Testing Windows Live Writer

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I'm currently testing this Windows application called Windows Live Writer, an app that's supposed to allow me to write my blog posts offline in the event that I'm caught without connectivity. This post is, in fact, being written on Live Writer, and I'm cautiously optimistic over the functionality of this application.

Thus far, it looks okay, but it seems that there are quite a number of bugs to this thing (well, bugs insofar as my personal preferences are concerned).

Let's take a look at what it can and cannot do.

(Oh, and if this post comes out comes out sloppy, it's because I allowed it to be, for demonstration purposes.)

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For starters, the GUI looks pretty good after the installation. As I type this, I'm already getting a feel for how it will appear on my blog.

The text typing already is a good thing for me; with a click of the mouse, there's BOLD, ITALIC, UNDERSCORE, and STRIKETHROUGH (and the shortcuts Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, and Ctrl-U also work; I have yet to figure out the shortcut for strikethrough). There are also functionalities for numbered lists, like so:

1. Law 101 - Property
2. Law 117 - Legal Theory
3. Law 122 - Constitutional Law 2
4. Law 173 - Agency and Partnership
5. Life 510 - Advanced Prettynometric Analysis

Bulleted lists can be made as well:

• Property - 4 units
• Legal Theory - 2 units
• Constitutional Law 2 - 4 units
• Agency and Partnership - 3 units
• Advanced Prettynometric Analysis - 1 (lec), 8 (lab) units (elective)

Other functionalities are interesting... there's a spell check (shout out to Brian Gorell, who apparently is need of one for his posting; well, he did say so in iBlog 4), as well as buttons to insert hyperlinks (yep, I just used it to put up the previous hyperlink), pictures, tables, maps, tags, and videos. Right now, I'm going to test how to embed a photo.

There's Nikko, our superhero. Unfortunately, the options for photo alignment do not include "center", so you'll have to go to the "View HTML" page to put the code manually.

Like so:

On Windows Live Writer, modifying alignment on the "Web Layout" view only works for text.

(By the way, for Nikko's fans -- yes, yes, I know, you girls are visiting this blog only in anticipation that he might just appear... happy now? Heh. Anyway, Nikko's recovered from his minor surgery, a slight fever that lasted barely a day, and a bout of measles that lasted only three or four days. Yes, yes, he's wearing a Flash costume, but I think that it's the wrong superhero; with his apparently high lymphocyte count, a very fast clotting rate, and an immune system that seems to fight off infection faster than anyone of us, I'm convinced that the little boy is more of Wolverine with an accelerated healing factor. Wolvie, okay, Wolvie; anybody who mentions Claire Bennet will be bitch-slapped -- Nikko is NOT a bloody cheerleader. Heh.)

Anyway, here's an attempt to insert a table:

Candidate	Prettynometry Coordinates	Pass/Fail?
A	(confidential)	Fail
B	(confidential)	Fail
C	(confidential)	Fail

Prettynometry results

Again, note that the table is by default aligned to the left; the table has to be aligned manually otherwise on the "View HTML" view.

Like so:

Candidate	Prettynometry Coordinates	Pass/Fail?
A	(confidential)	Fail
B	(confidential)	Fail
C	(confidential)	Fail

Prettynometry results

 

Since I don't have any videos to upload, I haven't tested how alignment works, but I'm guessing the function is the same.

So much for that. Now on the "View HTML" page, something is terribly not right -- instead of allowing carriage returns to be detected as Blogger does, Windows Live Writer forces you to use the p-slash p code. So a paragraph typed on Notepad with carriage returns and no p-slash p codes (as a lot of us do on Blogger) will look like this:

"Holiday travelers lost their cool at the Manila domestic airport Thursday when they found out that they would not be able to make it to Boracay on schedule but would have to wait for hours. "Only two of the usual five Asian Spirit aircraft bound for Caticlan were able to fly, a spokesperson said. "At least 416 passengers, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's daughter Luli, sat for between four and eight hours inside the crammed and humid terminal building. "Airport security chief Angel Atutubo said that Luli waited from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Restless passengers "Asian Spirit ad and promo manager Trina Francisco said Luli took a helicopter in the afternoon but she did not know where she went. "Commotions broke out from time to time as restless passengers engaged the airline's service desk, demanding to know when they could depart. Discussions became so heated at times that police had to step in to pacify the passengers.

Instead of this:

"Holiday travelers lost their cool at the Manila domestic airport Thursday when they found out that they would not be able to make it to Boracay on schedule but would have to wait for hours.

"Only two of the usual five Asian Spirit aircraft bound for Caticlan were able to fly, a spokesperson said.

"At least 416 passengers, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's daughter Luli, sat for between four and eight hours inside the crammed and humid terminal building.

"Airport security chief Angel Atutubo said that Luli waited from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m."

Restless passengers

"Asian Spirit ad and promo manager Trina Francisco said Luli took a helicopter in the afternoon but she did not know where she went.

"Commotions broke out from time to time as restless passengers engaged the airline's service desk, demanding to know when they could depart. Discussions became so heated at times that police had to step in to pacify the passengers."

Note that I had been unable to use blockquotes. It seems that I'll have to insert blockquotes manually, like so:

This statement concerns the Philippine Daily Inquirer article regarding the Asian Spirit fiasco on their delayed flights last May 1, which quotes an Asian Spirit employee stating that I took a helicopter after my flight on their airline was delayed for hours, and further purporting in a photo caption that I took a presidential chopper.

As usual, PDI did not bother to check on the facts, and worse, maliciously implied through their photo caption that I used my privilege as the daughter of the President to use the presidential helicopter while the rest of the passengers suffered that day. This malice in falsely reporting that I used a government helicopter is the only reason I am responding today, otherwise I do not bother to respond to gossip passed off as news. I would like to point out that GMA News featured the same story on Asian Spirit's delayed flights, but only they bothered to check the facts about my circumstances when they decided to include it in their story.

(Speaking of quotes, that was a winner from Luli Arroyo. Like I sent on Twitter recently, I'm betting that the Philippine Daily Inquirer will not publish a retraction or admission of error, as is the wont of a lot of MSM outfits and practitioners when they've made glaring errors; it seems like the only errors they will admit to are misspellings and suchlike.)

It seems that Windows Live Writer does not support the Blogger functionality of having pre-prepared code, so it will be best if one keeps one's default template on Notepad, just in case. Note that I removed my Entrecard widget; Windows Live Writer keeps on multiplying the code so that there are multiple Entrecards side-by-side, as if they were gremlins that just got wet by this afternoon's rain.

Finally, Windows Live Writer supports Blogger categories; all one has to do is tick off checkboxes. There's a preview as well, but I'm rather leery of it right now.

(Notice how I'm merely reporting on how I'm putting this post together? Haha)

***

Now to publish. Wish me luck.

 

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