Justin Lloyd

I am departing from my customary focus of personal development to cover a topic I don’t ordinarily care for. I will write about writing. Specifically I will write about blogging. Even more expressly, the farce that is the process of blogging.

Blogging, the subject matter itself, is not that remarkable or interesting to me. For me, blogging is a publishing method, an avenue that leads to me pushing my message out there. I am as concerned by the mechanical process of blogging about as much as I am the mechanical process of magazine printing. All I truly care about is whether the process or the mechanics or the act facilitate the final output corresponding to what I have on my computer monitor.

I observe that a lot of bloggers muddle up blogging with the message. I find the topic of blogging to be a very shallow field of specialty. A moderately technical person can discover all that they need to know about the mechanics of blogging in a day or two. And all that there is to ever know in less than a week. I deem the act of "blogging about blogging" approximating "filming a documentary about how to make documentaries." It is only appealing to other individuals who make documentaries. Such a work would only offer the most superficial knowledge to everyone else.

The main rationale for this post – which ought to be a frequently asked question – is the question of which text editor I use to create articles with. Somewhat like connecting the value and quality of the job I perform at the office based on which bicycle I rode to work that day.

Actually that may be an intriguing thirty or ninety day trial to measure. Does the vehicular conveyance I avail myself of to travel to the office significantly alter the quality of the work I produce? And over what period of time does it take to achieve a particular effect? As it is a self-measured psychological study how will the observation alter the results?

A Lot Of Different Editors

Which editor do I prefer?

I’ve exhaustively investigated a lot of the blog editors available, for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, both freeware and commercial. And I have to say, I’ve been thoroughly unimpressed with all of them. At one time or another I’ve tried and been told to try out "the best editor available": ecto, Windows Live Writer, Microsoft Word, Notepad, Notepad+, TinyMCE, ScribeFire, Qumana, Zoundry, BlogDesk, Flock, ad nauseum.[1]

The quality, features and abilities of each blog editing application I have found to be quite unsatisfactory. Some editors are more stable than others. Some have many more features than others. But each editor, in its own special way, is brutally deficient to some regard. I can occasionally, though seldom, point to a specific offline blog editor application and say "This is why it fails" but typically there are further subtleties than something so gross.

The failure of the appeal of an application often comes down to the proverbial death by a thousand cuts. Many of those cuts involve a lot of unnecessary busy work on the part of the writer and creator, i.e. me, having to coerce the blog editing application into giving me results I would like rather than the results I’m being told I should like.

WordPress Is A Technology

WordPress, the technology platform that hosts my blog, offers the facility to host "pages" as well as "posts." Posts, in the context of WordPress, are your newsy items that you write frequently. WordPress "pages" I use, like most people, for rarely edited "static" content, e.g. the FAQ page, or the Contact page. I’ve found to be almost universally true, that the offline blog editors I’ve explored do not allow you to edit these static "pages." You can only edit "posts" making creation of a new WordPress page (not a post) or updating of an existing page a real chore that is both error prone and technically inelegant. And if there is one thing I hate worse than error prone, it’s an inelegant solution. Error prone you can write an automated script for. Inelegant is just plain fugly. And it makes my brain itch. But I’ll talk more about itchy brains another time.

When it comes to actually laying out your text and images ready for publication, going from the draft to the final stages of a document, the options available in offline blog editors are pretty dire. I admit that most of the root symptoms stem from the legacy of HTML, but the problems also come from the fact that many blog editors and layout packages designed for web page creation are still stuck in the middle of the 1990’s in terms of the design and layout paradigm. Very little has improved since then with regard to the actual creative process. Browsers and the latest generations of HTML and CSS now support layered designs.

There is a deep reservoir of options in HTML and CSS to facilitate page creation, and yet we’re forced to still think in "tables" (even if it is C(i)SSified) and "flow" (because everyone cares about what needs to float left and float right, right?) when it comes to editors. It is akin to a garage full of exotic motor cars but you’re bullied in to taking the public transport bus everywhere because no suitable roads exist, and none will ever be built, between you and the rest of the world.

Having tried out a lot of editors I have found that every single one of them mangles your text, custom HTML or hyperlinks in one way or another. You end up going into a spiral of frustration just to stop the editor from abusing your article and layout.

