I’m totally geeking over MarsEdit right now. MarsEdit is the desktop blogging client that I recently started using with my site. I’ve considered moving to a desktop blogging client instead of typing in the text field of a web browser for a while. I never made the jump though since I had a hard time finding a tool that I really liked. MarsEdit seems to fit the bill really well.

The first criteria for me was full support for WordPress, particularly the native tagging feature added in 2.3 and thankfully MarsEdit ticked this box right away. The other major editor I worked with at length was ecto and it sadly didn’t do this yet. Tsk tsk…

So why shell out some good PayPal dollars for a desktop blogging client? Here are my reasons…

Editing

Can we really think that editing even more than a single paragraph in the text field of a browser is passable? Even with great add-ons like TinyMCE it really is only workable for a simple comment at best. Using a desktop blogging client I get a much more powerful and workable editor.

It’s not just doing the editing on the Mac or PC either. MarsEdit is using the editor you like for what you want to do. For example, I’m doing almost all of my blogging in the distraction free, completely uncluttered environment of WriteRoom. (I’ll do a post on WriteRoom soon too.)

Next time your typing a post in a text field, try putting in a tab. :-)

Drafting

I’m a big “drafter”. I have 10 or more blog posts in draft status with different levels of completion at any time. Sometimes it’s a title with a three word reminder. I may have a long post that has been refined a few times waiting. I haven’t found any web-based admin interfaces that make working with multiple drafts really nice.

Live Previewing

One of the great features of MarsEdit is the ability to have the text open and editing, and in another window next to it have a live preview of the rendered HTML. This makes blogging in raw HTML actually work.

Why blog in HTML? I shrugged off this recommendation for a long time. My opinion was that I shouldn’t have to write in HTML anymore than I should have to know the ASCII codes for all the letter I’m typing. However, I’m a convert. The control it affords you, and the ability to avoid the damage that a rich editor would do to embed codes is a big win.

Other Stuff

There are other reasons to use a desktop client that are less about writing to me. You can post to one of several blogs you have in one tool. That’s great, if you have multiple blogs. This means I’ll likely actually put something up at MinneLightroom now and again.

I give MarsEdit two thumbs up. If you are a blogger, and you use a Mac, go download the demo and give it a go. As they say, YMMV.