This post courtesy of ScribeFire.

June 15th, 2008

Over the last few years, since starting my very first WordPress blog–the one you’re reading right now, in fact–I’ve used a number of different methods to post content to WordPress: everything from WP’s built-in editor (both WYSIWYG and straight HTML) to a number of different third-party tools. My two favorite methods have been WP’s own editor, of course, and Microsoft’s stunningly useful Windows Live Writer. MS gets a lot of flack–a lot of it warranted–concerning the company’s less-than-stellar support for web standards and even lessER-than-stellar web tools (uhhh, Windows FrontPage, anyone?). But not only has Microsoft finally taken steps to fix its “web image” by producing Internet Explorer 7 and the Dreamweaver-trouncing Expression Web, it’s made up for a lot of sins with the very popular and almost universally-applauded Live Writer.

One of the posting apps I’d tried and discarded in the past was the Firefox extension Performancing. It was very simple, very easy to use, and very basic…too basic, in fact: it lacked support for a lot of WordPress features or writing methods that I used frequently. Now, several years later, the extension has been renamed ScribeFire, has undergone a great deal of development, and is drawing better reviews than ever. So, I thought I’d take a second look at the browser-based publishing platform and see if it gives Windows Live Writer a run for its money. In fact, I’m writing this post in ScribeFire as a means of testing it out!

In short: though ScribeFire has some very nice features and has grown by leaps and bounds since it was known as Performancing, the same damned limitations that turned me away from it before are still freakin’ there.

First, the good. A single click on the ScribeFire icon in the Firefox status bar brings the blog editor right up, and one can also right click anywhere on a webpage to “Blog this page,” bookmark the page using del.icio.us, or load up more info about the page via Technorati. The post editor now supports multiple tabs so you can work on several entries at once, and, of course, features both a WYSIWYG and HTML editor. Some cool additions to the WYSIWYG editor are the “Insert a special character” button which allows you to add áççèñtëð characters of various sorts, plus buttons to let you directly insert graphics from Flickr and videos from YouTube.

The interface is divided into two panes: the left for composing, and the right for such things as selecting which of your many blogs you want to post to, setting categories, and so forth. The neatest feature of the right pane is that it provides you with a list of the last fifty-or-so post you’ve made to your blog, which lets you quickly copy titles and URLs if you do a lot of referncing other entries on your blog. The right pane also allows you to easily insert Technorati tags to an entry and enable pings to services like Technorati and Ping-O-Matic. The left pane also features a “Promote” tab which lets you share pages via such popular social-media sites as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Newsvine, and even Facebook.

So, in regard to those various tools, ScribeFire has come a looooooong way. Any blog editor should give users extended character support (I mean, how many actually know the “&whatever;” codes for things such as M-dashes, etc.?), and the entry catalog is no doubt a godsend to cross-referencers.

But.

Now, keep in mind, the following is 100% subjective. Chances are, if all you need is a simple program that lets you conveniently publish stuff to your blog, ScribeFire is just as good as Windows Live Writer or, for that matter, WordPress’s own editor. My needs, however, are a little more specialized. They’re not extremely outré or rarified by any means, but there are certain things that I look for in a blogging program that ScribeFire has never had and, probably never will.

One is an easy way to remove hyperlinks. See the link to del.icio.us a paragraph of two above? It doesn’t need to be there. I simply made that link to see whether I could easily remove it. By removing it easily, I mean that I should be able to click a single button or do a single simple action to remove it. Right-click a link in Windows Live Writer and you’re presented with an option to remove the link. Highlight linked text in WordPress’s native editor and click the link button, erase the URL from the popup window, and the link is gone. Those are actions as simple and as quick as highlighting text, clicking the link button, and making a link in the first place.

However, removing links in ScribeFire ain’t that easy. One way to remove a link is to switch to HTML view and remove the <a> tags. If you highlight linked text and just click the link button and simply erase the URL text, the link will remain after you click OK. That’s just stupid. Another way to get rid of a link is to highlight the linked text and click the “Strip formatting” button. Wait–a link is considered formatting? Ummm, technically it is…but how many of you think “link” when someone mentions “formatting?” Italicized text, font face, size, and color changes, indents, etc…everyone will recognize that as formatting, but links? Yes, the “Strip formatting” button is right next to the “Add A Link” button…but there’s a divider between the two. The “Strip formatting” button is in its own little section with “Increase Font Size” and “Decrease Font Size” buttons. There’s no visual or semantic reason to associate “Strip formatting” with “Add A Link.”

Also, ScribeFire’s WYSIWYG editor is extremely clumsy. Unlike literally every other WYSIWYG editor on Earth, including WordPress’s own native Tiny-MCE-based WYSIWYG editor, you can’t italicize text by hitting ctrl+I, or bold by hitting ctrl-B. The only way to italicize text is to highlight it and click the “Italicize” button. And here’s where it gets weird: the “Italicize” button uses oldskool HTML tags, rather than the more common XHTML tags…but there is another button further down the bar that lets you “Emphasize” text with tags. That’s just needlessly confusing.

Finally on the tag/formatting front…everytime you start a new paragraph, ScribeFire doesn’t automatically add tags. Strange.

Scribefire also does not support WordPress excerpt text, and, apparently, doesn’t publish Technorati tags even when you add them. I am editing this paragraph in WordPress itself after having published the post, and…well, you don’t see any of the usual Technorati tags at the bottom of this post, do you? That’s a BIG strike in my book.

Oh, and one last thing. Yes, this is a very niggling little matter, but hey–I use the M-dash a lot. It’s part of my style. But guess what character the “Insert a special character” button does not give you access to? Every other imaginable character is featured but that one. EDIT: Apparently, WordPress itself renders the oldskool “two-hyphen” method of representing an M-dash as an actual M-dash. Huh. Well, I guess you learn somethin’ new everyday….

Ultimately, it’s silly oversights like a missing M-dash character, a missing “Remove link” button or something similar, and the utterly needless separation of and tags that just make ScribeFire seem like a cheap, hastily-thrown-together app. Yeah, it’s free…but so is WordPress itself. And Windows Live Writer. You can do so much more, so much more easily with those other apps that ScribeFire just comes across as limited and–even worse–limiting.

But hey…if your needs are simple–and I do mean simple–then ScribeFire may just be the blog-poster-thingee you’ve been looking for!

By Derek C. F. Pegritz on June 15th, 2008 | Scategory: Computer Nerdery |