BlogDesk: Simple And Effective Offline Editor

In my last post about offline editors, I listed some pros and cons of offline blog editors. If you have not decided yet about using one, check out Should You Use An Offline Blog Editor?

If you have decided to try one, I'd suggest BlogDesk. It is simple, feature rich and free.

Platforms

BlogDesk supports WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity and ExpressionEngine platforms. Sadly, Blogspot, one of the most popular blog platforms, is not supported!

Interface

BlogDesk impresses with its simple and bloat-free interface! It's easy to figure out one's way and you can manage multiple blogs easily.

Features

BlogDesk has all the features you would expect in an offline editor. Here are some noteworthy ones:

1. Uploading As Draft: This may not be a preference for many but I like to upload posts as drafts rather than publishing them. Many editors I have used missed this feature but BlogDesk has implemented it well! All you need to do is uncheck "Publish After upload" option before hitting "Publish."

2. Read More: You can easily control where "Read More" link will appear. Just switch to "More" tab after the text where you want the link.

3. Custom Fields: Custom Fields in WordPress are very useful. For example, we set up the Thumbnails for posts using custom fields of WordPress. These thumbnails are used on front page only and need not be the first image or even appear in the actual post. You can easily set up Custom Fields in BlogDesk. Just go to Extras > WordPress Options. You can also set up the password for posts here.

4. Notes: BlogDesk has small but useful Notebook feature build in. You an note down necessary research information about post before writing.

5. Uploading Multimedia: Pictures you add in posts are automatically uploaded to your blog. No need to upload manually.

6. Image Editing: You can crop/resize the images you add to posts. There are also some nice effects that you can add to images (like shadow I added to the image in this post!)

If you have a slow PC, having a blog editor open can take up valuable resources. Not with BlogDesk. It is extremely light. It takes up only about 15-20 MB RAM.

BlogDesk has some small irritants. First, text formatting is just basic! No tables, no h tags. Although you can always insert custom HTML, non-techie people might feel left out.

Secondly, custom HTML can be inserted only as a block. You can view HTML source of a post.

Overall, BlogDesk is a great Offline Editor with nice features. It is the fastest and lightest editor that I have seen to-date. I recommend trying it out. Let us know in comments how much you like it.