Testing Blogging Software

Lately, I have been getting behind in posting to all my blogs and journals. Its not like I was ever consistant to begin with, but when I had a happy bit of software at my fingertips, it became the most simple of actions to update any one of my journals or blogs at anytime… and with the bringing of FireFox 3 the convenient application disappeared to buggy annoyance. As a result, I am looking for a new desktop blog application.

When I looked at Wordpress.org for suggestions, I found a few that really stood out and looked like they may be worth my time. So I am taking a little time to check out a few of them. Using each through its trial period.

What I am looking for…

There are a few things that are important to me. Any application I am going to use must offer a decent WYSIWIG alongside the ability to edit the HTML at my own discretion. I don’t want the program to suddenly decide to add its own markup, similar to MS Word’s way of doing things. Next, it must be able to access any number of blogs and journals. If I can’t access at least thoes I update frequently, it wouldn’t be worth it. I must be able to add tags and/or categories, depending on circumstances. Above all, it MUST be LiveJournal friendly. I have my userpics maxed on that LJ and I must be able to choose my icon for each post. Having new features to offer to me is a bonus any of the applications.

First up

BlogJet. At first glance it looks like a dream come true, it has a wonderful interface, with a skin that can change when your Windows desktop theme changes, or at your own whim. The options available to use are quite fun. I can reference photos from my Flickr account with a click of a few buttons, no cut and paste. And it has a way of adding YouTube videos in a similar manner. I can format an image upload via ftp and use it as well to get photos off my desktop.

There are lots of little things that I am completely happy with, including being able to get a list of recent posts and create drafts, to set my posts for future posting and linking with ‘rel’ attributes. However there is a major failing that I cannot forgive.

The major problem with this software is no ability to choose my userpics. I love my userpics, I have twice the amount I can use on the website and gaining more every day. I have even put a plugin in my Wordpress blog that allows me to choose avatars for that blog. I can live with using the email rules for the moods and with this application I can add my current music with a button and it automatically puts it at the bottom of the page. But the lack of Userpic choice balances heavily in the negative range for me.

Other minor items I want to mention: There are no header buttons, to make my headers, I have to move to the HTML. Auto-draft. I accidentally closed the client while I was looking something up and found I had lost it when I reopened it. I am quite taken with the fact that I can upload my photos when I post to my WordPress blog and when I crosspost, those photos are referenced at the original upload point. Though this could cause a problem for my ‘hidden’ blog posts. I can’t have the images posting and connecting my private blogs/journals to my public blogs/journals.

Result

I really like this application, but I am too addicted to my Userpics on LiveJournal. If this developer created a better LJ interface, this would be the perfect desktop blog client for me. (hey developer, if you read and implement this, please keep the wordpress plugin option in mind as well! Thanks!)

Usability:
Features:
Appearance and Feel:

Crossposted: Livejournal, DreamWidth, Blog.Niaskywalk and Blogger

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