Here’s a quick one: If you had access to a desktop application that could connect to your WordPress site and allow you to manage it, like the web-based control panel currently allows, would you use it?
If you choose “depends”, let me know why in the comments. Also, feel free to put in your opinions no matter what you choose. What would such an application need to be able to do? Everything the web-based app can do? Just a subset of the features? What do you think?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!
Well, Windows Live Writer gives you most of what you need to just blog. I’ve used that on occasion, but nothing beats the actual back end. I suppose I would use a “WinPress” (don’t have mac or *nix, otherwise it would be MacPress or *NixPress) if it had enough of the advanced features, could be used offline (the most important use of a desktop app), and integrated changes I made to the site seamlessly.
I’d probably opt for better google gears integration though.
It depends. I use Windows Live Writer, and it works really well. The ability to compose offline, with photos inserted, is a nice feature. When I am on the road and without a connection, I can write posts in draft form with a publish date, and then publish when I find a connection. Everything posts the way it should.
I really think the offline capabilities are the most important aspect for a desktop application. –Brent
I would definitely use it if they made it right. The problem with most desktop applications is that they don’t work with today’s complex themes. Most themes have custom fields that need to be filled in and the applications are missing support for the custom fields.
Windows live writer is the best free one but I have a Mac now and it’s useless to me. There are no good free ones for Mac that I’ve liked.
Absolutely as long as it cut down on all those page refreshes and reloads and I ended up with a better, faster user experience. I’d be all over this.
Absolutely. It should duplicate all of the Dashboard function plus:
*be a mirror of the remote site so as to act as a fast local copy and a backup
*be able to preview locally in the browser (rewriting sitewide links on the fly so they resolve correctly)
*intelligently compress/decompress files on up/download for faster transfer
The mirror function would also be my main feature. I was wondering for a long time why there’s not yet a Plugin that those the mirror from an online version of your site to a local install on your machine.
Yeah – I would definitely like a mirror function. Currently, I do one manually, and it is a pain.
Regarding the main point of a desktop front end – I would definitely use it provided it was “done right”. For me that means:
– No deadly or crippling bugs
– Enhanced post editing ability (easy preview etc)
– Ability to use it as a replacement for the dashboard type function.
I would think something cross-platform (maybe Java) would be an excellent idea.
This would be really good.
But I think it’s just not the case.
WordPress is a web application. The focus should be on making it better and not to develop a desktop app to mimic the admin.
We are at the Webapp age. We should not think backwards!
What would be really good is a professional theme development app for wordpress.
This would be really useful. It could be just a plugin for some IDE like eclipse or Netbeans, but it must be full featured with the ability to preview the theme on the fly without the need to upload files or maintaining a local development server.
I agree with this – we’re moving more and more to an always-online age. Time spent developing this doesn’t seem like a good long-term investment. Is there any dev going into a droid interface?
I am always looking for a better way for groups of people to work on one blog. If it enables better collaboration, and a smart UI, then I’d be all over using it and promoting it around the newsroom.
Some of our writers connect to the blog with MS Word 2008, others have tried ScribeFire, but the UI is so confusing and error prone. Windows Live Writer is great if you are on a PC, but now days people are moving over to Apple.
The main problem that a desktop app could solve would be to enable smarter collaboration among a group of people. In fact, there are a number of apps out there that already do collaboration really well (Google Docs, Evernote, Drop.io etc…) they just need to be convinced to add a feature to connect to a blog and save it as a draft.
I’m 99.999% sure I would use it, and if it had the same interface (like, a real POST app, versus the Quick Post we have on the dash, which I never use), then yes, a thousand times.
Do I need it? Heck no! But I’d use it if I had it.
I use Windows Live Writer currently – but that can only be used for blog/pages and nothing else. A desktop application would be HUGE and very helpful.
I will love to have it on my desktop.. Probably thats why I use WLW..
If it had a simplified control set and the ability to use it offline, otherwise I’m not sure what the point would be.
No, I wouldn’t use it. I really don’t see the point for it and I very much doubt it would be programmed right to allow for multiple blogs and MU sites.
The WordPress team has enough to work on to make WordPress better like the much needed fix to allow WordPress/WordpressMU to be multilingual on install (like Qtranslate plugin but without breaking Buddypress pages). No reason to waste resources on applications when people can just log in and work.
