Rant: Windows Live Writer 2012 disappointment

I'm really disappointed with the progress that Microsoft has put forth with Windows Live Writer.  In 2009, Microsoft released Windows Live Writer; after having just acquired the application from another smaller company.

After Windows Live Writer was released, it became very popular and if you ask anyone now with the best blogging software is available on the Internet, for free, most likely you're going to get the response of Windows Live Writer.

But the disturbing part about Windows Live Writer is that once Microsoft released it, it's never been updated. No new features have been placed into it, the only things that have been updated have been the version numbers. There's been about five updates to Windows Live Writer since it was initially released as part of the Windows Live essentials package.  if you're wondering, I don't consider the GUI update to Windows Live Writer an official update. Microsoft updated the GUI a Windows Live Writer, adding the ribbon user interface, but they removed the sidebar functionality of Windows Live Writer which was extremely helpful and productive; and they removed it.




Again, I think Windows Live Writer is a great application, and it's the best in its class, but that doesn't mean that it can't be better and it doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve any more updates.  Windows Live Writer is a great application because it empowers blog authors to easily compose the posts and post them to their blog; using simple functions like copy and paste and drag-and-drop.  The application also helps the authors with simple image editing options such as fixed image sizes and being able to crop images and apply some simple photo effects.

One of the most empowering things that Windows Live Writer has, that simply makes it stand out from all the other blogging software packages, is the ability to add add-ons/ plug-ins.  By allowing outside developers to create your own plug-ins Windows Live Writer, it allows it to do things that it wasn't innately it able to do.

My disappointment in Windows Live Writer is that nothing else has been done to it. Windows Live Writer still doesn't have the find and replace function;  one of the most basic functions of a word processor or a text editing application,  and Windows Live Writer doesn't have it.

I think my greatest disappointment is that there's not an off-line blog editing application that's better than Windows Live Writer.  There are thousands of new blogs every day; and there's millions of new blog posts everyday. It just seems odd to me that with so many blogs and so many blog authors that there's not a greater demand, a greater need for a more sophisticated off-line blog editor.

I honestly thought that Microsoft, Google, WordPress, or somebody else would step up to the plate and recognize that there has to be a higher level of blog editor for all of these people;  to really enrich the content of all these blogs,  there's not.  There's no one out there  looking out for the blog author or the blog.

One blog application that I thought had true potential was Zoundry Raven. I thought Zoundry Raven was really on track to make a mark for themselves as a definitive off-line blog editing application.  It had a lot of bonuses that I thought blog authors were really looking for.  Zoundry Raven had functions built into it like article backups,  local image archives,  local tagging  and they were also working on being able to edit blog posts using existing themes as well. but Zoundry Raven was an open-source project and sometimes open-source projects just don't get the financing for the attention they need, and they fail.  Zoundry Raven stopped being updated in 2008.  In 2008 Zoundry Raven was better than Windows Live Writer.  up until last year,  Zoundry Raven was still better than Windows Live Writer in some aspects,  but now Zoundry Raven has run into compatibility issues now that blogging services like WordPress have updated their services and now Zoundry Raven cannot communicate with WordPress properly [ based on my experience].

It just seems to be an obvious void of a proper blogging application for the masses.  I would gladly pay money for an off-line blogging application that was really focused on helping the bloggers,  and helping their blogs.

I just don't see enough emphasis on helping the authors with things like spelling and grammar,  tagging their articles, SEO  functions, inter-blog linking, local image storage,  blog templates  and things like image optimization…

There's lots of other things that a blog editor could be doing for the blog authors,  but those applications are simply not on the Internet.

I'm not saying that there are not other blogging applications on the web, there are, but there are not blogging applications on the Internet who are focused and driven to helping the blogs authors and in helping to promote those blogs.

WordPress surprises me because WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the Internet, period.  I would've thought that of anyone that was really going to promote blogging, I thought it would be WordPress.  not just with the web interface that they use, allowing authors to compose through the website; I would've figured that WordPress with creative a cross platform based blogging application to make it super simple for people to create blogs and post them.  But they don't.

WordPress offers smart phone applications that allows people to blog from the smartphones and post them, but they don't offer anything for a desktop type PC or Mac.  I would've figured that if WordPress would've created something like that they would have a greater insight than anyone else to take advantage of all the features and functions of WordPress; making it absolutely fantastic, but they didn't.

Google is in the same category as WordPress. They surprised me so much in a disappointing way, Google has their own blogging service [Blogspot],   and they've had it for a long time,  but they've done the same thing that WordPress has and that is to create a blogging service, with an online editor, that everyone agrees is substandard;  and they also don't provide an off-line blog editor to encourage authors, nor help them.  Google has vast resources.

Within the last three years Google has produced an outstanding Internet browser;  with great performance and security,  being out other Internet browsers in record time. It's just amazing that with all those resources,  they to have not created any kind of cross-platform blog editor.

Llike I said, Windows Live Writer is a  great blogging application;  it's the best in its class,  but since Microsoft does not actively support it [ development]  it's frustrating to those people who need more functionality and to know that the company that released this application doesn't seem to care.

And the best thing for companies to do when they have applications like this, where they don't really want to develop it anymore;  what they should do is turn the application over to the open source community and let them development it.


Thank you,
Larry Henry Jr.
LEHSYS.com

...via Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12