Full court WordPress from the desktop

Feb2009

The web development work I do for OpenConcept has always been focused on the Drupal platform. However, there are a number of other content management systems (CMS) out there with many users and developers.

One notable platform that I often customize and deploy for clients is WordPress. Like Drupal, WordPress is an open-source, php-based CMS. Yet, Drupal hasn’t seen the same surge in popularity. While Drupal and WordPress both have rich plugin architectures and effective templating systems, a key factor in WordPress’ rapid growth has been the user-friendly backend interface, the administrative section of the CMS used to manage the website. Since Happy Cog was approached by the WordPress team to overhaul the user interface in 2.5, the backend has improved by leaps and bounds. At the same time as the redesign, the WordPress developers were, and continue to add a plethora of new features, such as Auto-saving and Post Revisions.

But therein lies the problem. In the past eight months, ever since WordPress 2.6 was released in the summer, WordPress has been increasingly giving me, and the users I develop for, a hard time. A common problem is the Auto-Saving feature malfunctioning and not saving any content. The Save Draft function has also been acting up on a regular basis, either by not saving at all, or by reverting to an older draft. These problems are often difficult, time-consuming and therefore to costly to troubleshoot. While the WordPress user experience has improved significantly over the past year or so, many users I’ve spoken to have asked for better stability.

One solution is to use a desktop blogging client. Because most users only want to add a blog post every once in a while, something like Microsoft’s free Windows Live Writer is particularly effective in easing the headaches. Desktop clients generally provide the following benefits:

1. Increased reliability: Drafts can be saved to a local hard drive, rather than to a server not user the user’s direct control.
2. Familiar interface: Many desktop clients provide a similar feel to popular word processing applications.
3. Offline access: Users can write a post without being connected to the Internet.
4. Better formatting: Desktop clients can come closer to “What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) functionality than WordPress’ own user interface. In the case of Live Writer, the word processing is overlayed on the blog design itself, giving the author a visual representation of what the final post will look like.

The WordPress codex also has a list of further benefits of user a weblog client. Smashing Magazine has a great list of fifteen clients for users beginner to advanced, Windows, Linux or OSX.

The WordPress userbase has growth dramatically for good reason: the developers have constantly been improving the user experience, making it easier and more fun to create content. The WordPress team, like many open-source communities, has been incredibly receptive to the demands of its users, and I’m sure many of the hiccups will be resolved in short order. But in the meantime, there are plenty of stable, more reliable solutions for posting content to your WordPress website.