Testing Windows Live Writer

Microsoft has released a new product under the Windows Live saga, it’s called Windows Live Writer and to make a long story short – it’s a desktop blogging tool, in their evil words it’s something like this:

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service. 

I’m testing Live Writer right now by using the program to write this post and so far it looks pretty good. Had no problems with the installation, to set it up with Gadgetizer I only had to type the address (http://www.gadgetizer.com), login, password, and 1 minute after that it was ready to be used.

The interface is good looking and easy to understand, the light blue color that Windows Live has been using is wonderful for the eyes.

It has some cool features, the one I’m digging right now is related to the view mode that has 4 options: Normal, Web Layout, Web Preview and HTML code; wordpress (the blog platform that Gadgetizer uses) also has the same options, but somehow it seems easier to use it with Live Writer.

Another feature on Live Writer that will save me lots of time is the Check Spelling that wordpress doesn’t have, I used a Firefox extension called AspellFox (that had some problems) to check my spelling mistakes but now I just need to click the Check Spelling button and it’s much faster and easier.

There seems to be some problems with the ”Save Draft” function, I already saved this entry as a draft 3 times or more, but it doesn’t show up at Wordpress… Actually, I was using the wrong option. After clicking on File -> Post Draf To Weblog, the post shows up at wordpress.

The only bug I found comes in play when I want to pick a category. Since gadgetizer has plenty of categories the drop down list can’t show them all, I think it’s missing a scroll down button. In my opinion this is a critical “mistake” that needs to be fixed.

Anyway, I will probably be using Windows Live Writer from now on, if you’d like to know more about this program head on to http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/ or you can also download Windows Live Writer.

[Via: Memori]

Update about the categories bug:

Joe Cheng, one of the Live Writer developers has confirmed that it is indeed a bug, but it will be fixed soon!

[tags]windows live writer, live, writer, windows[/tags]