The desktop app would have to allow greater functionality for post editing etc…
I write posts in WLW so that part is irrelevant for me. Rest is mostly managing comments and plugins.
Overall I’d say I could use a desktop app OR wp+gears support in Opera. I am fine with functionality of admin part of WP but it could sure use speed boost.
Maybe instead of a Yes I should have said Depends. I’d rather use a desktop client than a web browser, mostly for performance reasons — but it would really need to encompass the full posting technology (and extensibility) of the WP client or more.
I currently use Linear (formerly Ecto for Windows), but have been toying with trying to use web post editor more.
I’ve written tools that let corporations do this but, at the end of the day, most people would probably never be happy with any desktop application mainly because of all the plugins it would/could/might need to support. The various SEO plugins all add something to the post screen, as well as several of the special formatting plugins. It would be an absolute nightmare if someone were to try and accommodate just a small portion of the popular ones.
Of course, the argument could be made to leave it open for plugin developers to create their own desktop-plugin for the WordPress plugin, but something tells me very few people would be on board for such a thing :/
I don’t see a reason to use a desktop application. In my opinion, the webinterface is good enough, doesn’t lack of any feature that a desktop app would provide and is platform independant already. I use the iPhone application on the other hand quite often since it really is much more convenient on the small display.
It would depend upon what it does. If it improved the user experience in terms of speed, maybe. That’s the only benefit I see unless I’m missing something. I manage so many different sites in so many locations though I’m not convinced it would be worth the resources to maintain.
Yes and just thought I’d second Jeff’s comment. Speed is the essence here.
I voted “depends” as it would need to offer more than existing desktop applications (and since I can’t afford an iPhone I don’t know what the iPhone version does) and it would need to be available for the Mac (not just Windows).
Thanks, Gary
If it allowed you to switch between diffrent installations then it would rock – i use about 7 diff WP sites and would like to be able to switch between them all.
Would definitely use it as long as it has all the exact features, options and functionalities of the actual web-based control panel minus the page reloads and refreshes that Jeff mentioned.
I prefer to write posts and manage my blogs online, but it is time consuming to switch between them, logging in and out. It would be nice to have a lightweight version for writing posts, but with the same look and feel of the online version.
However, from the development standpoint, compatibility issues would be high – it has to work across Linux, Mac, and Windows. Therefore, the only solution that would “potentially” work would be using Adobe AIR, although this platform really wouldn’t be desirable from the writing/management standpoint.
Any method of faster post management and writing would be ideal, and benefit the most users.
Depends because I have 150 plus websites all based on WordPress. Would I be able to select a website from a list or menu? And also if it was fast.
It all depends. Windows Live Writer is used from the desktop, but it doesn´t work well. No tags, categories are yucky, it inserts a lot of shit into the post when it is published and such.
Thus I don´t like it.
If there ever is a application that works like wordpress does online, where you seamlessly can add categories, tags or whatnot, adding images is as easy as one two three.
Let me just write it down, wordpress offline.
If such a application is ever created, then yes I will use such a application. If the application doesn´t work to my standards, then no I will not use such a application.
> Windows Live Writer is used from the desktop, but it doesn´t work well. No tags, categories are yucky, it inserts a lot of shit into the post when it is published and such.
Are you using WLW from parallel universe or something? 🙂 There is support for tags, don’t understand “yucky” but there is support for categories as well and I don’t remember anything showing up in my posts except what I typed.
There are some annoying issues in it, but I am really puzzled where you got these from.
manga – Sounds like you’re using a very old version of WLW. The latest version is directly supported by WordPress (has been for some time), has very good category and tag support.
Supports excerpts, slugs, trackbacks, set comments allowed or disallowed. It has excellent support for adding images, videos, photo albums, maps, etc and you can set WLW to publish using either clean HTML or clean XHTML (WordPress supports XHTML publishing which I use). No more of that propitiatory MS yuckiness (they cleaned that crap up early last year or late the year before).
Just so you know.
@Kirk M: That is good to hear. But still, I don´t like WLW :p
But I´ll have to check it out if this is true. So they´ve changed the way the handle images? That is really great to hear as that was one of the reason I stopped using it.
Rarst: Yup, a parallell universe from a couple of years ago.
