The Blog API module, included in Drupal 5 & 6 and available via the separate BlogAPI contrib module for Drupal 7, enables a post to be published to a site via external GUI applications. Many users prefer to use external tools to improve legibility and posting responses in a customized way. The Blog API module provides users the freedom to use the blogging tools they want but still have the blogging server of choice.

When this module is enabled and configured, you can use a variety of programs to create and publish posts from your desktop. Blog API module supports several XML-RPC based blogging APIs such as the Blogger API (outdated) (new Blogger Data API, MetaWeblog API, and most of the Movable Type API.

For more information on using software with the Blog API, see the Creating new content section of the End user Guide.

Note that starting with Drupal 6.x, Watchdog has been replaced by the dblog and syslog modules. Dblog is similar to watchdog; Syslog allows Drupal's logging to be integrated with the server's syslog facility.