MarsEdit 3.0

The blogger client application, MarsEdit is nearly indispensable for me as a writer. As its slogans says, it is indeed “the best way to write, preview, and publish your blog” posts. I have been using the application for about three years, and it’s recent 3.0 update helps increase my writing productivity.

MarsEdit is compatible with blogging sites like WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, TypePad, and Moveable Type. All these sites of course include an editor for writing and publishing blog posts, and for the most part they work okay. But because they are browser-based, you can't use them unless you’re connected to the Internet. In addition, when you want to write, edit, and add images to your blog posts, you typically have to click more buttons and scroll up and down in the editor in order to create content. Adding links and images in web-based editors seem to take up most of the time.

With MarsEdit you can produce blogging content and export it to one or more of your blog accounts. MarsEdit saves you the most time when it comes to writing and saving drafts of writing, as well as adding images. Even after your content is posted, you can make changes in MarsEdit and update those changes from within the editor.

Adding Images

The biggest time saver for me in using MarsEdit is adding images to my blogging content. The previous version of MarsEdit, was an HTML editor, which meant that when you added links and photos your content was not formatted inside the editor. You needed to click the Preview button to how the content will appear on your blog site. So in case you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, here’s an example.



With 3.0 update, MarsEdit is now a rich text editor, which means, in the old expression, What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG.) Using MarsEdit as an HTML editor wasn’t a big problem, but as rich text editor, it means that you can easily add images to the editor, which is useful for when you’re developing content.



Version 3.0 of MarsEdit extends the media manager in that it‘s integrated with your iPhoto and Aperture photo library, as well as your Finder. The default way to add images is by clicking on its icon in the toolbar, but I prefer a faster approach, by simply selecting an image in my Finder and dragging it into the editor where I want the image to appear. When the image is dropped into editor a window pops up allowing you to set its alignment and width and size. The media manager also now gives you the option to upload the image with your post or to upload it immediately to the server before the other content is posted.



There’s nothing new about rich text editing in this regard, but with this feature added to MarsEdit it must makes the writing workflow a little easier and faster, especially for users who might find an HTML editor a little too geeky.

The 3.0 version includes a few other advance features, such as the ability to download, edit, and create permanent Word Press pages in the editor and upload them to your account.

For the most part, you can do everything you need to do for blog posting, including assigning categories, tags, and track backs, and links, that you do in a browser-based editor. The application also includes scripts for getting word count, doing Google searches, and adding paragraph tags.

On the surface, the differences between the 2.4 and 3.0 versions of MarsEdit don’t seem that significant. Some users might find $14.95 for the upgrade a bit high, but if you are a regular blogger and/or user of MarsEdit, the update provides a boost in productivity that makes the price worth it.