With yucky I mean that for some odd reason they wanted to add almost like a social links thingy with either categories or tags and the way it displayed it was awful.
But that might be me overreacting to things. It was a couple of years ago since I last used it so.
If I say it like this: I have a complete easy to use system in WordPress admin interface and the WLW has it´s own interface that for me was very hard to use to get a good result.
Ah, sorry I understood it like you were describing current experience.
Please do try latest version of WLW. I am not using it long enough to know horrors of the past but it worked fine for me in past year+
For me, the browser has become my desktop, so it is almost like going backwards. At any given time I have 3 browsers open with multiple tabs in each. One of my browsers has become my “office” with my calendar, email, apps, feed reader, etc.
I voted “Depends” because I would have to have a significant gain in speed or ease of use in a desktop app for it to be worthwhile.
Ditto.
Yes, I would use it. Especially if the app was cross-platform. In my case I dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 and where Windows Live Writer takes care of my posting needs in Windows, Ubuntu (and other Linux based distros as well) have no viable desktop blogging editors available so a good place to start there is a port to a “.deb package [Debian based]”. Mac users, as far as I know, only have a pay-for choice (Mars Edit) and could benefit from this also.
I would think such an app could start off strong in the publishing/editing aspect and add more features as time went on.
A cross platform desktop app could definitely be a winner if done correctly. Perhaps a user survey of desired features/functions such an application might incorporate would be a good way to start off with?
I wouldn’t use a desktop app. I like having everything Web-accessible so that I can get the same interface no matter what computer I’m on.
Yes. I prefer that the desktop application can synchronize with the webserver. I believe that desktop application will run faster! Can’t wait for that! Make it a portable version or very lightweight so that I can download and install it within seconds!
yeah I agree about a portable version.
another thing that would be useful on a desktop app,
is NOT having to login to the admin panel every time
you write a post. My ex-wife, just as an example,
never posts to her blog, because she can never remember
her admin password. If the desktop version could make
it so the users id and password were remembered on the
users local PC, then I think it would promote alot more
people to blogging in general, especially women
who don’t like to blog very often. I don’t care if it
supports the whole interface or not, so long as it allows
for posting, thats all I care about. Windows Live Writer
is a M$ product, no need to write anything more about that
WLW sucks! its a M$ product what do ya expect? as long
as it publishes posts and remembers your userid/password
credentials for you, thats all I care about in a desktop app
1. a portable version would be nice for households with multiple computers
2. if it remembers your userid/password info so you don’t have to type it in every single dang time! I’d be jumping up and down for joy just for that feature alone! I get so sick and dang tired of typing in that userid/password every single dang time…
3. offline drafting, would actually be nice for dial-up users. I know you FIOS people don’t care about dial-up users anymore, but the truth of the matter is, my mom and dad, and most of my family, still use dialup, there just stubborn and won’t pay the extra cost for HSI, so therefore, both web apps and a desktop app still has to be small and lightweight so that dial-up users can still blog 🙂
No if it’s simply the desktop/offline mode counterpart of the web interface. I’m online most of the time and connection is fast. At this point and for my purpose, WP desktop is not wanted.
Now, I’m a programmer and I know the difference between desktop and web platform. In general you can do more and better with desktop application, so if WP desktop can take advantage of that than maybe the WP desktop could be an alternative for managing the blog. But still, for me, even if it adds to better experience but doesn’t provide different features/functionality, I would stick to the web front-end (I spend 99% of my time on post screen). I don’t want to clutter my computer with another application.
I think the question is reversed. The only really bad, hard to use, unreliable and unsightly part of Word Press is the so-called control panel. I only blog from WLW and go to the control panel as little as possible. There are a number of desktop applications already that do abetter job tan the control panel, so if for some reason WLW were to stop meeting my needs, I can always switch and try another. Writing a post in the Word Press control panel is like a root canal.
Automattic should put the control panel updates in the hands of someone who actually blogs instead of a php – java head. Also the control panel has become one of the largest collections of useless information ion line. A relatively tiny window to write in and acres and acres of two-week old newsrealeas about WordCamps and dreamed of new versuobns … bloggers have no interst in all that wasted real estate.
Sorry to sound sour, but without a desktop app like WLW, I would not be blogging in Word Press.
