Revisiting ScribeFire
I go back-and-forth on the whole "browser-based" thing. When I was working in Windows, I was a happy camper in terms of blogging. I used the Semagic client to post to LiveJournal and a freeware program called W.bloggar to post to my Movable Type blogs. Switching to Ubuntu, I gave ScribeFire a try, had some issues with it, and switched to LogJam for LJ and BloGTK+ for the blogs.
The issues I originally encountered with ScribeFire centered around discovery of blogs and categories. At the time, my server was running MT 3.2, and the categories were just not coming up. I lost patience with SF and started in with BloGTK+. That application worked just fine, but only allowed me to select a single catgory per post. If I wanted multiple categories, I would have to go back to the server and edit the post. For LiveJournal, ScribeFire was particularly problematic, because I'm a member of over 100 LJ communities, and post in about 20 of those. My LJ activity is at a level where I really need a LJ-specific client.
When I upgraded MT on shadowfax to 4.1, I wondered if SF would behave any better. I had a brand-new install of Firefox 2.0.12 on this computer (stybba), so now was the best time to give it a shot. I don't know if it was improvements in MT that made the difference or if I messed up something in FireFox, but it's looking good so far.
There are two things I like most about ScribeFire, multiple category selection, and the ability to use different accounts. I post to Linux-Blog.com under my name, but I post to the political and cooking blogs as YatPundit. When I set up both accounts, SF allowed me to select the blogs I want to list, so I picked the ones for each account, making one complete list. With a standalone client, I would have to log out of one account and back in to the other one. The multiple categories is something simple but useful.
ScribeFire also has a split-window feature, so you can put up a page in the top of the browser window and the editor below. I usually slide the editor to fill the window, but the split effect is useful when doing a copy/paste from a source page.
The RTF editor is also a help. I've always been comfortable with using source HTML in a client, but the latest MT presented a challenge with that. If I post in source, I have to use paragraph tags. If I do that, though, the cross-post feature sent extra spaces between paragraphs over to LiveJournal. I'd still have to go back in a LJ client and fix it. By using the RTF editor, everything works smoothly.
ScribeFire is a current plugin up to FireFox 3.04 beta. I recommend it.
The issues I originally encountered with ScribeFire centered around discovery of blogs and categories. At the time, my server was running MT 3.2, and the categories were just not coming up. I lost patience with SF and started in with BloGTK+. That application worked just fine, but only allowed me to select a single catgory per post. If I wanted multiple categories, I would have to go back to the server and edit the post. For LiveJournal, ScribeFire was particularly problematic, because I'm a member of over 100 LJ communities, and post in about 20 of those. My LJ activity is at a level where I really need a LJ-specific client.
When I upgraded MT on shadowfax to 4.1, I wondered if SF would behave any better. I had a brand-new install of Firefox 2.0.12 on this computer (stybba), so now was the best time to give it a shot. I don't know if it was improvements in MT that made the difference or if I messed up something in FireFox, but it's looking good so far.
There are two things I like most about ScribeFire, multiple category selection, and the ability to use different accounts. I post to Linux-Blog.com under my name, but I post to the political and cooking blogs as YatPundit. When I set up both accounts, SF allowed me to select the blogs I want to list, so I picked the ones for each account, making one complete list. With a standalone client, I would have to log out of one account and back in to the other one. The multiple categories is something simple but useful.
ScribeFire also has a split-window feature, so you can put up a page in the top of the browser window and the editor below. I usually slide the editor to fill the window, but the split effect is useful when doing a copy/paste from a source page.
The RTF editor is also a help. I've always been comfortable with using source HTML in a client, but the latest MT presented a challenge with that. If I post in source, I have to use paragraph tags. If I do that, though, the cross-post feature sent extra spaces between paragraphs over to LiveJournal. I'd still have to go back in a LJ client and fix it. By using the RTF editor, everything works smoothly.
ScribeFire is a current plugin up to FireFox 3.04 beta. I recommend it.
Leave a comment