Software Review: Windows Live Writer
March 11, 2007 | Comments (6) | Filed under: Reviews, Tools
Being sort of a newcomer to the game, I’m not exactly sure if Windows Live Writer is common knowledge or not to most bloggers. I came across it by virtue of a link from a friend, and since I started using it have pretty much switched to it as my primary means for writing to my blogs. Basically, it’s a windows application for writing and publishing content, same as the interface for Blogger or the web form for Wordpress.
What makes Live Writer just a little bit more powerful then most of the pre-installed blog editors is the fact that it is an actual desktop application complete with hot keys for copy, paste, save, undo, redo, etc. It also has support for viewing your posts in a variety of different formats, dragging and dropping photos into your document, and the ability to maintain accounts for dozens of blogs at the same time (and switching between them with a single click).
Live Writer is also familiar with most common Blogging packages. While obviously recommended for Microsoft’s own Live Spaces, it auto detects and communicates with many others including Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Moveable Type to name a few. Basically, any of the blogging packages any first time to veteran blogger might be considering for their system. Live Writer includes many of the properties required for submitting your blog posts as well, including space for trackbacks, tags, timestamps, comments, keywords, and links. It also uploads any embedded images automatically into the appropriate location on your blog, making it really easy to spice up your posts.
So far, my biggest complaint about Windows Live Writer would be the fact that it is still pretty buggy. The software is still in the beta stages, so I guess that is to be expected. I’m not sure what Microsoft’s intentions are for the system once it’s ready for official release, but in its current form it is free to download and try directly from their beta webpage. I wouldn’t mind seeing more features as well included in the next version such as ping support on submitted posts and the ability to include other embedded items such as videos or music.
Overall though, this software definitely makes it easier to manage multiple blogs at a time, and in my opinion is much friendlier from a usability standpoint than the usual online WYSIWYG editors. I recommend trying it out to see if it improves your productivity at the end of the day. It definitely did for me…
EDIT: After spending some more time with the application, it seems I completely missed that ping support on submitted posts is already available. I must be blind!
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6 people have left comments
Ping support is built in (Tools | Preferences | Ping Servers).
There’s a great Insert Video plug-in for Writer here:
http://scottisafooldev.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FE151030F50B5B37!260.entry
Glad you are enjoying Writer, we hope to get most of the major bugs fixed soon!
Wow, I can’t believe I totally missed the Ping server link. Thanks for pointing it out. What are your plans for release of the application once it’s out of beta? Are you planning to release it as a free product or charging for a license?
I am just a developer, not an official spokesman for Microsoft on the matter, but to my knowledge nobody is even talking about charging for Writer. Charging license fees would be a pretty big change in strategy for our division (Windows Live).
Thanks for the info Joe. The direction it sounds like your guys are going in with this is very positive for the blogging community as a whole.