There was a comment left on my most recent plugin guide:

"I would love to see a guide on how to code Plugins for Writer.  That would be really cool :D"

Well, that guide already exists and were some of my first posts on LiveSide, so I thought I would give a quick recap, just going through the posts that I have done and explaining what each one was for.

1. Writing Plugins For Windows Live Writer - Getting Started - This was the first post in the series that talked about how to get started, configuring Visual Studio and writing a very basic plugin that just inserted some text into your blog entry. Source code.

2. Writing Plugins For Windows Live Writer - Adding An Icon - This post showed you how to add an icon to your plugin so that you have something to show in the Insert menu. Source code.

3. Writing Plugins For Windows Live Writer - Working With Forms - Most, but not all, plugins have some kind of window open when you click the insert link for the plugin, this entry showed you what you needed to do to use a form in your plugin. Source code.

4. Writing Plugins For Windows Live Writer - Using Settings In Your Plugin - Your plugin may require settings that a user can use to make their experience with your plugin more customizable, here is how you use settings when creating your plugin. Source code.

5. Writing Plugins For Windows Live Writer - Using PluginHttpRequest Instead of HttpWebRequest - This was my latest entry where I showed the benefits of using PluginHttpRequest instead of the normal .NET HttpWebRequest. Source code.

6. Windows Live Writer Amazon Starter Plugin - This was Colin's post that went through making a "real world" plugin that used Amazon's SOAP service.

Hopefully, this will give people a good reference for starting out with creating Live Writer plugins.

SL