Disruptive Conversations

Mac users out there... what's the best offline editor you have found for blogging? I've been using ecto for the past two weeks and started with it primarily only because I was familiar with it from the Windows side (where I'd actually moved to using Windows Live Writer almost exclusively). My trial period for ecto is winding down and so I have to decide whether to buy it or try something else. So I'm curious to ask you all:

If you are on a Mac, what do you use as an offline blog editor?

Are there other programs out there I should consider? I've actually been quite happy with ecto with only three smaller issues:

1. I like to include graphics at the beginning of my posts and like to right-align the images. If I put the image at the very beginning of a paragraph (which I often do with the first paragraph, but also may do so in the body of longer articles), the HTML code is initially like this:

<p><img ...... align="right">....

And this usually works fine if I just write the entry in ecto and then immediately publish it. However, if I save the entry as a draft and then re-open it, or if I open up a published draft to edit it again, ecto automagically changes the HTML code to this:

<p style="text-align:right"><img ...... align="right">....

which, yes, indeed, right-justifies the TEXT of the paragraph. If I click in the paragraph and press the left-align button, it goes back to normal left alignment - until the next time I open it up. I have, however, forgotten to do so several times and wound up with right-aligned text. Clearly a bug and one I'll be reporting to the ecto folks.

2. ecto does not support horizontal lines (<hr>) in its rich text editor and so if I want to use one (for instance, to separate an "UPDATE" piece of text from the main body) I have to switch to the HTML view - and remain in that view - or do the edit in TypePad's web interface.

3. At least with TypePad blogs, it seems to set the time of the article to when I start writing it. However, when I go to publish the article, ecto does not seem to update the time. If I'm writing and immediately posting an article, the time it took to write the article is not necessarily a big deal, although it certainly could affect the placement of the article in sites like Technorati or other sites that list current articles (i.e. it will show up earlier than it actually was). However, when I work on a draft, save it and then come back to it a day or two later, I've been bitten several times by the fact that it posts with the original date... resulting in my "new" article not appearing at the top of the blog. I now have to remember to click the "Adjust Time" button before I go to post an article, which is something I really shouldn't have to do. There should be some way to have it just automagically post with the current time. (And perhaps there's an option here I've missed.)

Those are the only real issues I've had beyond the normal having to learn a new interface, new keyboard shortcuts, etc. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the editor. It's worked well and unless someone can point me to something better I'll probably pay to continue using it. I would, however, be curious to know:

What do YOU use for posting blog entries from your Mac?

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