So This is ScribeFire

I’m usually low-maintenance when it comes to online writing tools. For years, the only editor I used at PhilMusic.com was Notepad. The standard low rent text editor that comes with Windows. Years later, I migrated to Textpad, a more full featured text editor. And that’s the same editor I decided to use when writing posts at The Ayson Chronicles.

Everyone needs a change of pace, so just for the hell of it, I asked around Twitter what people used for writing text for blogs. Quite a few responded with my same editor – Textpad. A lot of folks use the built-in WYSIWYG editor. One particularly hardcore fella mentioned vi. The stripped-down basic Unix editor that is, not short for Vilma.

@JeffMcNeil , who describes himself as a “Networking consultant, university lecturer, phd student, Internet researcher, Donnagh McDonnagh in Second Life” from Honolulu, responded with the comment that he uses ScribeFire – a Firefox extension.

I was piqued. I’ve always been a fan of Firefox extensions – essentially low overhead free tools that piggyback on the Firefox browser – so I went up and paid a visit to Scribefire.com and installed it right away.

This is my first post using the editor, and so far, I like what I see. It’s a WYSIWYG editor that opens up in either a split-screen ore full screen view (opening up a new window or tab if you prefer), that connects directly to your blog platform of choice via the blogs’ API. I set it up using my WordPress API, and off I went. F8 fires up the editor (which probably results in more compulsive posting). Nothing could be simpler.

I’ll probably revert back to Textpad for most of my off-line editing. “Cloud computing” is a nice buzzword, but in real life, we’re not always online all the time. But I do believe that I’ll be jumping into ScribeFire now and then for a refreshing change of pace.