{"id":9252,"date":"2006-08-01T13:50:34","date_gmt":"2006-08-01T20:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/08\/01\/so-why-do-i-put-up-with-ecto.html"},"modified":"2006-08-01T13:50:34","modified_gmt":"2006-08-01T20:50:34","slug":"so_why_do_i_put","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/01\/so_why_do_i_put.html","title":{"rendered":"So why do I put up with ecto?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tend to mutter and murmer and kvetch semi-silently about using ecto<\/a> (or other blogging clients), such that folks wonder why I use them in the first place. Or, as Doyce IMed, “I have a great tool I use for posting. It’s called Moveable Type.”<\/p>\n

So why do I actually use an external client, instead of MT’s web-based one?<\/p>\n

Like most things, it’s easier to bitch than to laud, so I should give some of the nice stuff back. I’d actually slated to do that during the Blogathon, but didn’t get around to it. So …<\/p>\n

The Good<\/strong>: Here’s a list of features ecto has that I find convenient (or that are unique to it vs. the MT Web interface).<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \nAs an external client, no web windows to inadvertently close or have crash. Easy to save drafts.And ecto has an auto-save feature so that ever X minutes my post gets saved, no worries. [As someone who leaves drafts open for a while, and who occasionally has a browser crash, this has saved my butt repeatedly.]<\/li>\n
  2. \nIntegrated listing of previous posts, so I can easily re-edit something.<\/li>\n
  3. \nFormatting buttons for bold\/italic\/underscore\/strikethru. Also for left\/center\/right\/justified paragraphs. Also for number points and bullet points. And blockquotes.\n<\/li>\n
  4. \nCustomizable hyperlink tool. [So I have have links open in new windows\/tabs.]<\/li>\n
  5. \nIntegrated upload tool, particularly for images. And it remembers the directory I want files loaded to. And it remembers the <div> text I want it surrounded in to make the floating right (or left) little shadow boxes. [Priceless.]<\/li>\n
  6. \nIntegrated customizable “now listening to” tool. [Which I use rarely.]<\/li>\n
  7. \nIntegrated Amazon search-and-link too. Do a search for something in Amazon, and auto-insert a (customized) text, graphic, or both link, including your affiliate ID. [I’ve not used this myself, just started looking at it today.]<\/li>\n
  8. \nOther, customizableHTML formatting blocks and\/or text blocks. Thetext blocks I used in my comics reviews over the Blogathon? A matter of a few minutes to set up, then I could replicate them all night long. And I can do it the same way the next time I edit a comic book review. [This is fabulously valuable to me, and worth nearly any inconvenience.]<\/li>\n
  9. \nRich Text editor, so that you can actually see the italics\/bolding\/etc. you’ve put it.<\/li>\n
  10. \nWeb preview, using your own CSS, so you can see how things actually will look (more or less) when posted.<\/li>\n
  11. \nIntegrated spelling checker.<\/li>\n
  12. \nFont and size control. [I don’t use them, since I’ve got stuff set up for this through CSS.]<\/li>\n
  13. \nPrevent posting without Categories and\/or Keywords being defined. [I set this on for Categories.]<\/li>\n
  14. \nAutomated e-mail notification to people of new posts. [I don’t use this.]<\/li>\n
  15. \nCustomizable conversion of keywords to Technorati tags. [Which I don’t use, but some folks would.]<\/li>\n
  16. \nEntry templates, if you do various similarly formatted posts. [Which I don’t use.]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Bad<\/strong>: I do mutter, and I do grumble. Here are some of the problems I’m presently havingwith ecto(most UI oddities, feature gaps, and bugs).<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \nEcto currently either sets the post date to when the post is first opened for drafting, or updates everything (new posts and edited posts) to the save date-time.\n<\/li>\n
    2. \nThe comments flag sometimes magically blips off.<\/li>\n
    3. \nThere are some strange performance issues, where the program will occasionally lock up (and lock up some other stuff, too) for 30 seconds or so.<\/li>\n
    4. \nBecause it’s natively a MacOS program, there are some odd interface gotchas.<\/li>\n
    5. \nDoesn’t do internal pings (trackbacks to other posts on my blog).<\/li>\n
    6. \nA few glitches here or there, esp. when I download a beta\/test version to play with.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Now, that all said, the programmer on this, Alex Hung,is very<\/em> responsive on the product forum, and I’ve rarely had a show-stopper for very long. And, the fact is, I can bridge over via the MT web interface when need be. Which sometimes I do anyway, if I’m just tweaking something minor on a post.<\/p>\n

      Ecto is a pay product, though pretty cheap ($18). I also recommend SharpMT<\/a>, which, except for the Rich Text \/ Preview features, does 95% of the above, is stable, and is free.<\/p>\n

      Now, are these tools absolutely necessary? Absolutely not. And if you’re a casual blogger — a post or two a day, tops, and just plain text, etc. — they’re probably not worth it. For me, though, they make my life a lot easier (when they cough<\/em> work), and whatever pains I have with them are more than compensated by the pleasures and power they bestow.<\/p>\n

      And that’s why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I tend to mutter and murmer and kvetch semi-silently about using ecto (or other blogging clients), such that folks wonder why I use them in the first place. Or, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-my-computer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9489,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/06\/27\/on_a_roll_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":9252,"position":0},"title":"On a roll","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Jun-06 9:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, BD's blog is evidently now showing up in Blogrolling.com update list, but my blogs are not. The only distinction I can think of is that I use the ecto...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9487,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/06\/27\/client_problems.html","url_meta":{"origin":9252,"position":1},"title":"Client problems","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Jun-06 1:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Downloaded the newest version of ecto (2.0), and am less-then-whelmed.\u00a0 The rich text editor sounds nifty, but is kind\u00a0of ugly to work\u00a0with.\u00a0 I'm going to see what sort of...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11898,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/05\/testing_ecto.html","url_meta":{"origin":9252,"position":2},"title":"Testing Ecto","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-Jan-08 4:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It looks like Ecto should work with MT4, but let me check. There are some very nice new features with the MT online editor that I'll be checking out...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8873,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/03\/31\/comments.html","url_meta":{"origin":9252,"position":3},"title":"Comments","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 31-Mar-06 9:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My blogging client, ecto, is occasionally default to Comments = None mode when making posts. Thus, occasionally posts seem closed to comments. Since I think I have posted only a...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10043,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/18\/test_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":9252,"position":4},"title":"Test","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Sep-06 7:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a test ... UPDATE: Okay, I've gotten ecto back working with my blog. In an annoying twist, WS_FTP again failed to properly copy over some of the files...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12390,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/15\/ecto_morph.html","url_meta":{"origin":9252,"position":5},"title":"Ecto morph","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-May-08 11:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"*sigh*\u00a0 I've been using Ecto as a blogging tool for a couple of years now. It's a nice offline blogging client with some features I can't imagine living without. 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