Zoundry Writer in Linux review

For a few days, I've been testing different blog editors and trying to find which one I would prefer to use. My requirements are simple at the moment. You can go over them in my previous post on the matter - BlogJet editor in Linux Review.

I've written 2 articles, in which I told that Linux Editors sucks (and that was my personal feeling after I tried more than 5 different editors and found all of them either not working or sucking big time on features), and also that I've decided to try running a Windows blog editors (yes!) using WINE and I have written another post on that.

So, I've found couple of editors that I succeeded to run in Linux. Here, I will talk about the second one, Zoundry. First, here's the screenshot of using this editor (click on the image to see in full size):

So, as you can see, I'm writing this post in Zoundry

So here's my good feelings about this editor:

• Setting accounts is very easy and very good.
  
• Writing is very easy. All the regular features work (Italic, Bold and Underscore) work as anticipated.
  
• Fetching my previous blog posts is very good and accurate
  
• Font usage is configurable and the default is very pleasant to my eyes.
• Easy switch between WYSIWYG and HTML modes
  
• Easy setup for pinging services after posting
  
• Easy publishing (with one button)
  
• Posting as draft and defining manually the time and date of the post!
  
• Tags with blogger and Technorati work!!
  
• Linking from the editor is very cool and one of the best features in it!!! It allows me to link to my previous posts by letting me choose from the list of posts. Linking to big list of predefined sites is very convenient:
  
• Inserting a merchant links is easy when you sign-up with Zoundry.

Now, the bad stuff

• Its final HTML code is very unclean. It introduces a lots of <p> tags, and Blogger parses them as white spaces.
  
• Interface is not so slick. I did use the editor in Windows XP as well, and it is still not that pretty, albeit functional.
  

Considering that a full version is a free software and it supports all the features I would like to have (except the GUI), here's the scores:

My rating (with 10 as best score):

• GUI and ease of use: 7
  
• Feature set (for my needs): 10
  
• Convenience (for my needs): 9
  

Total score (in my subjective opinion):

• for my needs (blogger): 9.5

So, would I use it? Absolutely :-)

At the moment, this is my editor of choice!

Any comments? Let me know :-)

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Microsoft, Wine, technology, windows

Related posts:

BlogJet in Linux Review
Running Zoundry and BlogJet under Wine
Linux Blogging Sucks

Powered by Zoundry

BlogJet editor in Linux review

For a few days, I've been testing different blog editors and trying to find which one I would prefer to use. My requirements are simple at the moment:

• Being able to publish to a blog platform I use at the moment. That's being Blogger (with a New Blogger [Google] API)
• Being able to publish in draft first. I don't mind to "touch" an entry before publishing, and doing so from Blogger's own web-based editor helps to "preview" the entry how will it really look like.
  
• Adding tags to the post. Labels, categories, tags - I don't care how would you call this, I want it working if my platform supports them (and it does).
  
  • as a subset, pinging to Technorati and/or other services and including their links in the posts is welcome albeit unnecessary requirement.
    
• Convenient linking to other things. For example, suggesting to use what I have at the moment in the clipboard cache is convenient, as it allows me to copy something in the browser, and then directly paste it in the editor. I would also welcome convenient linking to my own posts.
  
• Local storing of the drafts. This is invaluable. I write something, I don't trust the program - I want to save it as either text, html or xml files (or combination of these).
  
• Nice pleasant GUI is very needed. After all, I can use a notepad (gedit, vi, emacs - choose your own), but I don't. I like to work with nice and simple interfaces.
  

I've written 2 articles, in which I told that Linux Editors sucks (and that was my personal feeling after I tried more than 5 different editors and found all of them either not working or sucking big time on features), and also that I've decided to try running a Windows blog editors (yes!) using WINE and I have written another post on that.