Focus On The Mechanics

All of the dedicated blogging editors[2] that I have personally investigated concentrate more or less entirely upon the mechanics of blogging, as opposed to creative development. A position indicative that blog editor applications are designed and planned by programmers rather than by writers and editors. Blogging applications by their nature necessitate the requirement of two or even three text/code editors to see the job through.

You require a word processor for creation of written content, another text editor for actually creating your post and possibly even one more if you want to edit your post afterwards. And you still need to then switch over to your blog in your web browser to set particular options such as tags, publication date, images, categories, password protection, trackbacks and custom fields. Don’t even get me started on data for custom plug-ins.

You are constantly fighting against the blog editor, wasting valuable effort and irreplaceable time, rather than focusing exclusively on creating content. You are weighed down and bothered by two or three steps of technical minutiae for every one step you take of creative endeavour.

One of the key nuisances for writers that blog is that blog editors focus on being an everyman editor to all blogging platforms, rather than focusing on the strengths of just one platform.

The reliable indicator that a personal pursuit is a whimsical fad and not yet ready for prime time is when the concentration of activities is on the process rather than the result.

The engineering rather than the art. The technical details rather than the science. Picture cameras in the early 1800’s, radio during the late 1800’s, heavier than air flight in the early 1900’s, movies in the 1920’s, computing in the 1930’s, home computing in the 1980’s, creation of web content in the latter part of the 20th century… all of these activities existed at the proto-stage of development and usage at some point in time.

All of these activities evolved and became mainstream and useful – to some degree – but what they are today is far different from what they were then. Anything that isn’t a fad progresses from what it is about to how it is about it. Even Gutenberg’s printing press went through this stage. And blogging is just like that. We’re at the what it is about, waiting impatiently for the how it is about it.

So to answer the question, in a roundabout way, which editor(s) do I use for creating my articles in?

Microsoft OneNote – Research & Notes

I cannot recall how I ever got anything done before I began using Microsoft OneNote. It has replaced all of my scraps of paper, random text and document files that contained ideas and research, and a lot of Excel spreadsheets that were used for creating task lists. I use Microsoft OneNote for taking my notes and building the outline of a post. OneNote will synchronize across multiple machines without me having to do anything and the application allows me to create a freeform document, I don’t have to worry about where an image is placed, formatting of a particular piece of text, etc. I can drag and drop audio, video, web pages, URLs, text, external documents such as Excel, Word or Access, and anything else I care to think of. And OneNote just takes care of it all automatically and ensures that when I move from my workstation where I was doing research, to either of my laptops where I will be doing my writing, that both are in perfect synchronization with each other.

Microsoft OneNote has a killer collaboration feature that few people actually make use of. This feature is fantastic for creating documents that multiple users are editing at the same time. There are no other applications available that do this, not even the various desktop/application sharing software packages or using the application sharing feature built in to Microsoft Communicator. OneNote has no limitations, as far as I am aware, on how many people can be editing a document simultaneously. OneNote doesn’t restrict everyone to viewing the same part of the document either, everyone can be looking at their own particular area. These areas may or may not overlap with an area being editing by somebody else. I can work on one particular paragraph and simultaneously watch someone typing in their text remotely in a paragraph below.

The collaboration is a little mentioned but astoundingly cool feature that has worked astonishingly well for creating client pitches and marketing one sheets. It is possible to have a dedicated research person dumping their notes into OneNote whilst two other people are creating prose, another person is updating the charts and illustrations, and another person is doing the final grammar and style check. All of these updates are happening simultaneously, in the same document, in real-time. It truly is a mind-blowing feature.

Microsoft Word – Writing the Copy

After I have gathered my research notes I either continue working in OneNote or switch over to Microsoft Word for the actual bulk of the writing process. Real-time word count, pagination, a custom style template that looks just like my blog style sheet, and a few other bells and whistles make the flow of content creation a lot easier. I use a shared network folder, with offline files, to ensure that the Microsoft Word documents stay synchronized between multiple computers. I originally tried to use Microsoft Groove but found it too unreliable for keeping everything synchronized. I would often find, with Microsoft Groove, that a file I had saved locally, did not synchronize with the other machines, even after I forced Groove to push the updated file and then from another machine pull the latest version.

This de-synchronization frequently lead to me moving to my laptop, perhaps grabbing it as I went out the door on my way to a client meeting or coffee shop, and later finding, when it was too late because I no longer had network access, I held the incorrect version of a particular file on my laptop.

