Aside from the actual WordPress dashboard, what tools are available for writing posts, moderating comments, and otherwise administering your site? Please identify whether you’re referencing a desktop tool, a web-based tool, or a mobile tool.
What tools are available for managing/writing to WordPress?
Windows Live Writer
Windows Live Writer (WLW) is hands down the best, if you are on Windows. One of the things I love about it is its plugin architecture and how many people have written useful plugins for WLW.
(source: mikeschinkel.com)
Qumana
I searched far and wide for an equivalent on the Mac and didn’t find a match but came close: Qumana:
(source: mikeschinkel.com)
Qumana still can’t touch WLW because it doesn’t strip garbage HTML (like from a Word .doc) like WLW does and it doesn’t have a plugin architecture, but I keep hoping… 🙂
WordPress for iOS
The official WordPress client for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch devices), and supports many of the standard WordPress features.
Is both open source and free to download from the App Store.
MarsEdit is pretty much hands-down the best blog client / WordPress tool for Mac. It’s a native OSX desktop app, it’s not free but I think it’s well worth the money for a multi-client blogging tool.
WordPress for Android
The official WordPress client for Android mobile devices. Can manage comments, posts and pages.
Is both open source and free to download from the Android Market.
Windows Live Writer
I’ve used this tool to write both to my own blog and to clients’ blogs. It’s a desktop tool provided free by Microsoft that syncs with your site for creating posts, managing categories, and uploading media. The rich text editor allows you to copy-paste from Word documents and switch between a text view and a preview of what the post will look like on your site. You can even write scheduled posts!
One word of warning, though. The live preview feature might not work with some of the more dynamic themes. I’ve seen it break with a few custom designs and with some themes from RocketThemes. Otherwise, it’s a great tool!
I don’t know of many tools, but here are two:
For mobile, there are the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps for managing posts, pages and comments, as well as viewing stats on your mobile device.
WP Remote
On the web, the only think I know of is http://www.wpremote.com. It’s still in a private beta, but it will be a dashboard set up to help manage updating multiple WordPress installations and their plugins from one central location. It doesn’t do anything with posting, comments, or otherwise, but is a nifty tool nevertheless.
Also check out ScribeFire Next. It’s a Firefox plugin that lets you write blog posts while viewing other web pages. http://www.scribefire.com/
BlogDesk was used from mayn users
Program description
As an offline weblog client, BlogDesk lets you comfortably write and effortlessly publish new entries to your blog.
No need to use those annoying HTML Tags in the WYSIWYG editor. Images can be directly inserted and are automatically uploaded. Even publishing simultaneously to multiple blogs is a matter of a click.
With the ImageWizard you can not only insert images to your posts – it’s possible to edit them as well (crop, resize, rotate, shadow etc., see Examples). Even Thumbnails can be created – the preview will be shown in the blog and a click on the image will open it in its original size (just like here in the right column). Linking and uploading those images is automatically done by BlogDesk.
The reduced view leaves more space for the actual post and helps to focus on the content. Especially inexperienced users appreciate a clean workspace without to much distraction.
The BlogWizards helps to configure your blog. With pre-defined blog systems you can access your blog after a few seconds.
Links can be easily inserted and edited. If you link to local files (such as MP3 or PDF), BlogDesk will automatically upload them.
Dictionaries in 14 languages are available for the integrated spell checker.
Posts already published can be edited afterwards and deleted directly from the server.
Frequently Used Phrases are an enormous time-saver for often used phrases, sentences, acronyms or complex formulations.
The Tags-Generator lets you easily define and insert tags instead of retyping them over and over again. WordPress-Tags are supported, too. You can also set so called Custom Fields.
In the Notebook you can insert and rearrange text before you actually use it in your weblog entry. For your convenience you can create multiple categories where text can be saved separatley.
Since it has not been mentioned:
(it did not say public tool in the question)
Being a code monkey, I prefer to do my blogging using the BlogMate bundle in TextMate (a Mac OSX programmer’s text editor). It’s not for everyone, I know (not free, not anywhere near WYSIWYG), but for someone who spends 8-10 hours a day in TextMate it’s just so easy to open a new window, and start typing.