More NetNewsWire and MarsEdit Questions and Answers

Some more answers to common questions about NetNewsWire and MarsEdit...

Can I use SSL?

Yes. It should work in both NetNewsWire and MarsEdit. However, if you have a self-signed certificate, you’ll need to follow this hint on MacOSXHints to get it to work.

Can NetNewsWire’s browser display Flash and other plugins?

Yes. Here’ how:

1. Open NetNewsWire’s preferences window and click the HTML icon.

2. In the popup menu at the top, choose “News Item Descriptions” if it’s not selected.

3. Make sure the box next to “Enable plug-ins” is checked.

4. Go back to the popup menu at the top and choose “External Pages,” and make sure the box next to “Enable plug-ins” is checked.

The weird thing is that for plugins to work for external pages you have to have plugins enabled for news item descriptions. (I suspect this is due to a WebKit bug, but I’m not positive yet. I’ll report it to Apple once I’m sure this is the case.)

How do I set the primary category in MarsEdit?

You set the primary category via the category popup menu. With a document window open, choose View > Customize Toolbar to add the popup menu.

If you think that this should be made easier, I’d agree with you completely.

How come MarsEdit can’t [set post status to published, upload images, etc.] with WordPress?

The WordPress folks are working on making sure WordPress works better with external weblog editors. They’re doing a good job, and I think WordPress 1.3 is going to be cool.

In the meantime, one thing you can do is try Johann Richard’s Combined XML-RPC Patch for WordPress 1.2 and Ecto or MarsEdit. (But note that it’s at your own risk: we can’t help you with your WordPress installation, since we’re working on NetNewsWire and MarsEdit.)

Are you looking for more styles to include with NetNewsWire?

You bet! If you make one, and you’d like to submit it for possible inclusion, just stuff it or zip it and send it to me via email. We can’t guarantee that we’ll include every one we get, of course, but we’ll strongly consider every one. (And if we include it then you will be credited in the About box. I think you’ll find that the WordPress community is quite helpful, though.)

Some of the things we look at:

1. Is it different from the other styles?

2. Does it work with all three layouts (traditional, widescreen, and Combined View)?

3. Does it work with items that have very long titles?

4. Does it work if I make my NetNewsWire window small? Or large?

Can I pay via PayPal?

Yes. Here’s how:

1. Go to the regular Kagi store page and decide what you want and look up the price.

2. Go to the NetNewsWire home page, scroll to the bottom, and click on the PayPal Donate button.

3. Then send us an email letting us know that you paid via PayPal and what product you bought. We’ll email you your serial number(s).