Well, this is my first post with Qumana (Version 3 beta 1), a free desktop offline blog post editor. It’s pretty cool, though I do have some issues with it.
Feature wise, it does everything you would expect, offering a basic editor with the ability to format text, add links and images and so on; as well as more blog specific stuff like adding categories to posts and trackback URLs, etc.
Setting it up is very easy, and BlogJet could learn a thing or two from Qumana on this aspect. There’s no need to tell it what platform I am using, nor the location of my xmlrpc.php file. It sorts all that out for me. Cool. Also, the speed at which posts are visible on the blog is a lot quicker than BlogJet – which for some reason takes ages to appear.
Two features of Qumana stand out. One is the ‘droppad’ which sits on the desktop while Qumana is running, and onto which you can drag text and images. Then, the next time you create a new blog post, all that stuff appears automatically. Fairly cool idea, but in reality you are going to spend more time sorting out the formatting and layout of all this stuff you have dumped than you would if you had don it manually from the off. Second, Qumana offers a bespoke blog advertising programme called AdGenta which fills your blog posts with contextual adverts. Hmmm. Not one for me, I must admit.
The main problem for me with Qumana is the speed. It takes too long to load in the first place and then there seems to be some sort of weird delay when typing, which may have something to do with the spell checker. Also, for some reason, ctrl-backspace doesn’t delete a whole word. Grrr.
Overall, it’s interesting. For those who aren’t sure whether they need an offline post editor it is a good bet to try first, as it’s free. But BlogJet will still be my number one choice for speed and simplicity.
Powered by Qumana
Also, when I posted the above, an error message displayed, but the post appeared fine. Not sure what that was about.
Hi Dave, We’ve found and fixed the WordPress bug you came across … drove me nuts for a bit …
The delay in typing is from the spell checker … try turning off check as you type. For speed of launch … yes we’re working on that too.
What would be a feature that would get you to move from BlogJet (which I agree is also a good editor)?
Thank you for trying Qumana out.
Rest assured, Dave, that we will be poring through your post and the feedback to see what we can improve about yours (and others’) experience.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the comments.
We’ll be releasing a new version soon which should fix the error you saw when posting.
We’ll keep listening to user feedback to improve the program and hopefuly will convince you to make Qumana your #1 blog editor 🙂
Thanks again!
Crikey, well, chaps, ten out of ten to paying attention to what users are saying!
I think I was a little negative in my views above, and of course I appreciate that this is a product that still in beta.
I’m not sure how keen I am on the interface – those big yellow and green buttons are very friendly, but they do make the editor window look a little untidy to me. With BlogJet, everything is in line and it is very small and compact, which appeals to me.
But I might carry on using Qumana for a little while to see how things go – I am interested in the tagging – how does this work? Are they inserted into the ping to technorati somehow, or do they appear in the body of the post itself?
Oh tags are so simple. Click the insert tags button (it’s green) put your tags in, separated by commas like Qumana,blog editor,Dave Briggs click okay and the tags will be inserted into the post (at the insertion point).
You can ping Technorati, if you’d like … add them to the ping list … (Preferences) http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping/
Tris
Oh and a new beta2 will be out soon that fixes some bugs with WP especially.