5 ms·

Live Writer Is Now Open Source

155 points by zastrowm 11y ago

mwcampbell 11y ago
Interesting that Live Writer uses Windows Forms, though WPF was available, at least within Microsoft, when the project started. I wonder why.
- ccurrens 11y ago
  The readme on their github[1] says that Live Writer was originally part of an acquisition. I would guess that winforms may have already been in use when they acquired Onfolio. There may be other reasons as well, but I don't know what they are :) [1] https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter
- jarnonijboer 11y ago
  Quote from Scott Hansleman's blog post[1] "Much of the code in Open Live Writer is nearly 10 years old. The coding conventions, styles, and idioms are circa .NET 1.0 and .NET 1.1." [1] http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingOpenLiveWriterAnOpenSourceForkOfWindowsLiveWriter.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingOpenLiveWriterAnOpen...
frik 11y ago
Please open source "Windows Live Photo Gallery" too (also part of the Live package for Windows 7+). It's a superb photo management application that was introduced with Vista (similar to iPhoto/Photos/Lightroom). It stays in low maintainance mode since its Vista days (moved to Live apps bundle) and it would have a better home in the open source community.
- sosuke 11y ago
  I could not agree more. Windows Live/Essentails Photo Gallery is the best tool for keeping the file as the source of record. I evaluated several photo face tagging tools and it was the best as far as leaving meta data in the file and updating the file information properly. Picasa and Photos/iPhoto just couldn't seem to do it and each has a separate database. Check out this post from 2006 where they talk about it and some cases where they can't "truth in the file" that seem like a very reasonable list of circumstances. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pix/archive/2006/08/16/702780.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pix/archive/2006/08/16/702780.aspx
- pjc50 11y ago
  Also I've found Live Movie Maker is a remarkably useful tool for taking files recorded off the TV (using the now discontinued Windows Media Centre - how about open sourcing that too?) and turning them into MP4.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
Oh very cool! This was one of my favorite apps at the time but it never worked with any of the blog platforms I was on so I only got to play with it. Glad it's opened up now. Maybe we'll see more usage.
vive-la-liberte 11y ago
Someone knowlegable about Live Writer should update the Wikipedia article about Windows Live Writer with this information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Writer
- jongalloway2 11y ago
  Done - I just linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Live_Writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Live_Writer which is pretty comprehensive.
strangetimes 11y ago
To this day I run a Windows 7 VM in Parallels on my MacBook Air in Coherence mode just so I can write blog posts in Windows Live Writer. I looked for years for a setup that could beat this, and unbelievably, never found it.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I use MarsEdit on a Mac and (mostly) like it. I used Live Writer way back when but, at some point, I stopped doing so--don't remember why but I'm pretty sure it was before I switched off Windows.
  - strangetimes 11y ago
    MarsEdit is the client most people mention as a Mac replacement for Windows Live Writer, but after using WLW for years and then trying MarsEdit, it didn't hold a candle to WLW. It's shocking--WLW is a free tool that hasn't had active development since 2012--but true.
    - toyg 11y ago
      The reason is probably that the market for blog editors disappeared when WYSIWYG editors became good enough for most people and wifi became common. The level of hassle "fat clients" in the space end up being (with crappy caches, blocking interfaces etc) is not offset by the tangible benefits of offline editing and marginally-better media support. I'm not a great fan of the Blogger editor, but I've not found any modern alternative that can beat it so much to consider paying for it.
      - douche 11y ago
        The Blogger editor was so bad, for writing a blog with any amount of code snippets, that I got frustrated enough to bail on Blogger entirely and write a simple hand-rolled blog engine. There was absolutely no way to get it to not mangle the resulting content - even directly editing the HTML wasn't really reliable.
- 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tonyedgecombe 11y ago
I wonder if it could be adapted for editing and publishing a Jekyll site?
z3t4 11y ago
I always post this rant about HTML (WYSIWIG) editors. If you know what the buttons do, you can also code HTML! All you have to know is the button's corresponding html-tags: h1, h2, p, br, b, i, img, a, ul, ol, li, table, tr, th, td.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
 Users shouldn't need to know HTML to be able to write a blog post.
 - z3t4 11y ago
 Removing your hand from the keyboard, to move the mouse pointer to a small button, then back again to the input ... Or you could learn ten simple and standardized HTML tags and increase your productivity and control over the semantics.
 - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
 Most users aren't programmers, we would serve our customer a lot better by understanding that.
 - z3t4 11y ago
 I believe that teaching customers a standardized and widely used markup language such as HTML will be very valuable. You do not have to use HTML as the ONLY option though. There can be two views, one HTML view witch contain only the blog post in HTML, and then a rendered preview including design and layout with contenteditable.
- Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
 Why should you have to? Command- or control-B is quicker to type than , and you get a fluid reading experience with real bold, rather than breaking up the flow of text.
breakingcups 11y ago
This is really cool. Open sourcing is always THE suggestion whenever a product gets abandoned and it is amazing to see Microsoft of all companies to follow through with it. Thanks everyone who made this happen!

