Blog publishing software: Windows Live Writer – Beta

By: Chris Murphy

Blog publishing software is typically web-based only, but there are a few desktop-based clients out there that take the wariness of editing online by bringing your favourite features back to the desktop. Windows Live Writer introduces a new level of [unexpected] comfort when blogging from your desktop.

I’ve previewed other blogging clients in the past, and one in particular was quite fun to work with: Zoundry. Admittedly it was a novelty for me and one that I quickly got over. I ended up using WordPress’ editor in the end. It does the job, and with every release there seems to be some small improvements to the User Experience and functionality. Despite these regular tweaks, I’m not completely comfortable editing in a browser. I doubt I’m the only one, but this really comes back to the back that I prefer desktop applications over web-based applications (for a handful of things such as text-editing or word-processing).

At the recommendation of a friend, I decided to give Windows Live Writer a whirl. After getting past my initial frustrations with installing the software (I’ll detail that shortly), I’m actually quite pleased with the product. I know it’s only beta, but it runs and feels like a solid Release Candidate. The UI is pretty typical of Windows Software in terms of look and feel, but they’ve opted for a less is more mantra in this particular case. The toolbars are absent of the dozen or so controls and icons you might expect of a Microsoft product, instead there are only the typical options for formatting that you might see in a TinyMCE editor (found in most blogging platforms). On top of that, Windows Live Writer can interface with some of the most popular logging platforms currently available.

What I like about Windows Live Writer:

Note: my comments and opinions are largely coloured by the fact that I prefer WordPress over most other blogging platforms, and so if it seems the review is particular skewed towards WordPress features — it is.

• Multi-platform support: Easy setup with popular blogging platforms such as WordPress – I would never have bothered to evaluate this software if it didn’t at least include WordPress as a supported blogging platform.
• The Editor: WYSWYG Editing – say what you want about this feature in other software, I personally like to see what my blog postings look like with my style sheet applied to it. One of my minor frustrations is seeing my titles and headlines wrap onto multiple lines leaving widows (single words on a new line). With Windows Live Writer, I can adjust my titles and headlines in real-time to my satisfaction. WLW has built-in support for toggling between rendering modes (Normal, Web Layout, Web Preview, HTML Code).
• Keyboard Support: Inserting objects and links are easy with accelerator key support – Ctrl + K (insert link), Ctrl + L (insert image). There is also additional support for embedded media, tables, etc. Most of this you can get online already, but it’s nice that the software took this into consideration and provided it in a single place in the UI.
• Formatting: Windows Live Writer uses the style sheets you are currently hosting online. While I’ve mentioned it’s WYSWYG features, this again shows how something as simple as seeing your custom block quotes in the editor, exemplifies attention to detail. The same applies to links. I have an inline style for my links in my posts and they show up in the editor exactly as they would appear in my browser.
• Blog Post Meta: WLW supports many of WordPress’ "post meta" features such as: the ability to enable/disable comments; allow/deny pings; set the post slug; set the post excerpt; specify Trackback URL’s.
• Reminders: If you take the time to set your application’s preferences before you start using it — you probably won’t, but it’s something you can do later — you’ll notice that in the preferences window, you have the option to set reminders for simple things such as: reminders for setting categories; reminders for setting tags. I always forget this stuff and end up going back later on to update the post. I hate reminders in most cases, but this I can live with if it saves me the hassle of dealing with it later.
• Saving: WLW allows you to save drafts of your postings locally or to your blog host. This means if my wireless craps out I can continue editing offline and publish once I get back into a wifi zone. Not such a big deal, but its a benefit of the software that you don’t always have to rely upon a network connection to write a blog post.
• Linking: A nice little productivity feature of WLW is its ability to let you insert links to your previous postings by letting you browse your postings inside the insert dialog (insert>Hyperlink Dialog>Link to). What this means from an editing standpoint is I no longer have to open another window or tab to browse my archives and copy the link, then jump back to my post and insert the link through the dialog.
• Spell Checking: Yes, I know, it’s not the holy grail of all features, but it certainly helps that the spell checker works as a spell checker aught — at least what we’ve been conditioned to expect with Windows. Still, it’s an expected feature that’s built into the software and another nice consideration feature for those blog authors who think faster than they type.

What I don’t like about Windows Live Writer:

• Installation: I had to run the installation twice because the first time I ran it, I was asked to install additional software (for Live Spaces), which I did not want or would use. Since I refused to install the additional software, the installation refused to proceed instead of defaulting to just installing Windows Live Writer.
• Dependencies: Windows Live Writer is built on the .NET framework (as are more recent windows applications). I work on a Vista-based system and the .NET framework was pre-installed. While this isn’t a major point of contention for me (I’ve installed other frameworks to evaluate software in the past), I would have preferred the application be as standalone (read: portable) as possible. Users on systems without the .NET framework will need to install the software before they run the installation. WLW will download it for you…
• Screen Jumping: There are times when the editor will simply jump to the beginning of a post or to some seemingly random place on screen and I’m left wondering what the hell happened. This typically occurs when I apply formatting to a piece of text.
• Cross Platform: okay, this is a pretty typical gripe and coming from someone who is completely Mac-tarded, it may mean very little. But to my point: I’m really loving the user experience with WLW and I think this is something that other user may very well appreciate. It’s unfortunate that Microsoft has to conquer the world before people can share this experience without issue.

Final Thoughts

While I have my particular gripes about working in a browser for everything, I understand there are folks out there who don’t mind it at all. With the gulf between desktop and web-based applications decreasing, it’s not implausible to think that this software may very well appear in other incarnations like a version of Flock.

Windows Live Writer is a comfortable application that I can confidently integrate into to support my blogging habits. It doesn’t ask more than what your current experience has conditioned you for. It’s intuitive enough that new authors who prefer desktop applications of their web-based counter parts, aren’t intimidated and may even encourage blogging as a regular activity.

Give Windows Live Writer a whirl. It will not cost you more than a single test post, and if you’re disappointed by it, you can chalk it up to another Microsoft product and toss it in the recycle bin.

• Posted: November 27, 2007
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