Beginners guide on how to setup and use Microsoft’s new Blogging client. I’m going to use Wordpress as my Blogging account.
The Setup
Download the program from link below…
http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/
Double click to install the program
Once installed the program should either prompt you asking you the settings for your blog site …or alternatively you add it manually by clicking on the drop menu on the right top corner below the min, max and close buttons. Click on “Add Weblog Account…”
Click on “Another Weblog Service” and click next
Enter the following details…
Weblog Homepage URL : http://www.example.com (Writer is clever enough to work out the login location so only the URL that you use to enter the blog site is needed)
username : admin
password: thepassword
Writer will go away and think about it…
Hopefully you entered all the correct details, if not go back and re-check your details. If everything went to plan click on “Finish”
Lets get started
Writer should start with a blank page like the one above. If you’ve used Microsoft Word then you should have no troubles. Click on the “Enter Post Title Here” to give your blog post a title. Then below the title you simply type away.
Images
To insert an image from your computer, click on “Insert Picture…” from the right hand side from the sidebar.
A dialog box will appear, browse and a select your image.
Writer then kindly creates a thumbnail of your image so it doesn’t stretch to far across your blog site making it look ugly. Don’t worry because users can click on the image and the original is displayed.
Maps
Okay how about inserting a map for event your perhaps hosting? Click on “inset map…” from the sidebar again.
Type in the postcode (ZIP) or the town and click on search icon. You can then choose a road map or ariel view like Google Earth from the drop down, zoom and pan the map. Click on “insert” when done.
The map is inserted into the blog and when you visitor clicks on the image it takes them to Microsoft Virtual Earth for more details. See link below for example.
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=55.94664~-3.20178&style=h&lvl=11
Quoting Another Sites
Windows Live Writer has a lot of bells and whistles - preview in WYSIWYG or HTML mode, support for most Blogging platforms (Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress and others), easy insertion of photos and things like Live.com Maps, and tagging. Good stuff, but none of it differentiates it from existing year old products.
If you need to quote something from another site (the above is from Techcrunch http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/13/windows-live-…) , copy the text from the web browser and paste it into writer and then highlight the text and click on the quote button (Yellow highlighted one above) below the drop down menu’s.
Back dating your post
To back date a post double click on the panel at the bottom of writer named “Properties and Trackbacks” .
The panel will expand, tick the box next to the “Date/Time” and click on the drop down and select your date.
Let’s post it
If your not quite finished click on “Save Draft” from the toolbar to save your posting and come back to it later.
You may want to spell check your post before publishing, click on the icon “abc” and like MS Word, Writer will check each word in your posting.
Okay now click on “Publish” from the toolbar to post your blog.
There are many other features of Writer for you discover as you become a more experienced Blogger, these include…
- Categories
- Trackbacks
- keywords
- Connecting to multiple blog accounts
- Additional pluggin’s such as Tags and Flickr
- Hyperlinks
- Formatting of font styles
- Bullet points / numbering
- HTML editing
- etc…
Jamie
