Microsoft has released an upgraded version of Windows Live Writer 2009 as part of the Live Essentials suite. The popular blog writer, though still a step away from the final release, includes some new features that make Live Writer 2009 RC a worthwhile upgrade. Have a look.
Search Local Drafts and Published Posts
You will find the search-as-you-type function handy if you have dozens of unpublished posts (aka drafts) stored locally. Live Writer can also search through items that have recently been published without requiring Desktop Search.
Include Multiple Pictures At Once
This is a big time saver for bloggers who frequently include multiple images in their blog posts. You can now add multiple images to the blog post in one step or send them straight to your Live Photo Gallery and Live Writer will take care of the links.
Live Tag Suggestions
Tags can be confusing because it’s tough to remember their names across posts. Did I use "live mesh" for my previous post or "windows live mesh"?
To solve this problem, Live Writer includes live tag suggestions for WordPress blogs similar to Google Suggest. You type a character and it will show a list of all tags that you used in the past that begin with that character.
I am having some trouble getting this to work on a wordpress.com blog due some "Blog Server Error -32601 requested method wp.getTags does not exist." Will update when this is fixed.
Also see: Blogging with Live Writer and Firefox 3
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/windows-live-writer-2009-features/6061/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Whoops–tag suggestions aren’t implemented yet on WordPress.com, although their manifest file indicates that it is. No doubt it is coming soon.
Thanks for the review, Amit!
Written by Joe Cheng [MSFT] on 12.16.08
It seems like when you click the try again download button it will download the wlsetup-all.exe (134MB) which I think is the setup file for all beta programs in the live site.
The actual file name for live writer is wlsetup-web.exe (1.1MB)
Written by hackyourlife on 12.16.08
The tag Support will save A lot Of time.Earlier it was Not available.
Does it also Include any option to link Related Posts that are already published ?
Written by Amit Banerjee on 12.16.08
I thought, it would fetch used tags on Wordpress posts too..but it does not seem to be working as tags dropdown. Anybody had luck with it? Unless they implement Custom fields feature, I am not going with it.
Written by Navjot Singh on 12.16.08
The new inline images improvement should be very helpful.
Thanks for the update Amit.
Written by Vamsi on 12.17.08
@AmitB: existing posts are available from the normal hyperlink dialog as always, and now searchable.
@Navjot: tag autocomplete requires WP 2.7 or WordPress.com. No custom field support yet.
Written by Joe Cheng [MSFT] on 12.17.08
I am using Wordpress 2.7 only, but its not working at the moment. According to me, it should cache the existing tags used on the blog dashboard, but it suggests not even one. Moreover, in compatibilities list I see Keywords retrieval field as off, is that the reason for it?
Written by Navjot Singh on 12.17.08
Writer also makes a nice simple word processor, if you can’t afford Microsoft Word.
Written by Quikboy on 12.17.08
I am waiting for the search publish posts option. Thanks Microsoft and Amit
Written by Dutt on 12.18.08