Windows Live Writer is a winner

Posted on August 12, 2007 at 7:16 pm (UK)
in: Blogging, Software, Weblog Tools, Weblogs

Having upgraded this site to the latest WordPress version, I’m now able to use Windows Live Writer to write posts offline and then publish.

The latest beta version, out since the end of May, wouldn’t work with the pre 2.1 WP version that I was on before the upgrade.

So although I’m a bit late to this party, I will say that this is an excellent offline blog editor. I did use the first beta and have a broadly favourable impression from that experience.

This program wins hands down on functionality, usability and workability (meaning, it just works) compared to my long-time editors, BlogJet and ecto for Windows. And it’s free.

One feature I really do like – you can write and publish static pages as well as blog posts.

So I will be using WLW from now on.

Dan York has written a good series of reviews.

If you haven’t tried WLW yet, give it a go. Works with most major blog platforms including WordPress and TypePad.

And if you aren’t sure whether an offline editor is for you – maybe you prefer logging in to your blog via a network and doing your stuff online – whether WLW or any other, take a listen to FIR #260 and FIR #261 for some discussion on the pros and cons.

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{ 4 trackbacks }

» Blog Archive » A Test of Windows Live Writer: August 14, 2007 at 4:06
Fix for Windows Live Writer bug : NevilleHobson.com: August 14, 2007 at 11:05
elsua: The Knowledge Management Blog: September 10, 2007 at 21:39
E L S U A ~ A KM Blog by Luis Suarez: September 12, 2007 at 23:30

{ 7 comments }

1 Shannon Whitley August 13, 2007 at 17:28: I’m a big fan of WLW. I’m not sure why it’s still in beta after all of this time, but it’s a favorite tool for me. As you mentioned, it’s even a great tool for creating HTML text because the code it creates is pretty clean.
2 Terinea Weblog August 13, 2007 at 21:06: Yeah great tool, what do people use on the Mac that’s free and has similar features to WLW?
3 neville August 13, 2007 at 23:25: I do like it, Shannon, but I encountered a show-stopper today and I’ve gone back to BlogJet for the time being.

Posted this morning with WLW but got an error dialog re the xmlrpc.php file on my server with this text -

The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden

That’s ridiculous. I can post successfully with BlogJet (and ecto) without such an error. And I could with WLW on Sunday but suddenly not today.

Terinia Weblog, I know quite a few people with Macs who say ecto for the Mac is pretty good.
4 Shannon Whitley August 13, 2007 at 23:39: Strange. If you’re using the ‘Bad Behavior’ plugin, it looks like there is a known issue (and a fix):

http://codex.wordpress.org/Windows_Live_Writer_Help
5 neville August 13, 2007 at 23:59: Boy, I’m glad I ranted about that in my comment, Shannon! Thanks for the tip.

I installed BB this morning; didn’t make the connection between that and WLW then not working.

I’ve implemented the fix and will see what happens when I next post here tomorrow.
6 Dan York August 16, 2007 at 17:33: Neville,

Congrats on making the move to WLW! As you know, I love it and use it for pretty much all my blogging at this point. Thanks for the link, too.

Dan
7 neville August 17, 2007 at 11:52: Dan, I love it and all works fine now that the bug with Bad Behavior has been fixed.