» Quick Start
» Creating Accounts
» Posts and Drafts
» Creating Drafts
» About the Editor
» Draft Preview
» Posting Drafts
» Editing Posts
» Sending Notifications
» File and Image Upload
» Advanced Features
» Preferences
» Payment
» Troubleshooting
» Keyboard Shortcuts

Advanced Features

Under the hood, ecto offers a large number of advanced features. Here's a selection.

  • Customization of HTML tags: From the Window menu, choose "Custom Tags". This will reveal a window in which you can add, modify, and/or delete HTML tags. Additionally, you can assign keyboard shortcuts and/or map to buttons for in the draft window's editing toolbar. Please keep in mind not to choose shortcuts that conflict with shortcuts that are already used by ecto or the MacOSX system.
  • Server transaction console: Selecting "Console" from the Window menu will reveal an extra window that shows the details of all communications with your blog systems. If you run into a problem with ecto, this console can provide helpful information. When contacting ecto support with problems, always make sure to have console output available as well.
  • Blog switching: If you have an draft published on a blog and you want to publish to another blog, there are two ways to achieve this. The easiest way is to select the draft in the main window and drag it to the blog you want to publish to. Alternatively:
    1. Open the draft from the main list.
    2. From the draft window's blog popup menu, select the blog you want to publish the draft to. If you don't see this popup, choose Draft ▶ Show/Hide ▶ Blogs Menu from the menu bar.
    3. Adjust settings and content, if necessary.
    4. Click "Publish" in the toolbar.
  • Per-blog settings: Almost all settings, apart from the general preferences, are saved on a per-blog basis. This means that you can have different settings for each of your blogs. From the application menu, choose Settings ▶ Weblog…. You can select the blog you want to change settings for with the popup menu. You can also specify to have settings apply to all blogs of the selected account.
  • Services: ecto adds a new services to the Services menu that lets you create a new draft with text you selected.
  • Bookmarklet: In addition to Services, ecto also offers a bookmarklet. To install the bookmarklet in your browser of choice, choose "Install Bookmarklet…" from the application menu. This will open a web page in your default browser with a JavaScript link and instructions on how to install and use this link.
  • .webloc: You can drop .webloc files (URL address links generated by MacOSX) on the ecto icon or main window and the web address will be inserted in the text.