ecto for Windows Blows
August 10, 2005
I’ve been using ecto on my Mac at home and at the office. Recently I got Ken setup with a WordPress site, and put ecto on his desktop for managing his content. I assumed it would be as simple as on the Mac and he’d really like it. A few days later he told me ecto was worthless and he didn’t like it. I thought he just didn’t get it.
I was wrong.
While out in Salt Lake I figured I’d use ecto on my PC laptop. The windows version of ecto is complete garbage. It crashes if you look at it funny, there is no technorati tag support, and the WYSIWYG editor is weak at best. ecto on the mac is not perfect, but the PC version is worthless.
My search begins for a Windows alternative.
Read some reviews from CMS Wire. Sadly they give ecto a 9/10 which is concerning for the others who all scored less…
Other PC desktop blogging options I’m going to try:
BlogJet
Thingamablog
WB Editor
w.bloggar
Update:
BlogJet, $39.95, doesn’t ping any services. Verdict: junky.
Thingamablog, crashes on open. Couldn’t even evaluate. Verdict: complete trash.
WB Editor: $19.99, doesn’t auto ping external sevices (technorati, etc.). Verdict: no good.
w.bloggar: Can’t edit previous posts. best potential. Verdict: sad.
There has to be something out there… Still searching…
Tags: blog, blogging, desktop blogging, ecto, mac, mac software, pc, software
Comments
16 Responses to “ecto for Windows Blows”
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Glad it’s not just me. I also found PC Ecto useless and abandoned it as quickly as I could delete it.
I’m actually fairly satisfied with the built-in composition page, but spell check and technorati would both be advantageous.
Yeah, spell check, WYSIWYG, technorati, and drag and drop image inserts is all I need. Unfortunately no one (other than Mac ecto) is delivering all that. So annoying…
As I recall, Ecto for Windows isn’t a port of any kind. It was originally a project named “Typewriter” created by a fellow named Alex Hung. As I understand it the Ecto for Mac folks basically invited Alex to start coding Typewriter to offer the same features as the Mac version and change the name. It started off promising, but these days Ecto for Windows is pretty crappy. I’m stunned they’re actually charging money for it.
As for w.bloggar, it should be able to edit existing posts if you’re using the MetaWeblog API. I do it all the time using it with my installation of ExpressionEngine.
Both spellcheck and drag-drop image are supported. Only Technorati and WYSIWYG are not and they are in development. It would be very helpful to me (and to other ecto users, current and future) if you send me information regarding the crashes.
Yeah, I know that the DnD image and spellcheck work. Its really the Technorati support (and I’d love other ping services) and WYSIWYG that I feel it falls short on. Even those I wouldn’t be so annoyed about if they didn’t exist on the mac side.
I’ll reinstall and see if I can reproduce the crashes again. Sadly, ecto for Windows is in fact better than any of the other desktop blogging tools I’ve found, so I was going to give it another shot anyway.
So I just reinstalled, and sure enough the spplication won’t even open. Shows up in my start bar, but the app window never appears. Not a crash per se, but actually more annoying.
Somehow everyone complains about how there “is just not as many applications for Mac as their are for Windows.” To them I always say “Yeah, but why in the hell would you want all that crap that’s out there for windows?”
People write software for windows because it makes them money. People write GPL software for UNIX because they love to write software, and people write software for Mac because they like the Mac, like to write software, and hope to make buck or two at it.
End result: Most software for windows is crap, while most software for GPL UNIX and Mac is quite good. Get used to it people… When you use a crappy OS, you get crappy software.
I think you pretty much summed it up there Cliff. I just wish work allowed us to have Mac laptops and not require everything to be PC. In fact, a Powerbook would have been cheaper than a Dell Latitude…
Oh, but wait… IBM is a business machine, right???? And all businesses should be using IBM or IBM clone machines because they are for businesses shouldn’t they?
I wonder if anyone has figured out the cost of all the frusterations and crashes caused by windows over the years?
I’d even go so far as to say that our national economy would improve if all these corporations switched to Mac.
Among the problems I had with Ecto for Windows was the point that the help button didn’t work durring the setup tasks. I may have been configuring it wrong, but how would I know since I couldn’t get help.
While there are (sparesely populated) discussions available for support I found as a whole there was very little documentation available for this product.
I hope these factors can be resolved as there is a lot of potential here. Unfortunately when i am unable to even get a product to run correctly once, I am more likely to abandon it than to give feedback (especially when I am expected to pay for it.)
I tried posting to my SquareSpace blog with ecto on Mac OS X Tiger. First ecto could not get the recent posts because of some date formatting error. Squarespace has date tags like this 2005-07-17T20:25:08Z and the log says: ecto[28619] *** -[NSCFString dateWithCalendarFormat:timeZone:]: selector not recognized [self = 0xa2865828].
Then I couldn’t edit/post follow-ups to my posts.
FYI, w.bloggar 4.0 can edit past posts. From the Posts drop down menu on the toolbar, or via the Tools–>Posts menu. :)
One thing I haven’t been able to find in w.bloggar yet though is support for Blogger’s individual post templates (not the main or archive templates).
This one is for Windows - Blog Writer from Zoundry (www.zoundry.com). Supports wysiwyg, trackback and pinging et. On the downside - Spellcheck not supported :( but in the works. No html source code editing in the current release :( Its beta (and free).
I’d just like to point out that ecto for windows still blows. Where’s that update?
Jon, which version did you tried? And please define ‘blows’? :-) I have a vested interest in getting the app better and better but if the feedback I get is ‘it blows’, I won’t know where to concentrate my effort apart from doing general improvement and adding new features. Is there a bug(s) that makes it not work for you? Is it the way it works? Please I need more information. And I am not talking about writing an essay, just a short paragraph or two to point me at the right direction.
zbtirrell, have you looked at this thread in the support forum for your issue?
I am currently working on the WYSIWYG editor and the Technorati tags support has been available for awhile. Since September, in fact.
[...] Alex, the lead developer for ecto for Windows, has commented a few times on my ecto for Windows Blows post. I figured they’ve been through a few versions and it was time for me to give them another shot. Alex seems to be putting a lot of care into the product, and as a developer myself, I know how frustrating it can be to get either useful feedback or overly generalized complaints (a la something “blows”). I hadn’t looked at it since August, so why not. [...]