<\/p>\n
With Brainsnorkel<\/a> experimenting with Writely<\/a>, I thought it was about time that I evaluated Ecto<\/a> as I promised a month ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n I am going to talk almost exclusively about the user-experience rather than the features of the tool. Why? Because that’s the reason I am giving it the thumbs-down<\/strong> after only the briefest trials. It may be the most powerful tool available, but I will never know because it made life too hard for me in the first 30 minutes.<\/p>\n To begin with, there is the URL: http:\/\/ecto.kung-foo.tv\/<\/a>. It appeared first in Google, but I instantly became suspicious: kung-foo? tv? Is this for real, or is it an attempt to get me to install a trojan. Remember, this is a tool you are asking me to install on my PC, and to enter my blog password. If you manage to 0wn my machine or take over my blog, I am going to look very foolish. After poking around the site for a bit, I decided it was probably okay. I’ll risk it.<\/p>\n <pedant>The spelling of the product is “ecto”. I normally try to honour CamelCase<\/a> marketing attempts – indeed, I am guilty of it myself<\/a>, but a leading lowercase letter for a proper noun offends my sensibilities too much. It makes writing about it confusing for the reader – especially when it appears at the beginning of sentences. I have chosen not to respect their capitalisation scheme.<\/pedant><\/p>\n The tool went through a typical installation cycle. There was a zip file containing a Readme file and an EXE. The Readme file contained contact details and system requirements.<\/p>\n As the installer ran, it stopped to display some “important” information for me to read – it was the history.txt telling me about all the bugs that had been fixed since the last version. That’s not<\/em> an important file for a new user like me. It’s important for existing users before<\/em> they run the installer, to decide whether they want to install it or not.<\/p>\n When it got to the end, it offered to launch the application and to display the Readme file. That’s the Readme that has little else but System Requirements – now it is far too late!<\/p>\n Now the pain started. It asked me for proxy details (I guess that’s fair enough… although if you could interrogate my browser and\/or the networks proxy auto-configuration scripts, it would be much more flexible for when my machine changes networks.).<\/p>\n It also asked me for a URL and for a username and password. I entered my WordPress password, marvelling at the sufficiently-advanced-technology that was going to figure out what sort of blog software I use, and work out how to log on automatically. That turned out to be a false hope. It had to ask me all sorts of details about my blog software. I now think that the first question was really asking for the username and password for my (non-existent) proxy.<\/p>\n So, I explained that I use WordPress, and it offered to connect via the MovableType API. MovableType? I use WordPress – I just told you that! I looked at the Dropdown list for APIs, and WordPress wasn’t there. I was confused, and MovableType sounded wrong, so I went with Atom, because I know WordPress supports Atom.<\/p>\n That was the wrong choice. I know this, because it explained it to me in terms that I could understand, with clear instructions on how to remedy the error…. NOT! Here’s what it actually said:<\/p>\n The data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Okay, so I figured maybe the default (MovableType API) was right after all. I fixed that up, and the data was successfully fetched. I was away!<\/p>\n Well, the main application for Ecto looks very clean and stylish. Simply tree on the left, list of posts at the top, contents of the posts beneath. Maybe this application can redeem itself.<\/p>\n I spotted a typo in one of my posts, and immediately tried to fix it in place. No that’s wrong. It is a read-only view. So I right-clicked on the post to select Edit, but it wasn’t in the context menu. So I right-clicked on the title of the post in the list. Nope, no Edit operation there either. Time to search the Menu Bar. Nope, no way to enter edit mode. Turns out a simple double-click on the title of the post was what I needed to do – that, and only<\/em> that. Hmmm…<\/p>\n I fixed up the typo very quickly, but was disappointed to realise that it wasn’t WYSIWYG, which is why I went to try Ecto in the first place. Instead, it had a preview mode, which launched a small browser-like window to see how it would look with someone-else’s stylesheet. Hey, I can do that already with WordPress. Why do I need this tool?<\/p>\n One of the options (turned off by default) was the ability to prevent you saving without setting the Categories and Summary first. “Cool,” I thought, “I often forget to set the categories.” So I turned that on.<\/p>\n I started writing this article in Ecto, and at one point I wanted to save the result. It offers to save it to the blog as a draft. “Perfect!” I thought. Until it complained that I hadn’t set the category or summary. “No,” I said, “You should only enforce that when I try to publish<\/em> not when I try to backup<\/em>.” Next to the confusing Save icon in the menu bar was another Save icon. I tried clicking on that. No complaints, and I closed Ecto. When I came back, the article was gone<\/strong> – all my beautiful words were no longer in Ecto. Luckily I had copied the draft to a Notepad window first!<\/p>\n The most annoying trick of all – yes, even more annoying that throwing away my words! – is that every minute or two, the focus jumps from the edit window you are in, back to the main window – even as you are in the middle of typing. I don’t care if the main window is refreshing itself for some reason: Don’t Steal My Focus!<\/a><\/p>\n Ecto isn’t ready for prime-time yet. It is not without hope – there is clearly some thought being given to the user-interface – it is far from a complete write-off. Also, wasn’t a particularly generous reviewier. I spent precisely zero time looking at help files and online forums and raising support tickets . However, I don’t want to spend any more time on Ecto for another 12 months at least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With Brainsnorkel experimenting with Writely, I thought it was about time that I evaluated Ecto as I promised a month ago. I am going to talk almost exclusively about the user-experience rather than the features of the tool. Why? Because that’s the reason I am giving it the thumbs-down after only the briefest trials. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,47,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insufficiently-advanced-technology","category-review","category-software-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Naming<\/h3>\n
The Installation Experience<\/h3>\n
The Configuration Experience<\/h3>\n
Server Error<\/p>\nMain Application<\/h3>\n
Editing my First Post<\/h3>\n
Validation<\/h3>\n
Focus-Stealing<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n