Windows Live Writer

I’ve noticed recently more and more people are using Windows Live Writer to author their blog posts, so figured I’d give it a go and see what all the fuss is about. To get started you need to have a Live Account, which I do as I’m using Live Messenger and Live Sync – it’s actually another optional install that I’ve just ignored in the past.

Next you need to configure WLW for your blog(s), I’m using BlogEngine.net which uses the Metablog API and this is just one of the many standards supported by WLW so that was easy – just provide your url, admin username and password and you’re good to go.

Then to create posts you simply fire up WLW and start writing, the formatting options are pretty good / standard and you get full access to the html – it doesn’t seem to use the hideous engine used by IE or Word, the mark-up is good and clean. You can save drafts until you’re ready to post, and once you are ready all you need to do is click the publish button. I have mine set so it checks spelling and that I’ve got a category / tags set. So I shouldn’t end up posting something half complete. I also like the plug-ins – there’s a library of plug-ins for you to chose from to enhance your experience. To date I’ve installed a few (Syntax Highlighter Block, SEO Slug and Acronym Tags), yes I could hand craft these if I wanted, but why bother when they make it so easy to do?

True you need to set this up on each computer that you want to post from, but the same is true of any installed software – but it is a good platform and I can fall back on the web tool if I need to post and I’m not at one of my computers.