Hi,
Another question! I’ve seen a lot about how great MarsEdit is with Micro.blog on the Mac.
Is there a close equivalent people use on Microsoft Windows? That’s the system I usually have access to so would love a great app to post from there if there is one.
(Otherwise of course I can still use the native web interface)
I’m wondering this myself…if anyone knows or has recommendations…
I’m not on Windows, but based on some quick searches and this list of MarsEdit alternatives for Windows, I would say no, there’s currently no MarsEdit alternative for Windows.
The only Windows app that publishes to Micro.blog that I’m aware of is Obsidian. Obsidian supports plugins (enable them through the app settings). One of the plugins is Micro.publish, which will publish to your Micro.blog.
ia Writer, which can publish to Micro.blog on MacOS and iOS has a Windows version too. But I can’t tell from the site if the Windows version has the same publishing tools that the Mac version does. It might be worth trying out a free trial? (I don’t have a Windows machine to test it on.)
Unfortunately, the Windows and Android versions of iA Writer don’t have the blog publish feature and there are no plans to add it.
I believe @ericgregorich is right. On both Windows and Linux, using Obsidian is probably the only way to go. Micro.publish is a great little plugin but doesn’t support images yet.
It seems only 64-bit Linux. It won’t find md.obsidian.Obsidian on flathub on my 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS. This makes sense, since most of the software industry has gone 64-bit.
Your Raspberry Pi 400 is a 64-bit machine, so you can install the 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS if you want.
I know, though I don’t know what it would break if I installed it. I can even install 64-bit Ubuntu, if I wanted.
I don’t think anything on the planet really compares to the awesomeness that is MarsEdit, it’s probably the app I miss most when working on Windows. 
That said, Ulysses used to have a Windows version and that might be a solution. Another trick would be to use iAwriter, or Ulysses if it’s still available, to compose in markdown, get everything the way you want it, and then just copy/paste it into the web interface. Composing locally and previewing locally is the closest I’ve found to getting at least some of the functionality on Windows that’s native in MarsEdit. I prefer working locally because it’s easier for me to manage drafts and such, even if I manually have to copy/paste later.
There’s just not a lot of stuff with markdown support in Windows.
Bumping, maybe something has changed in ~two years? Is there any good windows app that works like MarsEdit? Or works with micro.blog?
From what I’ve seen recently, Obsidian with the Micro Publish plugin is still the most effective way to publish to Micro.blog from Windows. It still doesn’t have image support, though. Coming soon, maybe.
iA Writer I think can publish to Micro.blog, but it can’t update after it’s published.
In any case, there is nothing as robust as Mars Edit is on the Mac. Being able to connect to your blog and pull down all of your existing posts and keep them updated would be wonderful to be able to do on Windows.
Far better than MarsEdit. Works with Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad “and many more.” But, I don’t have a micro.blog blog so not sure if it works with that although it DOES support xml-rpc (which as I understand it, micro.blog supports).
Well, that’s subjective. It’s not super up to date, has a very… particular interface, etc. It supports basically the same services as MarsEdit largely the same way— xml-rpc. It should work with Micro.blog because of that and it’s great there’s an option on Windows. But I don’t look at that and bemoan it can’t be used on macOS.
There’s plenty of subjective comments in this thread, just throwing in mine. Windows Live Writer was amazing for its time, then it disappeared and a team took over creating something similar. Something being FOSS or not doesn’t really matter - but that being said, this is and Marsedit is not. Something being super up to date or not doesn’t matter. I’ve used WLW and this version for years. I’ve also tested Marsedit, which is just barebones by comparison - I could list all the things but there’s really no point. OP asked if there’s something like Marsedit for Windows and this is simply a direct answer to that. Ironically, I asked social media a while ago if there was anything better than OLW for Mac and the only thing I found was Marsedit, which costs a supremely nope-level single user license fee of US$60.
Also, I don’t see the problem with the interface, it’s the familiar Microsoft ribbon and I know how much Mac enthusiasts love standardized user experience. You have everything you need in the edit window. You can publish a test post to pull down the editing template from your blog (WP, anyway) so it looks 1:1 like what it will when you post it. You can list and edit all your previous blog entries. Nothing essential is missing.
The project appears to be paused, sure. Maybe it’s because nothing else is needed or people just prefer web interfaces instead? GitHub - OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter: An open source fork of Windows Live Writer
I just think it was worded strangely.
It has the most similar functionality to MarsEdit that anyone here has found on Windows, and I’m glad you shared it. Hopefully it continues to be maintained.
It probably won’t be. I think the appeal of thick client apps for updating blogs is limited - the lack of variety on MacOS OR Windows strongly suggests this. Once upon a time there were awesome clients for all sorts of things - NNTP, email, blogs and more. Lots of each. Now almost everything’s browser-based or if not, Electron ie browser-based. Or people just use Outlook or Apple Mail. And people think that just about the only blog-editing client on Mac is also the best - if there was any kind of choice the sentiment would have a bit more meaning.
I found this thread while googling for “better than Marsedit” since I spend a decent amount of time on a Mac. I guess there isn’t anything right now that fits that bill. I’m happy to just use a Windows machine to edit my blog instead; no biggie.