I was thinking the other day about Windows Live Writer and the fact it’s a great program and it’s surprisingly from Microsoft.

It’s interesting though as you’re making a decision about offline blogging programs you almost always have to download and install the program to see what’s actually being offered and this is [to me] a hassle; it should be easier than that.

So as a favor to you offline bloggers, I’m offering a tour of all the features of Windows Live Writer without having to install it.

 

Windows Live Writer 2009 Main Form

Windows Live Writer is a great program. It’s functions and features are just about everything an user could want right now with an offline blogging program.

The main form is that of a standard wordpressor. The layout is functional and easy to use; there’s not hidden surprises. Anyone with computer skills can blog with this thing.

 

 

Form Menu’s

Windows Live Writer’s functions are contained in the file menus. Most of the menus are static except for the INSERT menu. The insert menu is dynamic based on the plug-ins you’ve installed and the list can get quite long. There needs to be better handling in this area.

  

 

Windows Live Writer has format options in the menus, but in the next version I’m really hoping to see what they did with Word; if they’ll do that, the page formatting will be much better.

   

The program comes with a spell check and that means there’s no need not to run a spell check; it can actually run a LIVE spell check as you type [recommended]. Blog accounts are easy to add to the program and one of the nicest things about Windows Live Writer is that it can use your actual theme; notice the edit window from the top.

  

 

 

Windows Live Writer toolbar

Windows Live Writer has a basic interface and that’s a good thing I like the simplistic interface. One of the things I wish the Windows Live Writer team would think about is ‘customizing’, allowing for the customization of the toolbar like some other applications do.

Windows Live Writer allows for the creation of a new page or post. A new page will have options for the parent page and what order it should be in [nesting the menus] and new posts have options for categories and tags.

I recommend the use of the Auto Generated Tags; it’s a plug-in for Windows Live Writer and a feature Windows Live Writer should have had as a standard.

Saves can be made locally or directly to the blog; I always choose the blog so I can edit the post anytime I think about adding on to my initial thoughts. There’s not much worse a feeling knowing you’ve something to add, but can’t record it for later… save to blog.

  

 

Windows Live Writer Formatting Bar

The Windows Live Writer tool bar iI another simple interface and offers just about everything a blogger needs, but one of the more important things is the lack of the indention option.

I like to bring attention to sections of information by indenting that information. The only option Windows Live Writer offers is the QUOTE. Quote is not indent, but depending on the theme the quote option works or functions differently.

For me, indentions are handled with DTTemplate; it’s much more than an indention tool and it’s very powerful. It can do all kinds of things that Windows Live Writer doesn’t do natively.

Another thing that is missing from the toolbar is the obvious FONT size selector; there’s no immediate way to increase or decrease font size. You’ve to do this with a series of clicks and right clicks and it’s a maze of adjusting to change font sizes….

I do understand there’s a formatting fox, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

 

Composition Tabs

From the composition window, this is a nice throw back to the Microsoft Frontpage days where you’ve edit, preview and source. Edit is WYSIWYG, preview shows the post as it would be [including the theme] and then source; it shows the source code of the post- when/if you need to hand code something.

 

Posting Options

Windows Live Writer has advanced options for posting…

One of the things I wish Microsoft Windows Live Writer team has focused on was a ‘pinger’; a way to get your posts out there for people to see and allowing for an option to signup and submit posts to social networks, but Wordpress has this built in, but it would’ve been nice to have this function in Windows Live Writer.

Maybe in the next version.

 

Image Options

Having some basic functions for imaging is a necessary evil and without it your posting process is not going to be fun. Windows Live Writer allows you to copy and paste images directly in to the program [very nice]. If you need more you can install the ‘Sharper Photo’ to use it in conjunction with like PhotoFiltre.

  

There are some filters that can be applied to the images, but they’re very basic and I haven’t found a situation yet, where I’d use these filters on images I’m placing in my posts.

 

 

Windows Live Writer Add-on’s

There’s a lot of plug-ins for Windows Live Writer you can download some of them [which ever ones you would like] from here.

 

Windows Live Writer team released version 2009 in January. The team says they’re trying to stick to an annual release schedule and if that’s the case, we might see a new version in January 2010; but that’s a ‘might’, so don’t hold your breath.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks,
LHenryJr.
www.lehsys.com

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