LiveSide - News blog : Writer

Wave 3: Windows Live Writer – A First Look

ScottIsAFool — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:27:00 GMT

So now that you can download Wave 3, we’ve seen Windows Live Movie Maker and Windows Live Mail, now let’s look at Windows Live Writer:

A lot of what is in this new beta was seen in the Live Writer CTP back in June, like the SDK we have already discussed, and nothing is new from that point of view. Obviously the UI has changed to look more in line with the rest of the Wave 3 products.

Inserting videos has been a part of Writer since the final release of Wave 2 last year, and in the CTP, Writer allowed you to upload your own videos to Soapbox and insert them without ever having to leave Writer. Well, they’ve taken that one step further and you can now post your videos to YouTube.


Writer CTP	Writer Wave 3

What’s also changed with videos is you’re not just limited to Soapbox to get your already existing videos from:


Writer CTP	Writer Wave 3

Writer now supports some newer blogs, and whilst I don’t have a complete list as yet, I do know that this does include Radio Userland:

We’re also hearing that this version of Writer will also support some of the new services coming in the Wave 3 update, including photos.live.com, which should allow greater interaction between Writer and the photo services from Windows Live. So keep your eyes open here as when these service interactions do go live, you can bet we’ll be posting about them.

More LiveSide reviews of the Windows Live betas:

Wave 3: Windows Live Movie Maker Beta

Wave 3: Windows Live Mail - Calendar, Calendar, Calendar (and more)

Wave 3- Windows Live Messenger 9 Beta – What’s New- A Comparison With 8.5

Wave 3: Windows Live Photo Gallery – New Features

More on Wave 3: Windows Live Writer to support YouTube, Events and Photo Albums

damaster — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:52:00 GMT

Having told you about what's coming in Messenger, Mail, Movie Maker and Photo Gallery, it's now time to cover the next one in the series: Windows Live Writer. Let us start off with a screenshot for you:

We've noticed on the right pane that you can now insert "Events" (Windows Live Events?) and "Photo Albums" into your blogs. From the screenshot it's already showing what it will look like when you insert a Photo Album into your blog post - it even includes an option for slideshows.

The next screenshot shows that Windows Live Writer now supports directly uploading videos onto YouTube! Also take note of the tab "From Video Source" - the current version of Writer only mentions "From Soapbox", meaning the new version will support inserting videos from other video sources other than Soapbox as well. Keep in mind that Movie Maker will also support uploading videos onto MSN Soapbox, YouTube and other video sharing websites.

Thanks to Picturepan2 from LiveSino again for the info!

Windows Live Writer expiry prompt hints at new applications to download in the next month

Chris — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:46:00 GMT

If you’re a blogger and have written a blog post today using the latest Windows Live Writer Technology Preview (Wave 3 Milestone 1), then you were probably greeted with this update prompt.

This is the first time we’ve seen any of the Windows Live teams take this approach. While the obvious conclusion is that the prompt is set to popup one month before the expiry date of 1 October 2008, it still comes as somewhat of a surprise. Great news for those people who like to know exact dates for the next set of downloads, all being well it should be within the next 30 days.

Just for completeness, the “download now” button only goes to get.live.com, but we have a feeling that’ll change very soon…

(So this post bends our Manifesto a little bit, hey its not often Microsoft starts throwing out release dates into the public arena!)

Windows Live Writer CTP Released

ScottIsAFool — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:27:00 GMT

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.

Download

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!

Windows Live Writer update available

Sunshine — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:27:00 GMT

There's an update available for Windows Live Writer. This update, KB 951125, fixes the following 4 problems:

• An error occurs when you publish a post that contains images to Blogger:
Because of a change in the Picasa image-hosting service, Windows Live Writer cannot publish posts to Blogger that contain images. Instead, you receive the following error message:

File Upload Failed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

This update restores the ability to upload images when you post to Blogger.

• You cannot publish images to your Windows Live Writer album on Picasa if the folder already contains 500 images:
If your Windows Live Writer album on Picasa contains 500 images when you try to upload images to your blog, you receive the following error message:

File Upload Failed: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.

This update fixes the problem by creating a new Picasa album when the preexisting album becomes full.

• When you click a thumbnail image to view a larger image, a file download box appears:
When you click an image in a blog from the Blogger Web interface, the image typically appears in a new browser window. However, when you click an image that was published through Windows Live Writer, the file download box appears instead of a new browser window.

This update fixes the problem for new posts by creating image links that display the image in a separate browser window.