155 points by zastrowm 11y ago

Interesting that Live Writer uses Windows Forms, though WPF was available, at least within Microsoft, when the project started. I wonder why.

ccurrens 11y ago
The readme on their github[1] says that Live Writer was originally part of an acquisition. I would guess that winforms may have already been in use when they acquired Onfolio. There may be other reasons as well, but I don't know what they are :) [1] https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter
jarnonijboer 11y ago
Quote from Scott Hansleman's blog post[1] "Much of the code in Open Live Writer is nearly 10 years old. The coding conventions, styles, and idioms are circa .NET 1.0 and .NET 1.1." [1] http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingOpenLiveWriterAnOpenSourceForkOfWindowsLiveWriter.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingOpenLiveWriterAnOpen...

frik 11y ago

Please open source "Windows Live Photo Gallery" too (also part of the Live package for Windows 7+). It's a superb photo management application that was introduced with Vista (similar to iPhoto/Photos/Lightroom). It stays in low maintainance mode since its Vista days (moved to Live apps bundle) and it would have a better home in the open source community.

sosuke 11y ago
I could not agree more. Windows Live/Essentails Photo Gallery is the best tool for keeping the file as the source of record. I evaluated several photo face tagging tools and it was the best as far as leaving meta data in the file and updating the file information properly. Picasa and Photos/iPhoto just couldn't seem to do it and each has a separate database. Check out this post from 2006 where they talk about it and some cases where they can't "truth in the file" that seem like a very reasonable list of circumstances. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pix/archive/2006/08/16/702780.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pix/archive/2006/08/16/702780.aspx
pjc50 11y ago
Also I've found Live Movie Maker is a remarkably useful tool for taking files recorded off the TV (using the now discontinued Windows Media Centre - how about open sourcing that too?) and turning them into MP4.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

Oh very cool! This was one of my favorite apps at the time but it never worked with any of the blog platforms I was on so I only got to play with it. Glad it's opened up now. Maybe we'll see more usage.

vive-la-liberte 11y ago

Someone knowlegable about Live Writer should update the Wikipedia article about Windows Live Writer with this information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Writer

jongalloway2 11y ago
Done - I just linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Live_Writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Live_Writer which is pretty comprehensive.

strangetimes 11y ago

To this day I run a Windows 7 VM in Parallels on my MacBook Air in Coherence mode just so I can write blog posts in Windows Live Writer. I looked for years for a setup that could beat this, and unbelievably, never found it.

ghaff 11y ago
I use MarsEdit on a Mac and (mostly) like it. I used Live Writer way back when but, at some point, I stopped doing so--don't remember why but I'm pretty sure it was before I switched off Windows.
- strangetimes 11y ago
  MarsEdit is the client most people mention as a Mac replacement for Windows Live Writer, but after using WLW for years and then trying MarsEdit, it didn't hold a candle to WLW. It's shocking--WLW is a free tool that hasn't had active development since 2012--but true.
  - toyg 11y ago
    The reason is probably that the market for blog editors disappeared when WYSIWYG editors became good enough for most people and wifi became common. The level of hassle "fat clients" in the space end up being (with crappy caches, blocking interfaces etc) is not offset by the tangible benefits of offline editing and marginally-better media support. I'm not a great fan of the Blogger editor, but I've not found any modern alternative that can beat it so much to consider paying for it.
    - douche 11y ago
      The Blogger editor was so bad, for writing a blog with any amount of code snippets, that I got frustrated enough to bail on Blogger entirely and write a simple hand-rolled blog engine. There was absolutely no way to get it to not mangle the resulting content - even directly editing the HTML wasn't really reliable.
11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

tonyedgecombe 11y ago

I wonder if it could be adapted for editing and publishing a Jekyll site?

z3t4 11y ago

I always post this rant about HTML (WYSIWIG) editors. If you know what the buttons do, you can also code HTML! All you have to know is the button's corresponding html-tags: h1, h2, p, br, b, i, img, a, ul, ol, li, table, tr, th, td.

tonyedgecombe 11y ago
Users shouldn't need to know HTML to be able to write a blog post.
- z3t4 11y ago
  Removing your hand from the keyboard, to move the mouse pointer to a small button, then back again to the input ... Or you could learn ten simple and standardized HTML tags and increase your productivity and control over the semantics.
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    Most users aren't programmers, we would serve our customer a lot better by understanding that.
    - z3t4 11y ago
      I believe that teaching customers a standardized and widely used markup language such as HTML will be very valuable. You do not have to use HTML as the ONLY option though. There can be two views, one HTML view witch contain only the blog post in HTML, and then a rendered preview including design and layout with contenteditable.
Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
Why should you have to? Command- or control-B is quicker to type than , and you get a fluid reading experience with real bold, rather than breaking up the flow of text.

breakingcups 11y ago

This is really cool. Open sourcing is always THE suggestion whenever a product gets abandoned and it is amazing to see Microsoft of all companies to follow through with it. Thanks everyone who made this happen!