Way back in the dim and distant past, before my other blog, Past Thinking, began to focus solely upon heritage matters, I reviewed Ecto 2. Now, 2 years later, I’m writing this with the alpha version of Ecto 3.

This isn’t a full review – this is really just a test drive of the alpha version, and a quick account as I go along.

I once decried the rich text editor of Ecto 2, wishing for a WYSIWYG editor, and it seems as if at long last my wish has been answered. Everything you do in the editor is actually displayed as you expect it to, rather than the strange highlights and awkwardness that went before (which I did get used to).

Ecto 3, although not yet finished, has a much more ‘Mac’ look and feel to it, although perhaps I still find the multiple windows to be slightly annoying – I’d prefer a more unified or tabbed GUI. Still, you can close the windows that you’re not currently using.

Uploading images is a breeze – the screenshot below was captured in Skitch and dragged from Skitch right into Ecto, where it was automatically resized. Very nice. I then had the option to upload the image there and then (which I forgot to screen grab).

And, since the WYSIWYG editor uses WebKit, it looks like it’s doing a fairly accurate job.

As you can see from the screenshot, there’s a “Keywords” box below title. It’ll be interesting to see if these hook into Ultimate Tag Warrior, or appear as html meta tags (does anything still use them these days?). In the alpha version, there is no help file (it’s still being written) so I’ll give it a go and see what happens.

All in all, writing this little ditty was a pleasure in Ecto, and if you are reading this, it successfully connected to my blog and posted this.

When Ecto 3 is finished, I’ll post a comprehensive review here. You can read Adriaan’s announcement over at Infinite Sushi.

(ahh – so that’s what the ‘Keywords’ does!)