Edit your blogs easily with MarsEdit

If you’re a blogger like myself, you know that sometimes it’s a hassle to go to the website where you have your blog, type in your log-in info and wait for your website to load just so that you can type a paragraph or two about something interesting.  If you would like to avoid this mess, then try MarsEdit.  This blog publishing program allows you to write and publish new posts with the click of your mouse, edit old posts, and even add media files to your post.

When you open up MarsEdit, you’ll be amazed at the neat and organized homepage.  The left column of the window contains all the blogs that you have that you have synced to MarsEdit.  Within each blog that you have, there will be a list of all the published posts on your site.  If you ever want to edit any prior blog posts, simply double-click the post, and a new window will open which will allow you to edit your post.  The home page of MarsEdit also has a drafts folder on the left hand side of the window, which allows you to keep any posts that you wish to keep as a draft until you’re ready to publish it.   The top of the window has buttons that allow you to do things such as create a new post, edit an old post, refresh your posts, and even view a recent post from a web page.  Overall, the layout of the homepage in MarsEdit is great.

Now the window pane used to write a new post is even more impressive.  What I like about it is that it’s not cluttered at all.  The layout is very simple and straightforward.  For instance, I like the fact that instead of showing a button to bold or underline text, you can instead go to the drop-down list on the top right corner of the window and select the bold or underline option.  And just as a heads-up, the keyboard shortcuts work, so if you select the text that you want bolded and you press Apple Command + B, the text will bold.  Using the keyboard shortcuts might be the easier route.  Briefly going back to the drop-down list, other options include adding quotations, links, and headers.  The window also contains a column on the right hand side which allows you to categorize your posts as well as add any tags that you want.  Perhaps the most impressive feature in MarsEdit is the preview option.  As you type your post, there is a separate window to the left that displays a preview of how the post will look when it is ready to be published.  This came in handy while I was testing this product because I wanted to see how my paragraphs would be spaced and it came out pretty good.

My only criticism of MarsEdit involves the media option.  Suppose you write a post and you want to add a picture to it.  Simply click on the media button and a new window will open which allow you to add a photo or a file to the post.  What I liked about the feature was that I could post photos from my Flickr account to the post or I could simply drag a photo from my computer to the window.  Unlike the Flickr option where I can size the image in any way I want, this was not the case when I uploaded a photo straight from my computer.  I could only align the photo to the left, center, or right of my post.  Although I could have easily edited the photo size from the post on the Internet, I couldn’t format the size because the photo was written in HTML format.  Furthermore, the size of the photo was measured in pixels and I’m not familiar with pixel to inch ratio.  I think this is something that should be fixed, but nevertheless, I prefer the option uploading photos from Flickr.

MarsEdit costs $30.00 and it works with most blogging websites, such as Wordpress, Blogger, and LiveJournal.  Overall, I am very satisfied with the product.  I love the interface and the features that come with it.  I know that from now on, I’ll be using this application to publish blog posts.