Windows Live Writer
Well, Windows Live Writer continues to make progress as the best blogging desktop client money can’t buy. It’s free. It’s POWERFUL. And it’s intuitive and easy to use. What more can you ask?
The plug-ins available for it are useful, unlike FireFox, which offers plenty of dead wood in their extensions. WLW now opens MUCH faster than previous versions, and it’s also a Release Candidate. That means, for those who don’t know, it’s really, really close to being a final product.
On the downside, the installer for the program wants to do things to your computer like stuff it full of MS online products. You have the option to turn it all down and just install WLW, but it’s still annoying to have to pay such close attention to an installer. Normally I launch them and walk away.
The interface isn’t dramatically different than it was, unless you haven’t downloaded any updates for a while. Still smooth as silk, strong and powerful, but still no official portable version I can find. (There is, however, a third-party portable launcher for it that works pretty well – see more here) That’s something MS should really think about. A lot of folks would use that feature, so long as it didn’t pound their USB drives to death by constantly writing and reading to the stick. Oh, and the improved load time would be a big benefit for a USB drive too.
Overall, I recommend WLW highly to those who blog regularly. It gives fantastic control over your content including images, allows you to install plug-ins to extend the blog capability, and allows you to blog offline if you so choose and post later. It supports a huge variety of blogs and is, in my opinion, among (if not THE) best Microsoft product available. And it’s still free … for the moment. Get it while you can.
Happy blogging!
-JDT-
ALL original content copyright 2008, DarcKnyt
All rights reserved
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Thanks for mentioning WLW. I’d forgotten about it. When I shift my blog off wordpress.com, I’ll look into it more.
You’re leaving WP?? Aw, bummer. Be sure and let me know when you do so I can update my link for you on my blogroll. Going to your own domain?
What extensions do you use?
Not many right now. I use one for Zemanta, which puts all the BS down at the bottom and applies the links. I use that one the most. The other one I’m thinking of installing is the one for Twitter, which tweets when you post a new entry. LOML uses a lot more extensions, so she’s a better source of information for ya, bud.
I started using WLW again to post my BVA chapters. If I try to cut and paste from Word into WP, it gives me all this gobbledy-gook I have to delete. Cut and paste into WLW, and it takes all the gobbledy-gook out. Cool.
(If you don’t have it, just Google it and it’s free to download and use.)
Yeah! WLW removes the gobbledy-gook and WP likes its code much better. Also, just FYI, RoughDraft 3.0 doesn’t add the gobbledy-gook in the first place, so there’s another idea.
Wow lots of words I dont get..WLW..interface..plug-ins..Firefox..release candidate…could thing you have a Batman theme..I would have gotten a headache and fell down…Zman sends
Well, we don’t want you falling and getting a migraine! So:
WLW is Windows Live Writer, a program that lets you write a blog post without being on the ‘Net.
Interface is the part of the program you see and use; buttons, fields to write in, etc.
Plug-ins are things you can add to certain software programs that allow them
FireFox is a web browser just like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator … only better
Release Candidate is a software program that’s still being worked on, and isn’t quite done
Hope that helps!
I love it! Finally TAGS and higher level formatting!! Wonderful!
It’s an awesome program. But if they start charging for it, I’m out of there. There are a couple of others that are almost as good/easy, so I’ll have to jump ship onto those. IF they charge.
We have no plans to start charging $$ for Writer. Just FYI.
Joe, thanks so much for coming by and leaving this valuable bit of information. It is indeed great news that WLW will remain a free program, and we thank you for it! It’s a great piece of software! Thanks again!