Windows Live Writer Test Post

I saw today that Microsoft released Windows Live Writer which is a new free Desktop Blog Editor.

Off the bat I have to say I like it and this is why. It has different views that are available which are –

• Normal
• Web Layout
• Web Preview
• HTML Code

My favorite of there is the Web Preview which is kind of like Zoundry’s template preview but you do not have to set anything up. It just automatically puts your post on the front page of your blog as a preview – sweet!

The other thing that I like about Windows Live Writer is the way that it handles images.

On the image on the left it automatically added the drop shadow to the image. Also you can grab the handle bars on the image and make it any size that you want. Custom margins are available for the top, left, right, and bottom and are coded via CSS.

These are the standard image layout features but there is more. You can adjust the orientation, brightness, and add a water mark. You can also apply the following effects –

• Black and white
• Sepia tone
• Adjust temperature
• Color pop
• Sharpen
• Gaussian blur
• Emboss

Windows Live Writer is the first Blog Editor that has gotten the bullets right

• This is started by pressing the non ordered list button
  • this is here via enter and then tab
• this is back out here with enter and then shift/tab

Some finally got it right!

These are the couple of things that I miss compared to Zoundry –

• No Techorati link location
• No option for the “More” feature that WordPress offers
• No existent help file – there are 2 entries about how to setup a blog and posting but nothing else – could use some more info.

All in all I would say that this is one of the better editors out there. Will it replace Zoundry for me? Not quite yet. Until I can figure out the above issues/features I have blogging to do and Zoundry gets that done for me.

Be sure to check out my other posts about Blog Desktop Editors.