@Dave Starr – Not meaning any offense but by “control panel” I assume you’re referring to the TinyMCE post/page publishing editor incorporated into the WordPress install? I just never heard it referred to as the control panel before.
Be that as it may, I have to agree with you that the built in editor in the WordPress admin is the low point of a WordPress based site. I will say that compared to past versions of TinyMCE, the current version is much better in features and functions and a combination WYSIWYG/code editor is absolutely necessary to have especially for new users. But I’ve become increasingly of the opinion that TinyMCE needs to be replaced with something that’s a bit more streamlined, user friendly and not so resource intensive.
Not taking any offense either, Kirk, but your question helps point up the problem.
What the heck is TinyMCE? I mean I can infer from your question it’s an editor of form … but why would a blogger even care what some editor is named?
I’m thinking TinyMCE might refer to the editor that you can modify code with?, as opposed to the completely different one that you can edit post/page content with?
Part of the problem behind the question is seems to be a rather lose definition of the Control Panel … understandable enough given the million of users with vastly differing interests, skill sets and software concepts.
However a desktop app that brought the entire control panel to my own computer and sent updated option and configuration cnages to multiple blogs (preferably with a robust error correction scheme no nulify connectivity drops in the middle of change actions … and would allow the same set of commands to be sent to multiple blogs at once? I want one.
I would use it if the web interface was removed. I think this would be a great step forward for security.
Andrew – Do you mean the entire Admin interface or just TinyMCE? Just wondering.
Sorry, I should have been clearer.
I mean the entire admin interface, from login onwards. I think there would need to be one work stream for admin otherwise one would suffer, or they would differ from each other in potentally important ways.
So basically your entire WordPress admin would only be accessible via a desktop application that updates everything in your WordPress install through something like XML-RPC with no online access at all?
Interesting concept. Somehow I don’t think it would work that well in reality though. What online security holes you’d end up plugging would only manifest as new vulnerabilities in the desktop application and through it’s interface with your WordPress install. This also doesn’t eliminate the possibility of SQL injections and all the fun and games associated with those types of attacks.
And unless the application was 100% cross platform then there would always be a need for today’s full online access.
Of course you could always build in a way to turn off the online WordPress Admin via the desktop application for those that would wish to eliminate that avenue of attack?
Yes, I would rather use it than going through the browser, which sometimes has problems of its own.
But, it sounds like this would be a massive undertaking and I wonder what would be given up to make it work correctly.
There are probably many who do not use WLW, but would like a dependable alternative.
It could also create a new community for addons and plugins for the desktop.
Really? Seriously, what would be the point or practical use of a desktop app for WordPress? The whole concept of WordPress is online. Like with the Google apps, I’m sure that someone can put in an option for offline access. Why use yet another piece of software to clog up your system? As it is, its already a chore for some to keep up with hackers/attackers. If you throw in an app, that’s just one more point of access for them. If one gets released, it undoubtedly won’t be long until some a-hole comes up with a virus that targets that app. I say stick with the robust online version. It has everything you need out of the box and just about anything else you want can be added with a plugin. It can be accessed anywhere you have internet access and all your settings will be there waiting for you.
I traditionally use WLW for my personal blog but have to use the Admin backend for The Inquisitr for reasons to do with the design IIRC. However from the rumors surrounding the work being down on the next major release of WP there is talk of beefing up the backend which migh make the choice harder.
One of the big problems I found originally with WLW was the support of things like “custom fields” but wuth the recent availablity of a new plugin for WLW to handle that this is less of a problem. I have also been hearing rumors of the next release of WLW and it is supose to be really impressive with the features and capabilities they are building into it – so it will definitely be a case of wait and see.
Personally I prefer using WLW but if the point comes where the Admin backend provides a level of quality and features that not even an excellent blog editor like WLW can match then I would have to seriously reconsider my postion.
Of course, I’d try it out and probably use it. My next computer will be a Mac — I need something to replace the WLW.
I might use it to simply post a picture or a photoshop of something, but to do a post a usually have about 5 tabs open that I’m pulling quotes and copying and pasting links from, if I already have the browser open to do that…
So I’d say yes, but rarely.
I would even pay for one. without a question. luv ya WordPress. I would like it to be just another wordpress copy of what i have in the wp-admin. Nothing much, nothing less.
