Red Sweater software has released a new version of its flagship weblog editor, MarsEdit. MarsEdit 2.1 brings several notable changes including the most user-requested feature: support for remote draft posts.
Previous versions of MarsEdit would save a local copy of draft posts, but there was no way to upload a draft to your server without having it appear live on your blog. MarsEdit 2.1 solves that problem.
Other new features include a much improved search interface that behaves similarly to Apple's Mail.app, better tag support that now distinguishes between categories and tags, as well as some slick new preview templates.
The big news for most users though is undoubtedly the draft posting support. Without it anything you start to create in MarsEdit isn't visible via your web interface, should you, for instance, decide to finish a post later on a different computer.
Unfortunately the new draft posting capabilities in MarsEdit are far from perfect, though the shortcomings have nothing to do with MarsEdit.
The problem lies with the various blogging platforms, particularly the way Movable Type and WordPress handle remotely posted drafts. WordPress users will see a fix for this issue in version 2.5 when it's released (tentatively March 2008). In the meantime Daniel Jalkut, the founder of Red Sweater Software, has posted a simple workaround.
With Movable Type the situation is a bit more complex and will require you to edit your blog configuration file. See Jalkut's post for more details.
The new draft features work flawlessly in Blogger and any other platform using a similar Atom publishing interface.
MarsEdit 2.1 is a free upgrade for existing users and a new copy will set you back $30.
See Also:
