Apart from when I’m travelling, computer-less, every post seen on this blog since January 2005 has been composed with BlogJet - an off-line composition tool. BlogJet 2 has just been released but I’ve been running the beta for several months. The beta has been painless and the new features have really enhanced BlogJet. If you are an existing BlogJet user or considering an off-line blogging tool it’s worth trying.
So what do I like about BlogJet 2?
- New interface: The choice of Office, Windows or Vista “style” UI. I believe it’s also Vista OS compatible but not running that so can’t comment.
Post History in the Cache: A user specified number of posts are cached locally. You can edit these while off-line and repost which may be useful for mobile users. I’ve tried caching up to 200 posts with no problems at all.
- Save as draft, post as draft, post for future: Of course you can also create drafts, saved locally, ready for posting. These can be posted as draft or for a future publication date (with TypePad)
- Post Tags: Support for tags is built in. The default is Technorati tags but this can be customised should you wish. I still use Categories as an overall filing tool, they become TypePad Category archives, but add post specific tags to assist searches.
- YouTube Support: Adding a YouTube control is simply a matter of copying the URL into the Insert YouTube Dialog. The control is inserted and can be run in the draft before posting.
- Flikr Images: Direct access from the Insert Picture dialog.
- Recent Post
Search: You can rapidly search cached posts and . This is really nice as a filtering tool.
- Post Categories Sorted!: Categories always worked fine but now are shown alpha sorted, rather than the order they were created. This little change makes a huge difference!
BlogJet is a must have and this upgrade retains it’s ease of use while adding useful new features . Many complaints I see about blogging relate to the hassles of on-line composition; lost posts and limited capability of the host platform editors.
BlogJet frees you of all that! Its easier, and quicker, to compose better looking content in a simple WYSIWYG editor then post it when it suits you. View a video demo and get BlogJet trial at http://www.blogjet.com!
What about a Coding Robot? BlogJet is now a product of a new company — Coding Robots. Dmitry, BlogJet’s author, is Chief Executive Robot…
PS: If you have an “Upgraded Blogger” blog: I have a simple Blogger Blog (mainly so I can assist friends with Blogger Blogs) but had some trouble getting BlogJet to talk to it. The problem was it had been upgraded to “The New Blogger”.
- You need to delete and recreate existing BlogJet Blogger Accounts for “Upgraded” Blogs.
- The Blogger upgrade had also left some old api related code in my template which tripped up BlogJet post caching. If you strike this just switch your blog to a basic template, save the changes, then pick a new one as they are clean.
Disclosure: As a Beta tester I received a complimentary upgrade to BlogJet 2.