This is very nice indeed - Performancing, an extension for Firefox 1.5 that enables you to use write a post and publish it to your blog just by using Firefox.
It may be just an extension but it's a pretty powerful one. It's a full-featured editor that presents you with the kind of editing interface that makes it easy for anyone to write and publish a post (and you can also switch to code view if that's your preference).
Setting it up is simplicity itself - run the config wizard, answer a couple of questions, provide your blog log-in info and you're done. For configuring a TypePad blog, you then get your full list of categories - essential to have that.
So, very impressive after a quick run around the block with it. The only thing I can't see functionality for is including trackback URLs. Maybe I'm just not seeing where that is. If it's missing, then that's a big negative. No spell checker either. But it is a beta.
I've written and published this post using Performancing. This gives Flock a run for its money, no question. How does it stack up against offline editors like ecto or BlogJet?
I'll play with it some more to get a sense of that.
[Edit] Ok, I'm editing from within TypePad. The post did publish fine but it did not carry through the categories I'd set. Those categories were shown in the post in the list of posts but did not appear in the published post. So manually fixed. Same problem I experienced with Flock last month.
One other thing, too - no means of pinging.
Still, a very impressive tool.
Just so you know it's not you, I found the exact same issue with the categories not coming through to the entry (but correct in the database). The Windows version of ecto had the same problem a few versions back, but I don't remember how he fixed it. In the meantime, I've been logging into Movable Type just to re-save the entry and get the category.
Posted by: Judi Sohn | 21 December 2005 at 04:45
No doubt a very cool tool I love all the things about Firefox and now I am in love with it even more. Thanks for posting the link and article about the extension!
Posted by: Ashley Bowers | 21 December 2005 at 15:39
Need spellchecking? The latest development build of SpellBound integrates seamlessly with this blogging tool.
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | 23 December 2005 at 05:45
Performancing is a nice add-in. For a *much* more advanced blog editor, check out RocketPost:
http://www.anconia.com/rocketpost
It has built-in photo editing, spell checking, auto linking to related posts, Technorati/Delicious tags, AutoCorrect, and lots more. (I designed it.)
Posted by: Manish | 23 December 2005 at 15:10