This is a case study in "worse than useless." I am made to waste my time utilising a system that fails more than it works and receiving differing results every time I use it. When I am working at a coffee shop on my writing, I prefer, and find myself far more productive, if I am offline when doing this. A silenced cell phone, some good music, and a disconnected laptop removes about 90% of the distractions allowing me to focus on my writing. In two hours of concentrated effort I can put down over 4,000 words of edited prose.

Perforce – Version Control

When I am labouring over a large, complex document that possibly utilises spreadsheets, Adobe Photoshop images, Adobe Illustrator renderings, and a gathering of other supporting materials, I make use of my private repository in Perforce.

Perforce is a version control package used for source code control in software development that can also handle other digital assets, e.g. documentation, spreadsheets, images, 3D models, etc. I also employ Perforce when working on articles for print publication. Perforce allows me to make relentless edits to my text at the request of the publication’s editors, without any qualms of "losing work" or figuring out which version is the latest one.

Windows Live Writer – Publishing To The Blog

I have attempted with varying levels of success and failure to use Microsoft Word to publish my blog entries. And whilst Microsoft Word is a fine word processor for creating letters, or three page articles, for posting to blogs, it leaves a lot to be desired. If I can even get Microsoft Word to post the article to the blog – it frequently chokes and completely refuses to transmit the blog post when the blog post contains "strange content", e.g. a hyperlink or a picture.

Often I will find that Microsoft Word transmitted the initial blog post fine, and will again download the blog post if I need to make an edit to it, but then refuse for whatever reason, to transmit the updated blog post. Not always, but often enough that I have lost faith in it actually being able to transmit the blog post at all.

So for actually transmitting the blog post – and I say "blog post" not "blog page" because as pointed out earlier, universally blog editor applications do not actually support creating a "blog page" – I make use of Microsoft Windows Live Writer because 1) It’s free 2) It’s so badly implemented that it is (at this time) incapable of mangling your HTML and 3) generates such atrocious document mark up that I cannot bear to actually leave it as is, so by default, it will be edited.

Adobe Dreamweaver – Cleaning Up The Crap

Now I have the blog post set out how I would like it to appear[3] I then have a number of steps I go through before I can post the article live. I have to flip across to the administration panel of WordPress in my browser. Then I open up the HTML mark up for the blog post. Copy and paste the HTML into Adobe Dreamweaver to clean it up using search & replace. I get to insert anchor tags as required, edit the hyperlinks, remove superfluous empty HTML blocks that don’t do anything, and so on.

Once I have that done I can copy & paste the code back in to the text editing area of WordPress, click "Preview" and cross my fingers in the vain hope that WordPress did not mangle the HTML in any way, shape or form. Even with all of the options of WordPress turned off to prevent it from tweaking the HTML in a blog post it will still mangle certain HTML constructs.

More faffing about follows with WordPress to prevent it from mucking up the post, then finally, I’m ready to hit the "publish" button.

Absurd Busy Work

All of this is a considerable amount of busy work just to get some written text, and a few pictures, into a blog post. Again, "blog post" not "blog page." All this so that I can publish on the web. Some days I wish browsers just displayed Adobe PDF documents by default, life would be a lot easier.[4]

Apart from the busy work and the necessity to use multiple packages to create a decently laid out article, I think I am most irritated by the fact that I still need to know and use HTML to achieve the most basic of page designs.[5]

Does anybody not find this whole situation absurd?

Why is there not just one package that does most of what is needed? Why is there no application that allows me to edit and publish in a single step? Why do I need to copy & paste anything? Why do I need to clean up someone else’s shoddy work?

These are the lamentations of the continually irked.

The current state of blogging, and web publication in general, beyond writing some blithe bit of nonsense nobody wants to read in a simple post containing a few pictures, is that there is way too much busy work for what should be a simple thing.

It’s enough to make me want to go back to using a regular typewriter and just have someone else handle all of the boring technical details.

The hype claims that "blogging is easy! Anyone can do it!" Yes, this is true, for certain values of "easy."

Don’t believe the hype.

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[1] No, "ad nauseum" is not an offline blog editor, but it would make a great name for one.

[2] Since writing this it appears that the new beta of Microsoft Live Writer 2009 supports pages as equally as it supports posts.

[3] This is a joke. I can never get my blog post laid out how I want it to be because none of the applications will actually create an exact representation of my article.

[4] This too is a joke.

[5] This is the equivalent of having to know how to write and tweak Postscript just so you can print your Microsoft Word document or family photo album.

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