A Blog Post with ScribeFire 2.1

I started writing this blog post in ScribeFire 2.0 and this week I’m continuing to write this blog post in ScribeFire 2.1. ScribeFire is a Firefox add-on that allows you to write a blog post and more while browsing the web in Firefox.

I have not used ScribeFire previous to this post. I’ve heard of it before but never took the time to check it out. I’ve always thought and felt that a full-fledged blog editor is the way to go. Besides, certainly there are too many restrictions writing a blog post in a browser.

But, after reading Chris Garrett’s review I thought I’d take some time to actually write a blog post with ScribeFire 2.1.

ScribeFire has quite a bit packed into it to make it a viable blogging editor alternative as well as a cool little feature I’ll talk about at the end of this article. Click on the screen shot below for a larger view of ScribeFire.

Click image for larger view (800 x 600)

Now that I’ve written a few sentences I want to save it as a draft so I can continue working later. However, the first thing I notice is the Draft check box which I don’t like. Does it actually save this post as a draft? A draft what? Page? Post? There’s a button bar at the bottom of the editor for:

• Save as Note
• Clear Content
• Draft (Checkbox)
• Publish as a page
• Publish to “The Spinning Donut”

What in your mind would tell you how to save a post as a draft? Why a check box? Why not a button that says Save as Draft and a radio button – Page or Post? After clicking the Draft check box, what should I do next? Will it save automatically? Will it save multiple versions of the same posts?

I’m assuming you check the Draft box and then click Publish to “The Spinning Donut”. So after doing that, the Publish as page button has changed to Publish as Edit. Which is good. A bit better than before but not exactly what I’m looking for since I typically use WordPress as my editor.

My point here is that I’m saving it as a draft and not publishing anything. I think it’s a minor detail but it did trip me up.

Other really nice features include multiple tabbed edit windows (below) so you can have multiple blog posts opened up at the same time. That is nice and something I’d like to see in WordPress.

There are tabs down the left side (below) of the editor to switch you between editor, “Share this page” which include nine social media sites for promoting, bookmarking and sharing your blog posts. Another tab allows you to set some individual settings and a help tab with links to the ScribeFire website.

Three tabs in the upper-left corner allow you to work in Rich Editing, Source Editing (code) and Live Preview.

ScribeFire also allows you to have multiple blogs, blog entries and categories as well as your options (in this example it’s my WordPress blog).

ScribeFire has many features and I especially like the Quickblogging feature where you browse to your own blog and a new toolbar magically appears for you to start working on various aspects of your blog. Check it out, very cool.