I’ve been pushing my blogs towards using the ever-strengthening internal media manaegment features of WordPress, so any desktop app would have to be media savvy.
It should also be able to switch between different installs of WordPress as smoothly as possible.
Overall, a great idea!
There’s already such an app. It’s called Firefox 🙂
Seriously, what would be the point of that? Launching an app to manage your blog instead of launching FF to manage your blog? Do I miss something?
How about the fact that not everyone in the world is enamored with doing everything from within a browser. I have used Firefox with Scribe in the past and as handy as it might be it does not come close to the feature set of what something like WLW brings to a bloggers tool chest.
As much as the browser is the answer for everything crew might like to believe in their superiority it just is not the case.
There is a need when you are working on a blog with multiple people. Currently, the browser is not effective at locking you out of posts or alerting you when others are in a specific post.
There are a number of apps out there that already do collaboration really well (Google Docs, Evernote, Drop.io etc…) they just need to be convinced to add a feature to connect to a blog and save it as a draft.
I’m having the exact same thoughts Ozh expressed here. Why launch another app when Firefox is already running?
And as far as an improved collaboration is concerned, can’t WordPress be improved so that it handles collaboration as fast and good as, say, Google Docs does?
Because browsers weren’t made to manage blogs. Anything inside of browser is subject to design, usability and performance scope that differs a lot from that of desktop applications.
Ozh will you please tell about what you are talking about?Are you talking about the combination of Google Gears with wordpress in firefox?Or there is any specific addon for this purpose?
Everything in the WordPress backend seems to require a page load. So many damn page loads which slows me down no matter what speed my host is. If I can find a way to manage the site without all those page loads, that would make my job of managing the site quicker and I’d be all over it!
I would definitely use it if it were available for Mac. It would be great if it was also set up to have multiple accounts.
Just like me 😉
I voted “depends”, if it provided extra functionality. Like for example plugin and theme creation functionality, sync with media, better tag and post management, etc.
Right now I’m using gEdit or Notepad when offline, and it makes a nasty messy hairball-shaped directory on my laptop. I haven’t gone out looking for a better app, but if this pans out I’d absolutely use it. If it’s even close to as good as wptogo for Android I’ll be satisfied.
It depends. Right now I use TextMate to write my posts in Markdown and to an XML-RPC update with the Blogging bundle. I wouldn’t mind a more dedicated editor that can edit pages and such, but I don’t see much value in configuring the settings.
For Mac users, I guess a port of the iPhone app to the desktop may be a good place to start.
More importantly, would be more APIs that desktop apps could use, such as the “Bulk Media Import API” that unfortunately didn’t get enough votes for WordPress 2.9. Then plugins can be made for the apps we already use (Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, Picassa).
I’d love it!
I used to use BloGTK, but it doesn’t support some of the plugins I need … like being able to notify LiveJournal and Dreamwidth that I’ve posted, via JournalPress. Maybe if the plugin has fine-grained functionality … I need to look into it!
As long as it’s snappy, stable, and coded as a Mac OS X Cocoa application. I’d love to have a dedicated application to manage WordPress.
If the app allows you to manage more than one site, otherwise I won’t find it worth the effort installing it for just one website.
I use Ecto for OS X to write and edit my posts, both because it allows me to compose posts offline and because it allows me to use Applescript to tweak the process of taking content from my browser/newsreader and inserting it into a draft post. (For example, I have a keyboard shortcut set up so that with a single keystroke I can run an Applescript that grabs the selected text from the page I’m looking at, plus the page URL and the referrer URL, and inserts all three items into the template I’ve set up for my draft weblog entries.) Ecto supports editing Pages as well as Posts and will happily manage multiple weblogs on multiple servers using different blogging systems – at present I use it to post to sites using WordPress and Drupal, and it’ll happily talk to Movable Type if I ever go down that road again – so I don’t feel the need for a WordPress-specific desktop app for post editing.
Given that I can always set up a Site-Specific Browser using Fluid if I want to keep accessing the WordPress Dashboard distinct from my regular web browsing, I’m not sure what I’d gain from a WordPress desktop app unless it both exceeded what Ecto already does for me editing-wise.
