Windows Live Writer resurrects itself as Open Live Writer

Here’s the irony, just as I’m looking for Blog software for the Mac, I come across an article stating that Windows Live Writer is coming back from the dead and has been released as an Open Source project from Microsoft under the name Open Live Wrtier. So, you mean one of the better blogging tools out there isn’t really dead after all?

Windows Live Writer launched in 2006 and had some pretty good updates and was a suprisingly usable tool. In fact, it’s still my primary publishing tool, even though the last release was in 2012. It still works with WordPress, so why change?

However, it’s been a few years and with all the changes going on, it seems only a matter of time until it stops working, so better get ahead of the curve and see what else is out there.

My first port of call was the new WordPress desktop app from WordPress themselves, which looks pretty neat actually. More on that later I suppose.

But I saw a few links about Live Writer and how it’s getting a new lease on life from the community. I’m very excited about this and see there is already a new build available. I’m anxious to get it installed and give it a try, I’m sure there will be issues, but the fact work is being done is great news.

The irony is, this post is being written on the Mac in a new blog tool called Desk PM, more on that later as well. So we can mark this down as my first post from the Mac, in a new blogging tool for that platform, writing about a new blogging tool for the Windows platform. Strange days indeed!

If you want to check out the new Live Writer, you can download a copy from – http://openlivewriter.org/

Some of the notes are kind of funny. The code base for Live Writer is about a decade old, so it’ll take a bit of time to shore that up and smooth it out before any significant new features get added.