RejectReality

Cindy comments:

/wonders what MarsEdit is all about and why you haven’t told me about it. Does it build a better mousetrap (aka blog?)

Something tells me this is going to be a long one.

I’ll answer the easy bit first, I hadn’t mentioned it because I’m slack
*ahem*

Now we’ve got that out admission of the way…

Put as simply as possible, MarsEdit is a text editor with extra brains installed for how to talk to blogs. That description doesn’t really do it justice, though.

First, permit me a minor tangent.

Think about your typical blog post; it’s got a bit of text, a quote from somewhere else, maybe a couple of images and a few links.

It’s pretty simple stuff.

Now, think how you would compile such a post using your favourite blog software:

For your text, your blog software invariably comes with a web-based form to write your posts and edit existing content.

Quoting stuff is easy - copy’n'paste your quote, then go back to pick up the referring link. You do link to your sources, right?
For your images, you either need to FTP them to your web server or use your blog software’s upload facility. If you’re a Flickr user, you can use their upload facility which will provide you with a nice bit of HTML to copy’n'paste into your blog software’s post composition function.

Links are pretty similar to quotes; a few copy’n'pastes are all you need there.

Of course, all this good stuff is only useful when you have internet access; if you’re offline, you need to use something else to store your post like Notepad, TextEdit, or (heaven forbid) Word.

For something pretty simple, it’s spread all over the joint. Upload here, copy’n'paste half a dozen things between browser windows over there, wrap links in “A” tags if your software doesn’t already do it, find some way of getting your images up to your server.

Finally, and to bring that tangent back to the main point of this post …

What if you didn’t have to do all that? Would that make your posting life any easier?

MarsEdit doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t already do before. It just does it better. It’s simple, it combines multiple other tools’ functionality into one utility and it makes sure I don’t have to think more than I really need to.

Believe me - that last one’s a real valuable point
Here’s the MarsEdit way of doing things:

Say you want to quote a website or respond to one on your own blog. Highlight the bits you want to quote and use a MarsEdit bookmarklet to start a new post, automatically populated with your quote and attribution details already organised.

It links up with your Flickr account; post your image to Flickr, and use MarsEdit’s Media Manager to browse your photostream, pick your image and drop it in a new post.

Don’t use Flickr? No matter - I don’t either. If your blog software supports file upload via XML-RPC, MarsEdit will automate the upload, obtain the link to the final file and drops it into the new post for you. WordPress supports this; check your blog software to see if yours does.

Want to make links? Copy the link from your browser, select “paste link” in MarsEdit and it will automatically wrap your link in the right HTML tags to make it work.

Custom HTML/CSS fragments. I use a small bit of CSS and HTML on each post to place an image at the top which is linked off to either another site or a bigger copy of the image. Every single time I need to grab it out of my notes because I can never remember it. Now I don’t have to; I’ve inserted the custom fragment into MarsEdit as a template so I can paste at will.

It’s got offline support built in. You’re working on a local draft until you’re ready to publish. Hit the magic button and it automates the post upload and publish mechanism for you.

And the coolest thing?

Live preview of your post, including formatting and CSS, in the style of your blog. Go on - click that image to the right; that screenshot was taken before this was published (although don’t worry if you see a different header image — they’re randomised; you’ll get that one eventually).

The live preview feature takes a few minutes to set up, but it’s well worth it. Even better, the preview template is stored for offline use.

Pretty neat, eh?

So, here’s the rub.

Does it build a better mousetrap? In and of itself, I’d have to answer that with a “probably not”; improving your writing and content will take care of polishing up that mousetrap for you.

The better question would be, if you already have the plans for a better mousetrap, does it make it easier to assemble it?

The short answer is “yes, absolutely”.

The slightly longer answer will involve me stealing a quote from the guy behind MarsEdit, Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. MarsEdit will make you a more prolific blogger. I’ve seen it time and time again.

MarsEdit makes it quicker and easier to throw a new post together and put it out to see what the world thinks.

To continue that quote from above:

… it reduces the psychological burden of blogging.

By reducing the burden, you post more. You post more, you get better. You get better, more people read. The more people read, the more warm and fuzzies you get. The more warm and fuzzies you get, the more you post.

It’s a (vicious) circle
Although I’m just (re-)starting out, I’m already seeing that this is helping me post more, and hopefully keeping more than the spam bots entertained.

Go check it out for yourself; you’ll get to play for 30 days for free. It supports all the usual culprits; Blogger, Drupal, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Wordpress, TypePad, plus others.

If you like it, throw a few bucks Daniel’s way and make sure to tell him I sent you in the comments for your order. You (and I) won’t get anything out of it, but I’m sure it’ll make him feel good.

And, honestly, who doesn’t like an ego stroke at the end of the day?