Maria’s Guides

An offline blogging tool that makes my life so much easier.

I’ve been using ecto by Adriaan Tijsseling for composing blog entries for my WordPress-based blogs and Web sites for well over a year now. It enables me to keep my blog up-to-date without using the Web-based Write Post form.

Although I’ve written about ecto here and here and I’ve also written about it in our WordPress 2 book, I thought I’d take a moment to bring readers up to date. ecto 3.0 is now pretty far along in the beta process — I just downloaded beta 12 — and it’s shaping up to be a much improved, intuitive blogging tool.

Compatibility

I do need to mention a few things about compatibility here. ecto 3 is a Mac OS X application. Although ecto 2.3 is available for Windows users (ported by Alex Hung), I have not tried it. I’m not sure if the plan is to create a Windows version of ecto 3.0 or not. So for now, its an application primarily geared toward Mac OS users. You can learn more about the evolution of ecto in the article, “Evolution of code.”

ecto also works with more than just WordPress. In fact, it works with all the blogging platforms I’ve heard of — and more. So although I use it with my WordPress blogs, it’s not just a WordPress tool.

What It Does

ecto offers a complete offline editing environment. You can choose from composing/editing with a Rich Text Editor that shows WYSIWYG formatting of your entries or an HTML editor, which lets you code to your heart’s content. SInce I never really trust a Rich Text Editor to get the code the way I want it, I use the HTML editor — although I’m thinking about giving the other editor a try. (Soon. Maybe.)

ecto’s Rich Text Editor

ecto’s HTML Editor, which is my currently preferred view

Either way, the editing window works like most other text editors. It has spell-check as you type, find and replace, and word count features. You can save posts as you work on them to prevent data loss or work on a post over a long period of time. (I sometimes start a post when I have an idea for one, then save it as a draft in ecto and come back to complete it days or weeks later.)

ecto also has tools for inserting and uploading images — with a wide range of options for setting a position and size. I didn’t have much luck with this feature in ecto 2 — although I admit I didn’t try very hard — but it works very well in ecto 3. You can also use a Media window to insert audio, photos, or video into a blog post. ecto inserts or embeds the media properly.

One of my favorite tools is the Amazon Helper. This feature makes it very easy to insert links to items on Amazon.com with links, images, or both. You have complete control over how the link appears. Best of all, your Amazon Associates ID is automatically inserted in each link.

ecto has many customization features that enable you to fine-tune its operations so it works the way you want it to. For example, you can created custom HTML tags and assign shortcut keys and toolbar buttons to them. This makes it very easy to insert any code you like. You can also specify CSS styles and template settings so the preview of your post — or the editing view, if you’re using Rich Text Editing — looks more like an entry in your blog.

But what I think I like most about ecto is its ability to store copies of all of my blog’s entries — and there are over 2,000 of them these days — on my computer’s hard disk. This makes it extremely easy to link to past posts as I compose new ones. It also makes it possible to pull up an old entry, update it, and republish. And offline editing is extremely useful when I travel, since I don’t always have an Internet connection. I can compose a blog entry on a plane or in my hotel room with my little PowerBook and upload it to my blog when a connection is available.

Give It a Try

If you’re not 100% happy with the Web-based post editor of your blogging tool, I encourage you to give ecto a try. There’s a free 21-day trial period that should give you enough time to put it through its paces. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

And I don’t think the $17.95 price tag will put you in the poorhouse, either.