My favorite WordPress Desktop App features

I’m writing this from the new WordPress.com Desktop App, which was publicly released this week… and something I’ve been obsessed with for about a month.

 

Since I’ve been fiddling /testing the Desktop App for awhile now I wanted to take a moment and write about some of my favorite features.

Frequent autosaving of drafts… mine typically saves every few seconds or so. I love it. It’s tough when you forget to save your draft, and end up losing some work (which happens to me all the time in Microsoft Word). So I’m a huge fan of this feature.

Scheduling of posts, I use this frequently- and it took me an extra second to find it, so I just wanted to point out that it’s still there… all you have to do is click on the calendar icon next to the Publish button.

Uploading files/images. Of course you can do this the “old” way by clicking on the image icon to add media then selecting the file/image to upload and finally inserting the image into your post or page. My new favorite way is just dragging and dropping the image into the editor, it uploads quickly and is automatically inserted into your posts or page. All you have to do is make sure your cusor is where you want the image to be, before you drag the image file onto the editor. Did I mention it uploads quickly? Seriously… try it. You’ll love it!

In my very biased opinion the hidden gem of the entire Desktop App (and technically WordPress.com since it’s not just a feature in the Desktop App) is the Reader, where you can add all the sites you like to keep up with (including non-WordPress.com sites). I love RSS feeds, it’s how I used to consume all of my information. I like having all the blog posts I like to read in one place rather than having to visit each site to see if they wrote anything new recently.

I used to be in LOVE with Google Reader…. when it died a tragic death, I attempted to move onto Feedly. While I appreciate all that Feedly has tried to do for me, like automatically importing over all my feeds (which was really nice). Feedly and I just didn’t have that connection that I had with Google Reader. Our relationship felt a bit forced, and checking my RSS reader which was something that I previously looked forward to… was now something I would do begrudgingly, for no apparent reason. Then I accidentally found WordPress.com’s Reader. By accidentally, I mean, I found the functionality while at work. I come from a self hosted WordPress.org background and this was one of those gems of functionality that I found within WordPress.com, that just gave me the warm and fuzzies on the inside.

Next thing I know, it’s how I started consuming all of my information. It’s addicting. I find myself constantly checking my WordPress Reader… from my phone right after I wake up, from my desktop during the day, and finally from my iPad’s WordPress App while I’m watching tv in the evenings. It’s addicting and easy to navigate through. I love it.

Anyways… those are a few of my favorite features that I haven’t been able to get enough of. I hope you’re enjoying the WordPress Desktop App too! 🙂