Microsoft - Live writer Sunday, November 12 2006
Windows Live Writer is a free blog posting tool from Microsoft, It makes easier to compose blog posts, it is a desktop tool to publish your blog posts to most of the blogging systems such as Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, Community server (and many others).
It offers the following features:
* it is simple, easy to use and faster, it would make life easier
* Writer automatically extracting style information from your blog to your desktop, such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles.
* Switch between HTML source-code editing, WYSIWYG editing, and web preview modes.
* Tagging support
* Compose posts offline - Similar to MS word like User interface, includes spell check, save draft
* Insert photos, maps, and other graphics - contextual editing tools to modify size(small, medium, large, original or custom size), text wrapping, borders, and apply graphic effects.
* Create thumbnail image links to larger graphics.
* Upload photos directly to blog providers who support the new Media Object API (An XML-based application programming interface that provides upload information about images, movies, songs, or other types of media when you upload media from your computer to your blog.) or to an FTP server.
* Compose posts for Windows Live Spaces as well as Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and many other services.
Works with Really Simple Discoverability (RSD) (An XML format that makes it simple to set up editing or blogging software to use with blogging sites.) , the Metaweblog API (An XML-based application programming interface that allows other applications to interact with a blog site.) , and the Movable Type API (An XML-based application programming interface that extends the Metaweblog API.) .
* The Windows Live Writer SDK allows developers to extend the capabilities of Writer to publish additional content types.
Weblog Configuration Setup
Download writer from http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/
filename - Writer.msi
file size - 3.58MB
Step1: Setup will display welcome screen, where you can select Next if you already have blog.
Step2: I have selected "Another Weblog service", I am using Community Server 2.1
Step3: This credential is used to post the entry into Weblog system.
note: Don't type your ftp userid and password here, this is a blog userid and password. you may have to enter ftp credentials when you upload images if the blogging system doesn't support image upload.
Step4: Select your blog provider and service URL
Initially I entered
http://www.saran945.com/cs/blogs/metablog.ashx in as the path to my blog service and the tool failed with this error:
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Error Connecting to Weblog
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An error occurred while attempting to connect to your Weblog:
Invalid Server Response - The response to the blogger.getUsersBlogs method received from the weblog server was invalid.
You must correct this error before proceeding.
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OK
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I have removed www from the field, then it worked fine.
Step5: Finished setup and writing this first post using live writer..!
The above setup information could be changed any time using the menu weblog -> Edit weblog settings
If the blog system doesn't support image upload then you will be recieving the following error
to resolve this issue, goto Weblog -> edit weblog settings -> next, there you could set up FTP settings.
Note: Community Server doesn't support direct uploadingof photos into galleries, so you'll first have to upload images to your photo gallery and then add them to your blog by using Insert Picture from Web. Then, enter the URL of the image from your photo gallery.
Plugins
Flickr4Writer - http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=flickr4writer
Tag4Writer - http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=tag4writer
Currently Listening - http://jtsquared.net/currently/
Writer Links
Download Writer! http://g.msn.com/8SEENUS030000TBR/WriterMSI
Writer Forums http://g.msn.com/8SEENUS030000TBR/WriterFeedbackURL
Writer SDK http://g.msn.com/8SEENUS030000TBR/WriterSDK
What are some of the Many Others under LiveWriter?
I went to all the links.. and at the end of your explanation you havd said" Many Others.. Can you name a few of those as well?