plan to have support to switch between HTML and WYSIWYG mode. He also mentions about MarkDown, an alternative to WYSIWYG.
Compatibility
MarsEdit is compatible with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal and Vox. And that’s not even all of them. Also, if your blog doesn’t support the feature that lets MarsEdit easily auto-detect their configuration information, then it’s not the end. It says in the FAQ that it’s very likely your blog will still work. If you know the name of your blog server’s software, all you need to do is go to the “Help” menu and see if the system is listed in the “Getting Started” section. It will guide you to configure the less automated systems, or fix a problem during auto-detection.
written by admin
\\ tags: Blogging, desktop publisher, mac app, marsedit, red sweater, software