Isn’t this what Qumana does? http://www.qumana.com/
If there was literally no disadvantage to using a desktop app, then sure, why not? The thing is, I stick different kinds of things into different posts – images, video, special insert elements that work with custom CSS styles I’ve added to my theme. Is there really going to be a desktop app that can allow me to do any/all of these things as easily as I would if I were using the online admin interface? I’ll believe it when I see it.
I selected “it depends”.
The current web dashboard works well for me, but it is a little sluggish, especially when it comes to adding photos and larger galleries. Connection @ 384Kbps.
If the desktop version was faster, I’d use it primarily for posting articles and writing pages. Other admin stuff is a “nice to have” but not essential.
Offline capability would be nice I guess – but in reality I’m not sure that I *need* it.
I voted ‘Depends’. What it depends on is whether or not it would allow me to do more than Windows Live Writer. If not, it would be pointless.
I already use wordpress portably!
Check out the videos from educhalk.org. This guy has lots on info on running wordpress with a portable server on a usb stick or directly on desktop. Since my internet access is wonky at best, I use this technique to play with my sites; when I’m someplace with decent wifi, my site gets uploaded and updated back to my hosting server.
This guy’s videos walk you thru it fast than I can tell about it; I’ve even downloaded his videos from youtube for quick reference. Oh, and check out his wordpress user’s guide while you’re at his site.
A desktop app that is reliable and makes it easy to handle and resize image uploads would be a tremendous blessing.
I’ve used MarsEdit and Ecto and Ecto was buggy while MarsEdit lacks features, but they’re the best you can get.
…oh, and if you make one, MAKE IT FOR MAC! 😀 I’d pay cash bucks for a license.
It depends. For the most part, I’m fine with the web app when I’m on a desktop or laptop. (On my phone, though, it’s all about wpToGo!)
I can see myself preferring a desktop app for:
Offline or slow-network access. Especially if it could queue image uploads and do them in the background while I continued editing.
Comment management, esp: notification, moderation and replies. Right now I learn of new comments either through e-mail or RSS, and then have to open up a browser to reply or moderate.
I use MarsEdit for writing posts offline, but it doesn’t handle some of the newer things which I believe possibly aren’t exposed by the API yet (eg custom fields) or uploading a file from one’s computer directly to the WP blog which is frustrating. I end up writing posts offline, posting them as ‘draft’ then finishing off in the web browser.
As for all the people saying “why not do it online” there are lots of bits of the world where the internet connection isn’t wonderful or isn’t on all the time or is charged by the byte and/or minute used.
I would love if an offline client were developed because it’d mean the APIs for doing things offline would be made up to date finally and other clients would be able to compete in the same space.
For my personal use, an offline client would need to be accessible under OS X (ie: use the accessibility APIs that OS X provides) and be friendly to low-vision users (eg user-settable fonts and foreground-background colours for any text areas, keyboard shortcuts for everything, etc.). It would also need to gracefully handle multiple blogs and switching between them.
I think this would help a lot of newbies also – I am sure that teaching a client to use it could (potentially) be easier than teaching them to cope with the sprawling and confusing web interface!
r
Another “depends”–I also use WLW and am fairly pleased with it, but I would give a WP client a go just to see if it met and surpassed the same neeeds.
Not sure if this is the right place for it, but I would love to see WordPress offer an ‘official’ app for Android as well as something for the desktop. I’m sure many WordPress users post on the move!
As long as it i didn’t *supplant* the webui, merely *augmented* it, I’d use it.
However, since I blog from multiple computers, I wouldn’t want to install it everywhere – just on my personal desktop or laptop 🙂
fwiw, I’d also love to see an App Store offering for the iPod Touch and iPhone as well as for Android.
Yes! Easy backup and mirroring would help! Like how Google now has an offline version, storing your emails and having an outbox. It could be browser plugin or something, not exactly a desktop software.
You could post entries and it saves it for posting and once you are online it uploads it. Then synchs Desktop with site. It would be a perfect backup solution.
I certainly see the possibility of having a software on your desktop to update your WordPress Site.
This software could be like TweetDeck written for Adobe Air. This software may have the look and interface of WordPress Admin and user could choose to write the post offline and updating the blog whenever they like.
This can save the waiting time when you are saving drafts or the frustration when WordPress Editor erases your html code when you press update or save draft.