• Link to images that were previously published to a blog in the blogspot.com domain are broken when the blog is migrated to a custom domain:
When you migrate a blog from the blogspot.com domain to a custom domain or you configure a blog to use FTP publishing, any images that were previously published to the blog through Windows Live Writer are missing from the blog and the links to the images are broken.

This update fixes the problem for new posts by creating image links that work on both blogspot.com and on custom domains.

Those of you who have automatic update on will receive this update automatically. If not please visit Windows Update to get this update and end your frustration when publishing to Blogger. Picasa service is the default setting for images that are published in Blogger.

The Windows Live Writer build number (Help > About..) after this update is 12.0.1370.325.

Windows Live Writer Is No More

ScottIsAFool — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:19:00 GMT

In what can only be described as a bizarre and non-sensical decision, Microsoft has decided to pull the plug on Windows Live Writer. Our insider sources tell us that because of the long delay between builds for the final release of the first version of Writer that it was deemed to costly to keep the project going.

This is going to come as a big disappointment to a lot of bloggers as the software has proven itself to be immensely popular due to the rich array of plugins available for it as well as ease of use and the shear number of blog engines it supported.

I can only hope that the guys behind Live Writer decide to write an open source edition, or something similar so that the masses can still easily blog without having to go to their blog to actually do it. So Writer might be dead, but if you want to remember the good times about the program, remember to check our posts about the program.

Only kidding You have to love a good April Fools’ Day joke (yeah, ok, it wasn't a good joke, but hey...).

Final Windows Live Wave 2 applications available for download

Chris — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:03:00 GMT

Looks like nothing can stay quiet for long - a new installer featuring the final Windows Live Wave 2 programs is available for download thanks to Microsoft's early preparations. While not much has changed in the applications themselves since the last beta releases, its just nice to be running the final versions.

You can grab the new Windows Live installer here: http://g.live.com/1rewlive/en/WLInstaller.exe

Messenger is now 8.5.1302.1018 and Mail is now at 12.0.1606 . If you have any problems installing/upgrading from the betas, the following support article should help.

(hat tip to mess.be)

Update: As pointed out by Dwergs, this now supports x64 systems.

Local Boy Does Good

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:09:00 GMT

Our own Scott Lovegrove, or ScottIsaFool, was recognized on Friday by the Writer Zone, the blog of Windows Live Writer:

I wanted to send out a little love out to Scott Lovegrove (http://scottisafool.spaces.live.com/) on behalf of the Writer team to recognize all the contributions he has made as a member of the Writer community the over the last year...

Scott has helped us out immensely here at LiveSide, both with his dev bloggings, and just general helping out and being a good guy. It's great to see him getting some recognition for the hard work he's doing for the Writer community, by providing the plugins, providing source code, writing how-to's here on LiveSide, and helping out in the Writer forums. Oh, and he's an MVP, too!

Scott will be having more to say on Live Writer soon, so keep reading LiveSide. In the meantime, if you haven't tried them already, here's some handy links:

Congratulations, Scott. Keep up the good work!

SkyDrive With Spaces and Writer [Plugin Updated]

ScottIsAFool — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:39:00 GMT

With SkyDrive not even 6 hours old, we already have our first addins for it. The Spaces and SkyDrive team have just unveiled a new module for your Windows Live Space, one that shows the public folders you have on your SkyDrive account. To access it, sign into your Space, click on the Customize button and add module and go to the Windows Live section.

The module will look like this when viewed in non-edit mode:

And for Writer we have a plugin that will allow you to put the embed code for a public SkyDrive folder into your blog entry, written, and shamelessly promoted, by me.

~~I'm just waiting for the plugin to be approved by Windows Live Gallery, but in the meantime, you can download, funnily enough, from my SkyDrive Space~~ Plugin is now available on Windows Live Gallery. Full source code available too.

Source code: http://www.codeplex.com/SkyDriveEmbedPlugin
Download Plugin: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=27545581-4b54-4f6d-9007-ed3b168dab43

Update: Apologies, this is the first plugin I have created using Visual Studio 2008, and the setup defaults to having .NET 3.5 as a prerequisite, I have changed this and it now only requires .NET 2.0, not 3.5. The link is the same, so if you are having problems, just download it again. Sorry.

