In search of . . . a good desktop blog editor [UPDATE]

So, I've been searching for a good Mac desktop blog editor, one that I can use to edit posts offline and then upload them, etc. While there are a number of choices available, nothing really stands out as a clear winner. In fact, of all the editors I have tried, there is always something wrong or missing about them.

MarsEdit looked like a good candidate -- good set of features, good looking, good integration. But for some reason, MarsEdit couldn't find the draft posts I had created through my blog's online editor and I couldn't find a way to alter the date and timestamp via the blog post editor.

Ecto found the draft posts without problem, but for some reason once it found it, it would never remove it from the list, even after I had deleted the post. It also refused to retitle an entry after I had renamed it. Granted it was a version 3 beta, but that was a deal killer as well. Also, I've got to say I'm not loving the interface or UI.

My hitherto favorite, the ScribeFire/Performancing extension/add-on to Firefox/Mozilla browsers was having troubles with my Blogger + custom domain + FeedBurner blog, such that it couldn't post entries. I think it was because it had replaced the Blogger feed automatically with the FeedBurner feed and was trying to use it that address for posting. I'll check back on it later to see if they've fixed the problem.

Right now, I'm trying out the Flock browser and its built-in blog editor features. I love the idea behind the Flock browser and I'm happy to see they've been tweaking and improving its feature set and interface. BUT (and this is a big, huge, fat caveat) I see they still haven't improved the blog editor -- all the things that annoyed me before, which resulted in me dropping Flock, still exist.

Flock's blog editor still doesn't have an intuitive or convenient method of pulling previously posted entries or drafts for editing. There should be at least a button on the toolbar, or how about having the blog button launch into a dialog window that lists all my blogs and then allows me to either select the blog I want to create an entry for or choose a previously posted entry / draft. Is that so hard?

(And to all you Flock evangelist out there trolling the blogs, "creating a post in Flock's blog editor, saving it as a local draft, and then opening it up to edit it" is not what I am talking about. That doesn't count. I want to pull any post from any of my blog easily and conveniently, whether they were created in Flock or not, and then edit them.)

Why hide the feature and make me go "choose Recent Blog Posts from the File menu" as Flock's help so kindly explains? (An option which, I might add, is actually missing from my version of the browser.)

Are these conscious decisions regarding the UI and feature set, or is blogging usability an afterthought in Flock's development roadmap? It makes me wonder if anyone there has ever actually used the blog editor, I mean REALLY used it, for day-to-day blogging . . . for more than just posting one-off, new entries or on more than just one blog.

And while I'm griping, where is the built-in spellchecker? If it's there as a feature for browsing, why isn't it in the blog editor, which is an arguably more important place for the feature? Also, why is there an annoying lag in the blog editor every 30 seconds or so? The whole herky-jerky typing thing gets old fast. Maybe all these things are in their release notes or on the bug list, but even so at a 1.0.1 version the usability issues should have been taken care of by now. It's a shame really, because Flock has a great number of compelling features that are well integrated for the most part. I love their media bar (for surfing photostreams,) integrated photo uploader, and their web clipboard features.

I dunno, maybe I just do things a little differently from everybody else. Sure I use a Mac now, but I switched after decades of using Windows and Linux, and there are still things just annoy me about the Mac UI and paradigm to computing. So maybe it's just me.

Wow, did I really write that much about Flock? Guess I had something to get off my chest. To be fair, for the price, Flock is a great application. I guess I just had high hopes that were not met, which just means even greater disappointment. Maybe in future versions, things will be sorted out. I hope so, but I really think they need to seriously reassess their blog editor.

[UPDATE]

Okay, after choosing to Publish this post, I am then presented with the option to "Publish as a new post" or "Replace existing post" -- so to clarify, you can "replace" an existing post with a newer post.

But I still see no way of selecting and editing a previously posted entry, rather than merely replace. To me, that is only half a blogging editor. (BTW, I had to use Blogger's online editor to edit this post. Natch.)

[UPDATE]

Oh, another clarification.

Flock does allow you to edit previously posted entries . . . sort of. The caveat here is, and it's a HUGE one, is that the so-called previous posts it allows you to edit, are in fact, only locally cached copies of prior entries created in, and then posted from, Flock.

This means that any changes you have made to the post, either through a blog's online editor, or via another desktop blog editor, will not appear in Flock. Nor is there any conceivable means of grabbing that updated entry via Flock's blogging features, save the inelegant but always available means of cut-and-paste. So if you ever only blog with and from Flock's editor, you're golden. But if you ever edit or post your entries by any other means, then you're out of luck.

If you're not convinced, then create an entry in Flock, post it, and then edit it via your blog's online editor and save. Then try to pull that updated entry for editing within Flock's blog editor. If you can figure it out, then let me know.

Otherwise, I suppose Flock might be useful for creating first drafts of entries, with final edits and polishes done through a blog's online editor.