over here is the preview of the show down. a year and a half later i’m starting to come to some conclusions. but, some back story first.
why a year and a half? well, i probably forgot. it was also around a time when i was getting really busy with stuff.
Winner: MarsEdit
The only other real competitor for OSX Blogging Software was Ecto. in my estimates the issues comes down to one of “why not Ecto?” as opposed to “why MarsEdit?” Both questions are valid and one exists because of the other. thus i’m going to answer the other other questions first, namely why would you pick Ecto?
Ecto is a great application. it has built in iTunes and iPhoto integration as well as a really cool Amazon search feature. it supports the same blogs as MarsEdit, and the guy that writes the application is a genius. it’s a very solid product. it’s got features up the wazoo! if you want to do it, you can. it’s the photoshop of blogging in a way.
for me, all that extra stuff is what makes ecto not as good as marsedit. ecto is over inundated with features that help to create a bit of a cluttered workspace. so, from here on out i’ll be talking about workflow and the untangibles, because that’s where this fight was won.
when you sit down and open up MarsEdit there’s a feeling of “this app is made for blogging and nothing else” that permeates everything you are doing. it’s interface is that of the old Mail.app, whereas Ecto feels like the new Mail.app. the windows to edit things in MarsEdit are very simplistic with very minimal (and OSX looking) icons. there’s the Title, the URL, and Edit areas for text boxes. four icons and two drop-down menus at the top. like i said, simple.
when i start to try to use Windows blogging clients i’ll be sure to throw Ecto in there, as i’m sure it will be near the top. however, when i’m using an OSX app i expect it to function with the elegance that i’ve come to expect from using my Mac and using OSX. unfortunately, Ecto just doesn’t provide that.
the other topic that i don’t really touch on often enough is multiple blog support. i’m looking at starting yet another blog for dev purposes. to clarify; i already have TKS and GA and am looking to start at least one more (probably under a different engine than WordPress) for my open source projects. both apps have it (multiple blog support), but ecto’s option to change what blog the article is under is at the bottom. this oddly makes things more cluttered in a weird way. marsedit has it just above the article edit area so it’s there but out of the way. for some reason the option bar at the bottom of ecto just throws me off and makes it seem cluttered.
what i don’t want people to think is that MarsEdit skimps on features, because it doesn’t. it has alot of features that you can read about on its webpage.
in short, MarsEdit has won this round for being a simple yet powerful blogging application.