Windows Live Writer (beta) Update

I’ve been using Windows Live Writer (WLW) on two blogs for about a month, and haven’t found much not to like. The folks in Redmond need to keep an eye on whoever coded this application, because they’re going places.

Very briefly, WLW is a blogging editor and publisher from Micro$oft, a small company in Washington state that has brought us, among other things, Windows. We can’t hold that against them in this case, however, because WLW is nicely done indeed, and it needs Windows to work. It puts everything you need to format a blog in one place, including the ability to insert pictures, maps from Windows Live Maps, watermarks on images, blah, blah. It will publish to all the major sites such as Blogger and WordPress, in addition to Windows Live. If there is a major drawback, it’s that it does only work in Windows.

I’ve got a few minor gripes. There are a number of functions such as font sizes and choices that are available only by drop-down from the menu bar, instead of being on the toolbar where such things belong. M$ needs either to put them there by default, or include them in a toolbar customization package. Another nit: you can only paste into the program from the clipboard. WLW does not recognize clipboard managers — at least not Memorizer and Yankee Clipper, the two I tried. This is a minor annoyance for me, since I usually put my clips for blogging into Notefish and paste them as a single block, but it could be annoying for some folks.

Finally, WLW has an excellent feature that allows you to preview entries in Web layout, using data downloaded from the blog site to duplicate the blog’s appearance. This data, and changes in categories, have to be manually updated. This only involves clicking on a link and waiting a few seconds, but if you work on multiple computers, as I do, invariably you go looking for something you changed on the other machine and can’t find it or - in the case of categories - miss one you should have used. This update function needs to be automatic, when the program is first brought online.

All-in-all, though, the kids at Micro$oft have finally gotten one pretty much right. Give it a shot if you’re looking for a blogging editor/publisher. You may have found your app, and it’s free.

[tags]Bill Webb, Bill’s Web, Windows Live, Windows Live Writer, Blogging, Blogging Editors, Notefish[/tags]