On the Windows Live Writer Blog today, they announced the availability of the Windows Live Writer CTP. With this new build comes a lot of new features, which I will discuss in this blog post. So why is this a CTP and not just a normal beta? Well the main reason is that it features a new set of plugin APIs (version 1.1) and the whole Technical Preview is more intended for developers rather than consumers. Nonetheless, there are still some nice new additions for consumers.

In this blog post, I will go through the main changes that have happened in this release, and in my next blog post, I will go through some of the new APIs that are now available. More details after the jump.

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So what’s changed:

• Everything from Windows Live Writer 2008 plus:
• New and improved category control (you can now search through your categories)
   
  
• Image cropping (from the Advanced tab when you have an image selected)
  
  
• Word Count
  
  
• Tabbed view switching
  
  
• Alignment commands in toolbar work on images (not just text)
• Typographic replacement (characters like ©, TM, en-dash, em-dash), also works with “…”
• Automatic linking to terms in your link glossary (eg, LiveSide)
  
  
• User-interface updates in the menus and command bars (notice the blog has moved to the top right, rather than next to the other buttons on the toolbar.
• Video Upload to Soapbox 
  
  
• Improved Image Publishing
• Lightbox support (doesn’t work if you don’t have Lightbox installed on your blog)
• Additional Border Effects 
  (reflection) (rounded corners)
  Plus others.
• Image tilting
   
  
• GIF Support
• Technical Preview Installer UI
• Product Instrumentation Support
• Check For Updates / Update Notification
• Writer SDK 1.1 (which I’ll cover in a separate post).

So go on, give it a try, you won’t regret it!