Since last September, I've been using ecto for Windows as the tool for creating content for my blogs. Ecto is an offline editing and publishing application - you create all your blog posts offline, on your PC, and then publish them to your blog at your convenience. It supports a wide range of blogging platforms including TypePad, the one I use. It was originally developed for the Mac platform.
During all of this year, I've been using version 1.0.8.4 in spite of a number of upgrades that the developers have released. The big one was 1.5/1.6 back in March which fixed bugs, added some new functionality and changed the look and feel of the application. I didn't like those versions, mostly from the look and feel point of view (and mainly to do with all the separate windows everywhere), so I've stuck with 1.0.8.4.
Today, I'm writing this post with the latest version 1.7.1, released early last month. It's a bugfix update from version 1.7 released at the end of May which introduced a significant number of improvements.
It could be that I will permanently leave 1.0.8.4 behind as, on my first looks, version 1.7.1 is very good indeed. I very much like the appearance and the way in which I can interact with the app. The only thing right now that didn't seem to work from install was when I created my profile to log in to my TypePad account - on retrieving posts from my blogs, it displays all the titles but not the actual post content. Yet 1.0.8.4 does do that.
I also use BlogJet, switching between the two now and again. BlogJet is wholly WYSIWYG but I prefer ecto's partial code view with a preview window that you use to see how your post will look when posted.
I think many people would prefer BlogJet for its simplicity and ease of use. Ecto, though, is my preferred application.
Let's see how it goes with 1.7.1.
ecto should retrieve the whole post when refreshing from the server. Can you send me the console log and may be even the exception log so I can figure out why it doesn't for you? There is also a 1.7.2 version out there that fixes some more minor bugs.
Posted by: Alex Hung | 02 July 2005 at 15:15
Thanks, Alex. Email on its way to you.
Just looked - I am actually using 1.7.2, not 1.7.1, which I downloaded this morning.
On retrieving whole posts, this could be something to do with all the major work Six Apart is currently doing on their servers this weekend and which affects all TypePad blogs.
Just guessing, though.
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 02 July 2005 at 17:07