I think that there would be a lot of people interested in this, which is obvious from the voting results. But for me, I wouldn’t have a use for it. I’m bouncing around to much. Home, office, different computers. It’s just always easier for me to use the web interface.
I would absolutely love a WordPress desktop client. I have used ecto and ScribeFire, but none allow total access to WordPress’ standard features.
A desktop client should allow me to do the following:
• Include excerpt text
• Include a custom field value
• Choose an author (Very important, and not supported by ecto.)
• Insert a photo and be prompted for meta-info.
• If I can access admin tools as well, I’ll come wash and polish your car for you.
Thanks.
I cant see any real need for a program to do what WordPress already l;lets me do easly.
Maybe if the WordPress interface was difficult and the program made it easer.
I am assuming that such a program would log-in to your sigh and all the actual content is still stored server-side.
If such a program could be used to compose when offline then publish when you get online then it may be more useful.
If it could help me in maintaining multiple sites and actually saving the settings I have on each, “for sure”!
Managing Backups from one location might also be a cool feature.
I selected “Depends”….
it totally depends on the speed of connection of the Internet…if the desktop app needs to access to the Internet…Also the functions. If it makes no different with the program itself then what’s the point of using the app? But if it can work offline, I’ll definitely use it!
I forgot to mention about the Live Writer…if there’s a app for WP, will it be better than the LW ?
Yes of course!
But it should be one-for-multi-blogs control application, not for single blog.
I voted yes I would use it. But I like the web interface a lot…if it had the same functionality as the web interface…I would marry it. LOL Okay maybe not, but it would be cool.
I think no, because I’m currently using several different PCs and I have access to several wordpress websites…
I don’t like desktop solution for web sites management: if it’s online it should maintain this…
I think no, because I’m currently using several different PCs and I have access to several wordpress websites…
I don’t like desktop solution for web sites management: if it’s online it should maintain this…
I’m already using one. Blogo by Brainjuice (http://drinkbrainjuice.com/blogo) is excellent. It also does a bunch of other blog formats and Twitter for those who swing that way.
I wouldn’t (my Internet isn’t slow and plugins can’t modify the features of desktop clients).
Plus this is kinda silly — the XML-RPC API already provides access to all of the essentials.
In this day and age, I don’t see the necessity of a desktop application taking the place of the existing online one.
That would be simply great, I usually can’t have online access to my WP editor and being on Linux Live Writer is not an option (I know there are quite some alternatives in Linux but none that satisfied me). In a word I would simply love to have such a tool that would boost my productivity, as you can imagine it’s not the best thing in the world using an editor to write the post then go online, copy/past the article format it and put images in place.
As someone else already told, not everything can be done from inside a browser 🙂
Lethe.
As long as i can manage multiple sites it would be a daily app for me.
Certainly I will. Since I can’t manage an internet connection anytime, a desktop application will be a good solution.
No. No no no.
Where I work we have Contribute sites. Contribute is a desktop application to edit static content websites. The biggest problems with it are installation, configuration and upgrades. Oh god the upgrades. Coordinating with partner satellite offices with their own IT policies, or lack thereof, adds another layer of insanity.
These are the very same reasons why we prefer our wordpress and other web administered sites. Nothing needed but a browser.
I have one more thing to be added.
It should be like as a portable application where no installation needed and can be used on a usb thumb drive.
It depends. I use Windows Live Writer from time to time and it works well though I have no problem using the Admin panel. For me it would need to have all the features of the admin panel and be able to setup ‘profiles’ so you can use the app for more than one blog at a time.
Ideally it would use the Adobe Air Platform, if possible so that it can be used across Win/Mac/*nix. Bounces points if the config files are easily copyable between systems for those of us with multiple computers.
I voted yes.
I have been known to ink blog, and the online WP interface doesn’t let me do that. I have to use WLW. I would absolutely use a desktop client because I write at multiple sites and there is nothing as boring and time-chewing as having to load every page to check for this, check for a link, etc etc, and then logging out of one site and into another. I’d love local copies on my machine. I use the same machine wherever I go because I don’t leave home without it and I don’t like to use other people’s computers so for me this would be an excellent solution.
