Using MT 3.2 & 3rd party publishing tools
Okay, this is documented deep in Six Apart's web site, but as I spent forever trying to figure out why I couldn't log in using a 3rd party tool, I am recording here to make sure I can figure it out again one day in the future.
Log into MT
Click on your username in the top navbar to go to your profile
Scroll down to the bottom where you see "API Password"
Input the password of your choice and save. For security reasons, it should be different from your normal password
Use that password in your client software
Bah humbug, I wasted hours trying to figure out why these 3rd party editing tools would work. Once the above was sorted out, I could at least give it a go. I was looking for something that would allow me to post pictures as easily as Picasa and as Hello. Alas, it would appear that no one wants to make it easy to select a photo and create a web-friendly size and a thumbnail.
w.bloggar
Forget it, nothing but generic uploading. It's nice enough for generic text blogs, but my blogs, especially my blogs about my boys, are picture intensive.
SharpMT
Just like w.bloggar - nice enough, but designed for text only blogs, with uploads & images an afterthought. Drag & drop - forget it. Plus you have to install the latest beta of .NET framework V2 to use the newest bits - so everything gets to go slower than it should.
Qumana
You can insert an image, but it goes in full sized. Wonderfully useful with 7megapixel images. Some stuff is just broken, like categories just give "invalid login". And shell drag & drop doesn't work.
BlogJet
Okay, BlogJet tortures you by almost getting it right. It has a nice code/normal view. You can resize images. You can create a thumbnail of an image. You just can't create a thumbnail pointing to the resized image. Doh. And once again, shell drag & drop doesn't work - what is up with that?
Ecto
Okay, this one was the worst torture of all - it is SO CLOSE! Bummer is that categories don't work. And of course, drag and drop doesn't work. Actually, this one is funky because it "works" except that you can't access any of the checkboxes/edit controls for creating a thumbnail or reducing the image size. But if you browse and find a file, you can specify a thumbnail and a resized image, specify an upload directory, and BAM! Ecto inserts the proper code into your post & everything is uploaded properly. COOL!!! Sadly, when you upload another, Ecto doesn't remember the any of your settings. You have to go to the Thumbnail tab, click that you want a thumbnail, re-specify the thumbnail width, then go to the Conversion tab, click on resize, and re-specify the new width. You even get to re-specify the upload directory. Ecto - make drag & drop work, and remember settings around thumbnails and resizing, and I'm in - your product is damned cool!