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Windows Live Writer Beta 2 is Here!

writer_screenshot Praise the lord and pass the admonition, the new Live Writer is finally here! And of course I had to make a test post just to make sure it worked. The install went without a hitch although I uninstalled beta 1 before hand just in case.

The first problem I encountered was not related to the new beta but actually with my blog’s theme, Misty Look 3.2 that I have modified to my own personal tastes. In fact I remembered (belatedly) that I had run across this problem in the previous version of WLW as well in that WLW couldn’t detect my weblog styles so no Web Layout view. In WLW beta 1 it just told me it couldn’t download the template style and in the new version it seemed to download okay but the Web Layout view was locked out. To solve this problem I simply uploaded the previous version of Misty Look and switched over just long enough to let the weblog styles update in and then switched back to my original theme. Now I have the Web Layout view. No other problems seen so far.

I haven’t had any time yet to check out all the new functions yet but there seems to be a load of new features and a couple of major bug fixes like the infamous duplicate image uploads when editing and existing post that contains images. I’ll also have to check to see if those god awful long image names that the old version used to add are gone in this version.

And I’m loving the inline spell checking!

So good job all around to Joe Cheng and all the rest of the Writer team. My favorite blog editor seems to have made the grade. I’ll post a more “in depth” review at a later date just to add another to the pile of reviews I’m sure that will show up throughout the Blogosphere in short order.

Happy writing all.

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Comments 9

  1. Vadim wrote:

    I had an ArgumentOutOfRangeException error when tried to open my existing posts from WordPress. It looks like a problem with WordPress provider. Otherwise, I like WLW very much. I also found some very useful plug-ins.

    Posted 31 May 2007 at 9:36 pm
  2. KirkM wrote:

    Hi Vadim,
    I “host my own” Wordpress install and retrieving my previous posts works okay for me. i do have my original blog still at Wordpress.com so perhaps I run that into WLW and see if I can duplicate your problem. In the meantime you might try leaving a message at the Windows Live Writer forum and Joe Cheng might have an answer or one may already be posted.
    Here’s the link to the forum:
    http://groups.msn.com/windowslivewriter/generaltopics.msnw
    Cheers

    Posted 31 May 2007 at 9:56 pm
  3. Vadim wrote:

    Thanks. I did posted my question on that forum like you suggested.
    Vadim

    Posted 31 May 2007 at 10:23 pm
  4. Elaine wrote:

    I still can’t get mine to work, not a happy camper about this either :(

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 12:59 pm
  5. KirkM wrote:

    @Vadim:
    Let me know what they say if you get time

    @Elaine:
    We’re working on it though, yes? :P

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 9:33 pm
  6. Vadim wrote:

    Joe Cheng from Microsoft asked me to capture HTTP activity when this error happens and send it to him. Here is his response after he got the info:

    Ahhhh shoot. This is a really bad bug caused by a simple programming error. This problem will occur if you have recent posts that contain pre, script, or style tags (only on WordPress). Unfortunately I don’t have a good workaround for you at this time. Really frustrating since the fix is less than a line of code.

    I guess this is the price of using Beta versions. Otherwise, WLW works very nice for me, I really like it.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 10:03 pm
  7. KirkM wrote:

    Hi Vadim,
    This isn’t the only problem with WLW beta 2. An inordinate amount of memory usage occurs when using WLW, nearly 50mb plus another 10mb for something called WLSetup.exe. Another problem revolves around the writer slowing down or nearly locking up Windows UI from 30 seconds to permanently. I haven’t been able to find out what the difference is between systems yet. Yet another problem revolves around tags because of the following prefix added before say, Technorati tags:

    “wlWriterSmartContent” id=”0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:26195c99-f27
    -44d4-9f9c-4304f3c2fe5a” contenteditable=”false” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;”

    The above conflicted with a Pmetrics tracking script placed in my header which broke my entire blog rendering. Once I deleted the above prefix from the tags (which left just the typical Technorati tag codes that everyone else uses) everything returned to normal.

    I’ll have a post soon enough on these problems.

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 8:28 am
  8. Rich wrote:

    Hi Kirk, fantastic news! Thanks for sharing it with us, off to download it now, oh hang on, it’s 1am and I got work tomorrow ~ perhaps one for another day! Do you know if it still needs .net?

    Hope all is well with you, as it’s turned a new month my bandwidth counter has been reset so I’m back, lol.. think it might have been the media player that did it! Thanks for keeping the link, appreciate it.

    Catch you soon..

    Rich

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 7:54 pm
  9. KirkM wrote:

    Hi Rich,
    Man! Your host must really crank down on the bandwidth allotment. The one I use runs 3000GB per month. You’re probably right…streaming video/audio will kill you in bandwidth.
    Be that as it may, make sure you read the latest post on WLW beta2. They fixed the old quirks and released a whole bunch of new ones but that’s beta software for you.

    I’m off to the Boston VA for a couple of days for my own tests (not nearly as fun as testing WLW) so I’ll have to postpone any more working with the new Writer until I get back. I’ll be interested to know how it works for you.

    Glad you’re back online.

    Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 11:16 am

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