Windows Live Writer April 8, 2007
Posted by Fadil in : Technology , trackbackI have recently discovered Windows Live Writer, a WYSIWYG blog authoring tool created by Microsoft (ahem, some people are going to hate me) as part of its “Live”-branded services. It basically allows you to write and save your posts offline before publishing, and takes care of uploading images to your blog as well. The application is primarily meant for Windows Live Spaces bloggers, but it is compatible with a bunch of other blog services.
The application allows post editing in four view modes: Normal, Web Layout, Web Preview and HTML Code. When you first add your current weblog account in the program, it downloads the stylesheets and some content from the website. When you edit a post in “Web Layout” mode, it actually applies your current blog styling (typeface, size, colour,etc.) to your writings. This can give you a good feel about the layout of the post.
The “Web Preview” view mode is an HTML viewer which displays the post being written on the homepage of your blog with all the styling and content, just as it would look like when published. This can be really handy, and I think it’s one of the top reasons to be using this piece of software.
The in place image manipulation options are equally useful. In fact, when adding an image to your post, you can easily scale, rotate or change the brightness of the image. Better still, effects such as sepia filtering, sharpening and blurring can be applied to the image with a few clicks!
On the whole, Windows Live Writer is packed with a list of decent features. And this list can be extended, as an SDK allows developers to write plugins (many are already available) for the application. In my opinion, a couple of features which would really improve the experience are HTML syntax highlighting in the “HTML code” view and a real-time spell checking engine (spell checking is available only on demand at present).
Do give it a try, and do share your thoughts about it!
P.S. Yeah I know, I’m blogging after nearly three months! Studies have made recent times very hectic! Oh, I got rid of the shoutbox cuz of the uncontrollable amount of spam it was attracting!
Comments»
welcome back fad, n i downloaded the microsoft truc…
hmm,waiting for another post to test it
you finally got back to blogging!
I tried the Windows Live Writer thingy once, along with other editors of the same type, perfomance-sumthing-named etc.
I can only say, that I’ll stick to the usual coding method of writing my posts, I can’t get myself to use those editors, nor the one that comes with Wordpress.
Thanks Yashvin! Share your views about it!
LaSh, I still use plain old HTML as well, for image tags and other embedded content. I write the rest in “Normal” mode. I’ve had some issues with WP’s visual rich editor too.
as an image speaks a thousand words(something like that), here’s my response lol
Wow, that’s a blow to everything I’ve said! Have you ever tried it Hans?
No, Live writer is just like M$ answers to blogging lol, like it did for Frontpage….remember all the crap code it inserted into a simple page…. that’s why I didn’t use it….
I’ve heard good words on Ecto though…I shall be reviewing it soon.
try that if you want… sorry I don’t know where the link is but a google will get you that. it’s available for both windo$ and mac 
ooops I forget, it would be great if you could join my blogroll buddy, it’s at UBSquare
just do join from the top panel..
Oh never heard of Ecto before! Thanks, I’ll give it a try ASAP.
OK I’ll do that Hans, it will be great to join the community!