Windows Live Writer, Write On!

By Om Malik Aug. 13, 2006, 5:40pm PST 22 Comments

Mac-happy bloggers often use either Ecto or by Mars Edit as their desktop blogging client. Given that those two products are pretty close to perfection, we are unlikely to switch to another client. Windows PC users, on the other hand have had to choose from w.Bloggar, Qumana or some similar tool. And they all keep searching for a better one.

Today they got one: Microsoft Windows Writer, a WYSIWYG tool that only after a few minutes of use (thanks to this new set-up) seems to be pretty good. (Was this part of the Onfolio acquisition?) Mike is admonishing Microsoft for not supporting Mac – he is right. They could be a lot more inclusive, or perhaps the WWDC kitty-cat jokes got to them.

Live Writer has the look and feel of Office 2007. ( Folks commenting on the post say that the interface is Onfolio like.) It is very clean interface, and still retains some of the “Microsoft Word” features that would make it attractive to a larger mainstream audience. (My Macy-Microsoft analogy still works!) It supports quite a few blogging platforms, and also offers newbie users an option to sign for Live Spaces.

Writer has all the usual bells and whistles, but the one which impressed me the most: easy way to add Maps in your posts. (Sure they are Microsoft Maps, but who cares.) There is some strange CSS stuff that is inserted along with Maps, but not that big a deal. I did some photo drag and drop, and crafted this post for my WordPress.com blog.

It is not often, I say good things about Microsoft products, but with this free-blogging tool, I have to say: write on! And just to set the record straight, the current post was written in Ecto.

Just discovered, thanks to a helping IM: the software actually lets you use your blog styles for editing, has ability to add plugins, and has an SDK to extend the functionality of the program. You can also swap out  Microsoft Maps for say Google Maps. There is great stuff on this blog.