I’ve been using Mars Edit since it was part of NetNewsWire. It’s an excellent, stand-alone editor for blog posts, with all kinds of cool features. So I wasn’t aware of the problems Safari users are having with WordPress.
While I sometimes use the web editor for my WordPress blogs, especially when I need to include an image from my online photo albums, I’ll always use Mars Edit when I can.
What’s more, I seldom use Safari; OmniWeb is my main browser of choice, though I also use Flock quite often for browsing.
WordPress and the web editor
If you do decide to write WordPress posts in your web browser, the first thing to do is turn off the stupid Visual Rich Editor, or you’re likely to go postal. Maria and I wrote about how to do this in our book WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide. Look at pages 26 and 27 to get started.
I also avoid using Flock for writing posts as it seems to just mess up what I write, whatever I do. OmniWeb works nicely though.
But the best choice of all is separate software, such as Mars Edit or Ecto. Daniel Jalkut, author of Mars Edit, explains more of the web editor problem, in The Broken Web Editor:
Recently there has been an increase of new MarsEdit buyers who cite as their motivation a frustration with the WordPress web editor. I respect and admire the WordPress team. In fact, their web interface is among the best out there. But even in the best of circumstances, it’s hard to compete with the usability of a desktop app. And when something goes bad, it becomes downright impossible.
Currently the situation is especially bad for people who use WordPress with Safari. For whatever reason these two pieces of software have fallen slightly out of accord. It’s common to hear tale of people who use Safari for “everything but WordPress.” In short, WordPress has a reputation for messing up or even eliminating parts of your post when using the web-based editor in Safari. I know, because I see the comments of my customers and would-be customers on the web. There is a chorus of confirmation for this problem.
I look forward to WordPress and Safari to ironing out their differences.
[Via Red Sweater Blog: The Broken Web Editor.]
Ways to solve the web editor problem
So, if you’re working with WordPress, which is, after all, about the best blogging platform, here are some steps to take to make the experience even better:
- if writing posts via the web interface, turn off the Visual Rich Editor, and use OmniWeb rather than Flock or Safari
- use Mars Edit instead of the web interface
- use some other stand-alone editor.
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