MarsEdit


MarsEdit is a blog post editor for the Mac made by Red Sweater Software. It can be used to write, edit, and publish blog posts, and supports many popular blogging services, such as WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, and Movable Type.

History

MarsEdit was originally developed by Brent Simmons as a component of NetNewsWire, a popular news aggregator for Mac OS X, which, in the 1.0 series, included a simple weblog editor. During the development of NetNewsWire 2.0, the developers decided to move the blog editor functionality to a new application.
With the acquisition of NetNewsWire by NewsGator in 2005, the future of MarsEdit was uncertain for a time. Simmons considered abandoning the app, or open-sourcing it to let other developers work on it, but after a "strong reaction from users", he announced at the October 2005 DrunkenBlog conference that development would continue. On November 4 of 2005, he revealed that MarsEdit development would be continued by Gus Mueller of Flying Meat. In February 2007, MarsEdit was purchased by Red Sweater Software, and development was taken over by Red Sweater's owner, Daniel Jalkut.
Support for the popular Tumblr blog service was added to MarsEdit 2.3 after Jalkut worked with Tumblr developer Marco Arment.
In 2010, an iOS version was planned, but was not released.
In 2018, MarsEdit creator Daniel Jalkut co-formed a group called the "Developer Union" protesting Apple's developer policies. He had previously complained about the Mac App Store taking away developers' control over their app sales.
MarsEdit joined the Setapp subscription package in 2019.

Reception

Reviews of initial versions of MarsEdit were positive, but pointed out bugs. Version 2 received a 4 out of 5 star review by Macworld magazine, while Ars Technica's David Chartier said it lacked ecto's support for Amazon affiliate links and the built-in Mac OS X Media Browser. In 2007, Engadget's Scott McNulty called it "fantastic" in comparison to Blogger's web interface, and Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng described it as a "popular blogging tool among Mac users". Scott Gilbertson noted that the app was popular among "a number of" writers for Wired magazine. Weighing the need for MarsEdit compared to using Tumblr's web interface, Christina Warren said that the lower risk of data loss and the ease of writing long posts made the app "superior". Macworld praised the new WYSIWYG features version 3.1, but noted that there was missing documentation for self-hosted Movable Type blogs. In 2018, Macworld gave version 4.1 their Editor's Choice award, and rated it 4.5 out of 5 stars; AppleInsider was also positive. In December 2022, Apple blogger John Gruber called it "essential for work".

Release history

VersionRelease dateChanges
1.0December 10, 2004
  • Initial version
  • Support for drafts, custom templates, AppleScript, custom HTML tags, spell checking
1.1March 2006
2.0September 2006
  • Flickr integration to pick photos that can be added to blog posts
  • A Markup dropdown menu that automatically generates HTML syntax
  • Improved user interface, which dropped the drawers and pinstripes common among early Aqua user interfaces
  • WYSIWYG preview window before publishing a post
    • 2.0.4November 2007
  • Bug fixes
    • 2.1January 2008
  • Tagging support for Movable Type and WordPress
  • Support for uploading drafts to blogging services
  • Search bar returns drafts and published posts
    • 2.2July 2008
  • Support for the AtomPub protocol
  • More advanced image markup options
    • 2.3March 2009
  • Support for posting to Tumblr
    • 3.0May 2010
  • WYSIWYG editing through a rich text editor, to avoid the need to write HTML code
  • HTML syntax highlighting
  • Scheduled uploads
  • Image library integration for iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom
  • Support for WordPress static pages
    • 3.1September 2010
    3.4November 2011
  • Improved media manager
    • 3.5.6September 2012
  • Reinstated Tumblr support after a server-side change had made the app incompatible
  • Integration with OS X Mountain Lion's Notification Center
    • 4.0February 2018
  • Support for sandboxing, autosave, and versioning
  • New Safari extension
  • "Typewriter-style" focused writing mode
  • Customizable article author name
    • 4.5September 2021
  • Media Manager now syncs with WordPress
    • 5.0December 2022
  • Support for Markdown highlighting
  • New app icon
  • New Micropost floating panel that can be activated with a systemwide keyboard shortcut, where users can type short posts and instantly publish
  • WYSIWYG Markdown syntax highlighting