So, I've found couple of editors that I succeeded to run in Linux. Here, I will talk about the first one, BlogJet. First, here's the screenshot of using this editor (click on the image to see in full size; I'm using Black Vista theme):

So, as you can see, even that this is not native application in Linux, it looks very slick and nice, simple and gorgeous interface. My Kudos to the Coding Robots team on that! And I'm writing this post in BlogJet.

Writing is very easy. Just start typing - and that's it. All the regular features work (Italic, Bold and Underscore) work as anticipated. The editor setting were very simple - it recognized my blogging platform and correctly fetched my previous blog posts.

Font usage is configurable and the default is very pleasant to my eyes.

More cool features: easy switch between WYSIWYG and HTML modes, easy setup for pinging services after posting, easy publishing (with one button), and word counting (I like this one a lot!!!), and boy its final HTML code is so nice and clean !!!But now to the bad stuff:

1. Tagging (labels, categories, whatever) - it doesn't work with Blogger at the moment. Yes, it is known misfeature, but I find it weird that only one type of platform is supported for the moment (that would be Wordpress if I'm not mistaken).
   
2. Draft posting is not supported with Blogger. Sigh…
3. Although I can get my recent posts list, I don't have convenient option of linking to them. Say, I'd select something, right-click on it and choose "Link to previous post…" and then get a list and select the post I want to link to. That would be great.
   
4. Right-click context menu is weird - it seems like it was not implemented at all and all I see it system-wide menu. Not good.
   

Considering that a full version is a commercial software and it doesn't support many of the features I would like to have, I'd say I would not buy this product at the moment.

My rating (with 10 as best score):

• GUI and ease of use: 10
• Feature set (for my needs): 5
  
• Convenience (for my needs): 7
  

Total score (in my subjective opinion):

• for my needs (blogger): 6.5
  
• for Wordpress users: 8.5
  

So, would I use it? Maybe, I haven't decided yet.

In next post I will review running Zoundry blog editor on Linux.

Comments are welcome.

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Microsoft, Wine, technology, windows

Running Zoundry and BlogJet blog editors under Wine

Hi all !

After I've written the Linux Sucks article, I started to think how can I still run any of the "good" (read Windows based) editors on Linux. And to tell you the truth, I've tried to run each and every one of those I found on different lists under WINE but to no avail.

But no more. I've successfully installed and can run in Zoundry Blog Editor, from which I post this entry.

Here's an install procedure (I use Gentoo, so I presume anyone who doesn't can adapt this to his/her own needs):

1. Install IES4Linux on my machine (it installs WINE as well, so I don't have to).
2. Run an Internet Explorer and try to browse. If you do so, then go over to Zoundry and download the Zoundry Blog Writer.
3. In the same Internet Explorer window, go to File->Open and open the file you've downloaded.
   
4. Install should start and install the application.
   
5. Install mfc42.dll - get it from any Windows XP installation or here (legality of this action is beyond this post. Check with your lawer just in case). Copy it to a <ie6 install folder>/drive_c/windows/system and system32. Regsvr32 it:



6. Zoundry should be installed now and run fine.
   

This is what you get when you're done:

Note1: when I installed Zoundry in default WINE folder ~/.wine, I had this when I tried to run it:
That's why I started to lookout for another way.

Note2:

I've tried the following apps using the same technique, but they still don't work:

• Ecto Windows Edition
  
• Zoundry Raven
  
• w.bloggar
  
• Chrysant Webstory
  
• Anconia RocketPost 2
  

And I've tried this and it did work:

• BlogJet (and wow, I like its editor so far even more than Zoundry, with the exception that it's not really free and that it doesn't support Blogger's labels):

This is to show you that I'm really in Linux (for all you non trusting folks):

Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think :-)

Alex.

P.S. Does anyone knows how to force an application under WINE ( a game) to see a folder as it was a CDROM? I set it to do so, but it doesn't work. And I have no wish to burn a CD for that...Thanks

Technorati : Software, Wine

Powered by Zoundry

Linux Blogging Sucks

I want to tell you a story of a blogger who uses Linux as his main (and quite the only) operating system.