I don’t understand why people seem so against a desktop app just because they like to do everything in browser. I hate doing everything in browser! I hate the clicking and the refreshing and the back button. I want to browse with my browser, not write in it! “In this age” and all of that, I hadn’t realized that we’re so advanced that the preferences of people for how to do their work and what works best for them can now be overridden by what year it is. I like WLW okay for ink blogging but I prefer the WP interface over WLW’s. If I could sync my sites with a local copy on my machine when I have the internet around then I’d be very happy. I love WP and might probably write more, actually, if I didn’t have to use the browser interface so much. A replica of the WP backend on my desktop? I’d be all up on that.
If you want to run your blog locally, portably, on your desktop or on a thumbdrive, don’t cast a vote, sign a petition, or make a wishlist.
I ALREADY run all my wordpress sites locally using Xampp lite and WordPress on a thumb drive. It’s totally portable; when I’m near a decent wifi connection, I just upload to my sites using FileZilla.
The Xampp setup I use is OpenSource and runs on Windows, Apple and Linux.
Because it’s private and local (at least till I upload it) I can really play with designs, graphics and writing. I have 5 sites in my thumbdrive, and if I wanted to, I could plunk the whole thing on my desktop and run it like a proxy.
I can play with themes, graphics, widgets and plugins; the freedom of knowing that no will ever see unless I upload the post is incredibly liberating to the creative process. I can write a private blog using wordpress and save it on my thumbdrive; making it truly confidential.
If you’ve never played with the command line, php, or apache the process can look a little daunting.
So surf over to this guy’s site: educhalk.org
and check out his YouTube video:
http://educhalk.org/blog/how-t.....ing-xampp/
and he’ll walk you thru it step by step.
While you’re at his site check out the tons of free videos and guides he’s written on the technical aspects of wordpress.
Desktop applications have come in handy, especially for some of our less techno-savvy authors, but I’d love to see a cross-platform open-source solution. Instead of thinking “WordPress for the desktop”, I wish people would think terms of an open standards solution that would stand the test of time even if WordPress didn’t.
I’ve been using desktop blogging apps since I started blogging in 2003. Especially now that I live in a country where Internet access is slow and, well, not always working, it’s even more imperative. I’m currently making the rounds through a bunch of desktop blogging clients, and thus far, the majority are buggy while the stable ones all seem to be missing key (for me) features.
I will. never. rely on the web interface to write my posts. Never.
Key features for me:
– able to import WordPress data – including all posts and pages so I can edit them later if necessary.
– able to write a post with all the editing options that exist from within WordPress itself, including the ability to assign categories and tags and edit in HTML. Must be able to handle images (in-line as well).
– stable. No crashes.
Windows Live Writer can do most of what I want except importing data and maintaining an ongoing database of posts and pages on my computer. Qumana can do most of what I want except native WordPress tagging, some image stuff, and importing more than 200 old posts.
I would use it as I have my site on a shared host & because the WP admin hits the CPU a ton while you are in the write/edit page for posts & pages causing issues that have shut down my site temporarily because of the issue. My issues with Windows Live Writer I haven’t found a way to edit existing posts or pages & The spell checker in Windows Live Writer is only better than wordpad because wordpad doesn’t have one. So because I have issues with spelling properly I end up having to post it as a draft so that I can run after the deadline in my web interface on it.
@joecr
Windows Live Writer has always been capable of editing existing posts since the beginning. Assuming you have the latest version (Windows Live Writer 2009-Version 14.0.8050.1202 I believe) on the toolbar below the menu bar click on “Open” and a dialog box will pop up where you can choose your blog (if you have more than one), posts or pages and how many you wish to list. Once the download of titles is complete click on the one you wish to edit and it will be loaded into the editor.
I would like to see a Desktop App that would make it easier to but photos into a new blog entry. During the upload and placement of the pictures I just really miss drag&drop.
Thanks I didn’t know where that was hiding. Now my only issue with it is the spell checker in it sucks.
The WordPress team has enough to work on to make WordPress better like the much needed fix to allow WordPress/WordpressMU to be multilingual on install (like Qtranslate plugin but without breaking Buddypress pages). No reason to waste resources on applications when people can just log in and work.
I will certainly love to have it on my desktop…I already use Windows LiveWriter to write my posts but having my entire wordpress backend on my desktop is really amazing…
All about speed. I find the back end terribly slow. (stuck with slow dsl). And my browser always has many tabs open so get beach ball too often.