I’ve been giving the new weblog tool, ecto, a spin and here are some notes and comments regarding this potentially useful blog tool.
The tip (scroll down to Q6) about configuring your MT blog to allow “draft” postings does work.
After publishing, the site isn’t rebuilt. Publishing also causes a “No valid XML data in response” error. This is mentioned, but not completely addressed, in the FAQ.
When an article is published, the movabletype site isn’t pinged; blo.gs and weblogs.com are also not pinged (1st post, pinging worked; it has failed on all subsequent posts).
It’s awkward, after publishing a draft, to have to reselect the draft article from the “entries and drafts” window. What possible reason could there be for clearing the edit window after publishing? (Fwiw, I think this is related to publishing drafts as opposed to saving drafts locally. Also, “saving locally” has the annoying “new or replace” dialogue; if I’m working on an entry and try to save it, it’s safe to presume I mean to save the entry I’m working on. If I want a new entry I’ll select “new”.)
If some of the issues noted above are addressed, this certainly looks like a promising tool for creating and editing weblog posts.
The main new feature I’ve noticed compared the NetNewsWire posting tool is the ability to store drafts on the server.