I started "blogging" about 2 years ago. I started using a Blogger as my platform, and I wasn't a massive writer - just a couple of articles here and there. But for the last year it happened that I manage more than one blog, and I do keep notes with me all the time and I write much more. Offline blogging became more important to me. As I know that "blogging" is widely used in Open Source community I recently started looking for a blog editor that would allow me to keep my notes offline (meaning without publishing) and post them when I'm ready.

As to my greatest surprise I haven't found even one that would be on par with my expectations (on that - later on).

Next, I realized that I'm not all that comfortable with web-based editors. Yes, they are almost the best editors there are (each one for its corresponding platform), but I would like better the normal editor, that I would write within, post from it and forget about the issue. And then, I listed for myself all the features I want from it:

• Supports New Blogger!!!! (come on, a "new" blogger is really not new for about a year; why is it still called a "new blogger" ??? )
  
• WYSIWYG editor and HTML editor
• Tags adding and synchronizing with my blog (New blogger does supports this)
• Being able to see me previous posts from the editor.
• Being able to link to my previous posts using comfortable interface
• Pinging Technorati and possibly FeedBurner (and others)
  
• Saving drafts
• Using links and pictures to insert into a post just as my blogging engine would (including formatting, etc)
• Lightweight
• Open Source
  

I'd like to thank the following people and resources for providing a list of editors to test:

1. Blogger
2. A-Z Bloglist
3. Every Flavour Beans
4. Bobrik (Ваня :-) ) from kernel panic in userspace (in russian)
   

Thank you all guys, you were my inspiration for writing this post.

From all the lists the are there, I've tried each and every single application to work with my new Blogger blogs. And to no avail. Each and every one of them suck. Most don't even connect to a blogger's blog server (and those apps are from Blogger's own list!!!). I find it weird, sad and very odd. Many blogging platforms were created using Open Source software, but still, there's no single editor in Linux that allows me to blog offline. I'm bitter.

You see, it is not an issue for me about being online or offline, and being able to post. Almost every time my computer is on, its online. It's just a matter of convenience. I like to workout things first, post them later. Besides, up until recently, Blogger didn't even allow to post drafts in order I wanted, only in order of creation. That's not good. I want to be able to decide when to post my entries.

I would think that a huge community of people in open source software would create a normal editor, which would work. Especially those who use Blogger. Please, don't think that I don't appreciate all the work done, I think Blogger is a great platform for its cause. I just want a simple blog editor that works. I tried Google Docs for the same purpose, and while it kinda works (not really convenient for me) - it is still a web application. I don't feel comfortable using it for blogging.

I'm writing this post using ScribeFire. To the date it is the best editor I've found, and even though - I don't trust it enough to post directly. I post as draft first, recheck and retouch with Blogger's web editor and then publish. This sucks.

Now, I have found the best for me editor. It is a Zoundry Writer but unfortunately, it only runs in Windows.

But no, I though. I'm clever. I will try and run a Windows Blog Editor under wine. Great idea, isn't it?

I have tried to run every single Windows editor from those lists using Wine. Nada. Nothing. Each and everyone of them fails.

So, the punchline: I love Linux. I use Linux all the time on 3 computers I have. I can blog from anywhere, using any browser. But I want to do it from an editor and such an editor is not available on Linux.

Unfortunately, Linux blogging sucks.

Powered by ScribeFire.

P.S. I hope that authors of aforementioned site do not mind me linking to them.

Update: I have succeeded to run Zoundry Blog Editor and BlogJet Editor in Linux under Wine. Take a look here:

• Running Zoundry and BlogJet Editors under Wine
  and
• BlogJet Editor in Linux Review
  

Ubuntu Validates as Genuine Microsoft Software

An Ubuntu user manages to download Windows Defender and other software using IE4Linux and WINE.

That would just show once more, that all the Genuine Advantage thing is a total crap. That's just another disturbance for a decent people and not even a blinking green on a pirates traffic lights.

Just my thought.

-A

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