Several months ago I started using Windows Liver Writer for creating and editing blog posts. It is much better than the native editors for any of the blogging software that I have ever tried. Yes, I am Microsoft employee and this is a Microsoft product but I’m not exaggerating. It makes blogging much more pleasant.
Barron has improved the experience still more by creating a plugin for Live Writer such that it checks all of your links in your post against the Right Haven blacklist I created. Hence, if you have a link to one of the bad guy media outlets the plugin will catch it at publish time.
I did have some problems installing it. When I tried to save or run the .msi file it always turned into an .htm file for some reason. I ended up saving it as a .htm then renaming it to .msi and then running it to install the plugin. Another item of confusion was that there are two ways you can set options in Live Writer. One is from the “Blog Account” tab and the other is dropdown menu that has the exit menu entry. The first option setting method doesn’t give you all the configuration control over the plugin. Be sure to use the second method.
I am now working to fix the MSI problem. I was able to recreate it in Firefox so I have something to work on it with. IE saved it as I expected it to, I think it might be a mime type issue. As for the options, it should be available through either method.
I’ve been working on adding the new features today but it still has some decent work to be done on the actual lifting. I’ve got the UI in place for it, it’s just the wiring now.
B
I zipped up the MSI and it no longer has that weird opening problem. I still think it’s my hosting server is doing something weird with the mime type but I’m going to look into the problem you saw with configuration now. I know you can enable and disable plugins from the blog account tab, even my twitter plugin doesn’t have options available through that interface.
The only ways I know of to access configuration is through the Drop Down menu as you found as well as the “Plugin Options” button on the Insert Tab.
I’m glad someone finally alerted me to the MSI problem, thanks Joe.
B
The version of Writer I have flat wouldn’t work with self-signed certificates; which means I can’t use it with some blogging platforms. It’s what I use for my own blog, though