Erwyn van der Meer

Microsoft has released a beta version of a new blog authoring tool called Windows Live Writer.

I've heard good things about it in the blogosphere, so I had to try it myself. This is my first post using this new tool.

It has some really great features. I am amazed by the "Web Preview" mode, that allows you to preview how a blog post will look in the styling of your blog without even having to publish a draft version of that post.

When writing this entry, it felt easier than using Word 2007 Beta 2 as a blog authoring tool. But it still lacks the text formatting and proofing features of Word. For example, there is no dropdown to select a font or style or a simple way to remove formatting from a piece of text. The spelling check has to be manually activated and feels like being thrown back to the stone age. There is no spelling and grammar check as you type, i.e., no red and green squiggly lines. Imagine how much effort it took me to get the spelling of "squiggly" correct ;)

I am happy to see that Windows Live Writer is built on Microsoft .NET technology, albeit the 1.1 version of the .NET Framework.

BTW, if you peek inside WindowsLiveWriter.exe with .NET Reflector, you can see why Microsoft cautions you about using the AssemblyKeyFile attribute: it divulges path information from the build machine. In the case of Windows Live Writer, it shows:

In .NET 2.0 the AssemblyKeyFileAttribute is deprecated.