Testing! Testing! Windows Live Writer!
- March 11th, 2009
I have a client who wants to use Windows Live Writer, so I wanted to give it a go to see if it would deliver. As much as I loathe Internet Explorer, this particular Windows goodie is pretty awesome. As I type this, it looks like I’m writing it on my live blog, not within Wordpress, but on my actual blog as if I could actually do that.
With this… I can! Let’s try uploading a photo:
Huh. This is interesting. I’m not sure if these effects I’m seeing in Windows Live Writer will show up and my images don’t seem to be floating properly, but we’ll see what happens when I publish.
Carry on!
Ok, I’ve since published this and I must say… I’m pretty impressed. I checked out the html code within Wordpress and it’s not a big hot mess. And I’m editing it right now within Wordpress and it’s keeping all the effects and styling. I don’t know if i’d use this all the time ,but for clients who really need this kind of WYSIWYG type interface, this would be a lifesaver. Kudos, Windows Live Writer!
got one of your own? share it.
I hate and fear the idea of Windows Live Writer. Of course, I also hate and fear the ideas of Mars Edit, Ecto 3, and other blogging clients. That is, I guess I don’t get whatever popularity there is for third party blogging interfaces. I mean, are WP / MT / EE so totally horrific that they have created a market for alternative interfaces?
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We get a lot of clients that write their posts in Word first and then copy/paste it into the publish screen. It’s maddening because it always adds all this B.S. MS Word code in there and messes up our design.
Or, like in EE, if you can’t see what’s happening with your photos or text instantly, they get confused and add a bunch of extraneous code that they don’t need. This, for those who really prefer to see exactly what it will look like, who *need* that extra bit of ‘guidance’, it’ll be a lifesaver…. and it doesn’t monkey with the look.
For those in the know, sure… we don’t need it. But for those new to blogging or those who just can’t grasp it until they *see it*, WLW will be a nice addition to the arsenal.
For those in the know, sure… we don’t need it. But for those new to blogging or those who just can’t grasp it until they *see it*, WLW will be a nice addition to the arsenal.
That’s a distressingly reasonable outlook. I keep forgetting that the world is made up of other people, with other needs.
And yes, a lot of havoc is caused by cutting and pasting from Word; the weird and bloated code that program generates should be outlawed. I imagine that clients in the business world are so Word-oriented that you see this fairly often.
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Hi Joelle,
I like the piece! Much, much more interesting to read than a common “hey, I tried out Windows Live Writer, this is what happened” piece.
Have you been using Live Writer since? Any thoughts about it? I’ve been trying it and haven’t had any major snags as of yet.
Let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to reading more.
Cheers,
Ron
Windows Outreach Team