Mash Note: Tumblweed: Tumblr blogging client written in Adobe AIR

Brian Dillard, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

I haven't tried to hide my ambivalence about Adobe's move into the RIA market. That's why I feel duty-bound to share my positive experience with a newish AIR application: Tumblweed, a desktop client for the Tumblr micro-blogging service.

Currently in beta release, with new iterations coming quickly, Tumblweed lets you post photos, quotes, links, audio and full blog posts - any of Tumblr's supported content types - without hitting your browser. None of this would be possible, of course, without Tumblr's http-based API. But props to Tumblweed creator David Merino for building an application that's minimalist yet user-centric.

Tumblweed currently supports a subset of the functionality you can access on-site. You can create posts, though editing or deleting them appears to be wonky (at least on my machine, a MacBook Pro running OS X Tiger). You can drag-and-drop photos instead of using a clunky, web-based upload mechanism. You can even copy images directly from the clipboard.

It would be nice if Tumbleweed provided better visual feedback about the image currently being uploaded. I expect such usability issues to improve in subsequent releases. In the meantime, thoughtful touches abound. For instance, the Snapshot dialog lets me take a photo using my Mac's built-in camera and upload it to Tumblr just like any other photo.

As a blogging client, Tumblweed already delivers value. As a showcase for AIR, it overcame my cautious cynicism about Adobe. The melding of webapp and desktop capabilities proves as compelling in practice as it did in theory at last year's Adobe MAX conference. It pains me to admit it, but I find myself eager to build an AIR app of my own.

agile ajax

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1. 

   Thanks for the props and nice article, Brian. I often share your ambivalence, even during development. But you should throw together an AIR app, it’s a good experience and a lot of fun.

   Comment by David Merino, Thursday, June 12, 2008 @ 7:27 pm

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