Update 2: As any of you who know me will know, I am never happy with my plugins, so I have made a slight amendment to it. At the moment, the way the embedding works from SkyDrive is to use an iFrame tag, now this gets stripped by a few blog services, so I have given the option of turning off iFrame mode and using the plugin to do all the hard work, the end result will be the same though. The download link above is still the same, but it now points to the updated version (if you want to check, the dll should be version 1.0.1.0)

Windows Live Writer Beta 2 - Updated Finally

ScottIsAFool — Thu, 31 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Today saw the much anticipated release of the next version of Windows Live Writer having seen no new builds since November. This new release comes as part of three Windows Live updates, which are Messenger, Mail and Writer, which means not only the new Windows Live UI that we saw in previous screenshots, but also an attempt to give it a more Vista feel to it, as shown straight away with the transparent splash screen:

Once the program has loaded we get the first view of the new UI, and if you haven't seen any of the previous screenshots (here, here), the new UI is quite different to the original beta:

So what else is new? Lots! They include:

Adding new categories/tags;
Inline spell checking;
Support for creating tables;
Support for excerpts and extended entries (unfortunately not in Community Server though)
Sharepoint 2007 support
Plugins become automatically enabled after installation, even if Writer is running
Service specific features within the UI (a button to take you to your Windows Live Spaces' Stats page, for example):
Probably the biggest new "feature" this time round is it's available in 6 different languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Chinese.
A nice easy way to get to Windows Live Gallery to add more plugins (if you get an error when going to gallery, or can't see the writer section as an option, please read my instructions on how to get them enabled).

One of the nice little features I like is the Publishing Reminders (Tools > Options > Preferences):

From a developer point of view, there are new things as well, although not for creating plugins sadly, all of which I will go into in another post soon. All of the plugins should still work as nothing from the original APIs has changed (although if you are a developer, it might be worth just double checking). All of mine work fully, including the popular Video Plugin.

To see more of the changes, go to the full article.

Source: Windows Live Writer Team blog entry.
Download: http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas

...(read more)

Windows Live Messenger, Mail and Writer betas - signup now

Chris — Mon, 28 May 2007 05:12:00 GMT

A new beta program for "Messenger, Mail, and Writer" was just added to Microsoft Connect suggesting that these three programs will be releasing into beta soon. While some information is already available, those who want to contribute something to the development of Windows Live products are encouraged to sign up.

Here's a summary of what you could be seeing:

Windows Live Messenger 8.5 - A First Look
More info on Windows Live Mail (the desktop client)
New Windows Live Writer Screenshot

Windows Live beta signup

New Windows Live Writer Screenshot

ScottIsAFool — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:33:00 GMT

You might remember that back at the start of March, Nathan Weinberg put a post up showing off the current internal build of Windows Live Writer. Well, since then, there was been nothing new that has been shown by anyone, until now.

...(read more)

Windows Live Writer snippets

Chris — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:54:00 GMT

While the news on Writer has been pretty quiet recently, here's two items that caught our attention.

The German Live Writer community got a look at one of the internal Live writer builds and kindly shared what they saw. Though the screenshot they posted has since been removed, its helpfully still up on flickr. Thanks for showing us the new UI guys!

If you are waiting for a new version of Live Writer, you're going to have to wait a while longer. Discussion on the Windows Live Writer group states that "the next major release is still a few months away." We're just wondering what they are working on that has caused such a long gap between major releases - any suggestions?

Thanks for the tips we had on these items. Remember if you have a tip for us, you can let us know by emailing: tips@liveside.net

Windows Live Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update with Windows Live Gallery

Darren Straight — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 05:39:00 GMT

Just got word from Scott Lovegrove that as a result of all the feedback the Windows Live Writer Team receieved after their initial Windows Live Writer release, the Team have created an update to the Windows Live Writer 1.0 (Beta) that includes changes that address issues that were reported frequently or severely impacted your ability to use Writer.

The following is a summary of the changes in the Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update:

Tagging support
Support for Blogger Beta
Categories are sorted by name and support scrolling, plus improved support for reading categories from your blog
Improved startup performance
Paste is enabled for Title region and TAB/SHIFT+TAB navigation between title and body supported
Insert hyperlink added to context menu when text is selected
Title attribute in Insert Link dialog
Custom date support for Community Server
Improved keyboard shortcuts for switching views
Change spell-check shortcut key to F7
Add ‘png’ to insert image dialog file type filter
More robust image posting to Live Spaces
Improved style detection for blogs
Fixed issues with pasting URLs and links
Remember last window size and position when opening a new post
Open post dialog retrieves more than 25 old posts

Download Windows Live Writer

Update: Writer plugins are now available from gallery.live.com (Currently only works if you work for MS) Have fun!

Windows Live Gallery gets update

Chris — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 04:03:00 GMT

Windows Live Gallery, the central hosting area for 3rd party development projects relating to Windows Live has just been updated.

New additions to the site include a section on SideShow, with a section on Windows Live Writer ~~expected also today~~ expected in the near future. For the moment, its presence is limited to just a brief mention at the bottom of the Developer Center page, with a link to the Writer SDK on dev.live.com.