{"id":870,"date":"2006-08-13T22:27:54","date_gmt":"2006-08-13T21:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/13\/windows-live-writer-beta-is-live\/"},"modified":"2006-08-14T15:44:24","modified_gmt":"2006-08-14T14:44:24","slug":"windows-live-writer-beta-is-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/13\/windows-live-writer-beta-is-live\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows Live Writer Beta is Live!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the recent speculation<\/a> of Windows Live Writer from Gary at menori<\/a> and then his later post<\/a> about Windows Live Writer really exsisting because he had confirmation from his source Beau from Inside-Live<\/a> who also told<\/a> Logix from MSGworld some information<\/p>\n

I can now confirm that Windows Live Writer really does exsist and that I had been testing Windows Live Writer before it’s release today thanks to kris Hoet<\/a>\u00a0from Microsoft who contacted me earlier last week.<\/p>\n

But what is Windows live Wrtiter I here you say, well let me explain with some help from the Windows Live Writer Team Blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces<\/a> or your current blog service.<\/p>\n

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way<\/a> communications medium. The Windows Live Writer Teams goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.<\/p>\n

And because the Windows Live Writer Team are\u00a0so excited about getting feedback from people on how to make it better they would love for you to\u00a0download<\/a> it and let them know<\/a>\u00a0what you think about it.<\/p>\n

Windows Live Writer has lots of features which\u00a0they hope make for a better blogging experience. Some of the ones\u00a0they are most excited about include:<\/p>\n

WYSIWYG Authoring<\/strong>
\nThe first thing to notice about Writer is that it enables true WYSIWYG blog authoring. You can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it. Writer knows the styles of your blog such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles.<\/p>\n

Writer also includes other views including HTML source-code editing and web preview mode.<\/p>\n

Now you don’t have to waste time going through the process of publishing, refreshing, previewing, and tweaking your post to get it looking the way you want. It’s all right there in Writer as you create your post.<\/p>\n

Photo Publishing<\/strong>
\nWriter makes inserting, customizing, and uploading photos to your blog a snap. You can insert a photo into your post by browsing image thumbnails through the Insert Picture dialog or by copying and pasting from a web page.<\/p>\n

Once you’ve inserted the picture, Writer provides contextual editing tools to modify size, text wrapping, borders, and apply graphic effects. Writer also allows you specify a smaller thumbnail to that will link to a larger image for detailed viewing.<\/p>\n

Photos can be either uploaded directly to your weblog provider (if they support the newMediaObject<\/a> API) or to an FTP server.<\/p>\n

Map Publishing<\/strong>
\nWhether you are blogging about a vacation or a political conflict, maps are a great help in engaging the imagination of you readers. You can do this using Writer’s ability to insert a Windows Live Local<\/a> map directly into a post.<\/p>\n

Even better is that the map can be customized directly within Writer – including changing the view to show road, aerial or bird’s eye detail and by adding pushpins (including custom links and\/or photos for each pushpin).<\/p>\n

When readers click on the map they get a larger view on the Windows Live Local site.<\/p>\n

Writer SDK<\/strong>
\nAlready thinking of other cool stuff you want to insert into your blog? Good!<\/p>\n

The Windows Live Writer SDK<\/a> enables developers to extend the capabilities of Writer to publish additional content types. Examples of content types that can be added include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Images from online photo publishing sites<\/li>\n
  2. Embedded video or audio players<\/li>\n
  3. Product thumbnails and\/or links from e-commerce sites<\/li>\n
  4. Tags from tagging services<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Compatibility<\/strong>
    \nWriter is a great client for     Windows Live Spaces<\/a> but also works with other weblogs including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress (and many others).<\/p>\n

    Writer supports RSD<\/a> (Really Simple Discoverability), the Metaweblog API<\/a>, and the Movable Type API<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    But don’t be disapointed if it dosent work on your blog service quite yet because the Windows Live Writer Team\u00a0would love to have it working\u00a0well with every blogging service out there. So if you can’t get Writer to work with your blog, let them\u00a0know<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    So there you have it, now why don’t you go ahead and download<\/a>\u00a0if you havent already.<\/p>\n

    Here’s some of my Suggestions for improvment to Windows Live Writer:<\/p>\n