Ranchero Software’s MarsEdit is - for the most part - a useful tool for the busy blogger. It comes in particularly handy when you’re juggling a number of blogs. Or when you need a real-time preview of the interplay between text and media elements in your html code.
It also makes html a breeze by automatically providing you with common codes and inserting them directly into your post. You’ll never forget to close a tag again. And the layout is modeled after Mail and iTunes - so using it is like second nature already.
That said, I do have quite a few gripes with the program. It buries automatic pinging deep in the preferences menu instead of putting it out front where it belongs. Its html preview feature is sometimes misleading, leaving posts oddly formatted when viewed online. It seems to have some problems accurately translating accent marks to TypePad, leaving weird glitches in its wake. It also doesn’t align all its functions perfectly with TypePad’s interface. I still have to upload pictures by hand to the TypePad site if I want to resize them or use a thumbnail instead of a full-size image.
It gets an A for usability and convenience, but a C- for compatibility. Overall: B.
The bottom line: I’ll still be using TypePad’s interface until the program works out its compatibility issues.
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-b- 10.26.05 at 6:05 pm
Eric Rice just blogged about Google blocking 3rd-party editors. Do you know if that’s the case with Marsedit?