Yes, MarsEdit supports includes both a rich text "WYSIWYG" editing mode, and an advanced HTML markup editing mode.

People who are sensitive to applications that alter their HTML code structure will be pleased with MarsEdit's text-only editor. You can be confident that your web content is sent to your blog just as you typed it. MarsEdit won't "mess up" your finely crafted HTML.

Other people would prefer not to have to bother with HTML at all, which is where the rich editor comes into play. You can write in paragraphs just as you would in your favorite word-processing application. When you like what you see, just send it to the weblog and you're done.

Thanks to the adoption of semi-standardized interfaces for remote editors such as MarsEdit, there's a very good chance that your blog server software will work great with MarsEdit. The best thing to do if you're wondering, is to try simply typing your blog's home page URL into MarsEdit's "Add Weblog" dialog. Most of the time, MarsEdit will automatically pick up your blog's configuration details, and you'll be off and blogging.

In some cases MarsEdit cannot automatically detect the blog's settings. Don't give up yet! A shortcoming of some of the newer blog systems is that they don't support the feature that lets MarsEdit easily auto-detect their configuration information. It's quite likely that your blog will still work with MarsEdit.

If you know the name of your blog server's software, take a look at the built-in MarsEdit Help, and see if your system is listed in the "Getting Started" section. These pages offer tips for how to configure some of the less automated systems, or how to fix a configuration when something goes wrong during auto-detection.

If you can't find any information about your blog system in MarsEdit's help or in the forums, it's a good idea to ask the makers of the blogging software if they support a "standard remote editor API." You'll want to get the configuration information from them needed by MarsEdit, which usually includes an "RPC URL" and a blog ID. You'll also need to know the type of interface the system uses, which is often either "Movable Type" or else "Other MetaWeblog-Compatible".

Finally, if you're not getting any information anywhere, be sure to drop a line in the forums or contact us by email. We can often help find the key to getting you up and running with your favorite system.