Windows Live Writer and Geekzone blog

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chakkaradeep

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#16560 16-Oct-2007 15:18

How to configure Windows Live Writer to post to our geekzone blogs ?

Anybody done that before ?

Regards,
Chaks

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bradstewart

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#91245 16-Oct-2007 15:50

It can't be done, but I believe (and Mauricio may confirm this) that this was something being looked at for the Geekzone blog platform

tonyhughes

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#91248 16-Oct-2007 16:08

I want post-by-email!

chiefie

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#91256 16-Oct-2007 16:28

Geekzone Blog needs to have an weblog API and a connector/plug-in for Windows Live Writer before we can do an offline blogging/3rd party software blogging.

I do hope we will see the ability to use Windows Live Writer (or any 3rd party blogging tools) to blog from, and perhaps with an built in ftp for uploading image to the GZ gallery too.

Blog by email is a great idea too.

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freitasm

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#91258 16-Oct-2007 16:30

I thought of doing a blog via e-mail service first but not many people seem to really blog to justify this before the redesign.

chakkaradeep

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#91264 16-Oct-2007 17:28

I think we will be under many complications with blog via email service. I use code plugins, map plugin and others and I dont think that would be possible with email unless we have our own Geekzone blog email client which will end up redoing something like Windows Live Writer ! So, its better to go with Live Writer

freitasm

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#91266 16-Oct-2007 18:03

I actually think that an e-mail blog platform is better in the long run - anyone wanting to blog could simply send an e-mail from any platform, device, service without having to install programs, worry about versions, etc...

KevDaly

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#91268 16-Oct-2007 18:16

freitasm: I actually think tha an e-mail blog platform is better in the long run - anyone wanting to blog could simply send an e-mail from any platform, device, service without having to install programs, worry about versions, etc...

I can see a few drawbacks with an email-only approach though: if people want to include a link to a photo of their cat (or whatever it is that people feel the urge to include photos of...it's not my thing so I can't say), or links to web sites using any text other than the URL, they'd be out of luck. Formatting options would also be very limited.
And then there are categories and tags...or rather, there aren't.

That may not actually matter once all considerations (and usage patterns) have been weighed, but it's worth bearing in mind.
I have to admit that the ease of creating a blog post with Windows Live Writer helps me get over the "Can I be bothered writing this?" hump.
Which may be a good thing or a bad thing.

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chiefie

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#91270 16-Oct-2007 18:18

Email blog idea allow you to blog first then go back to correct and add category to it.

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freitasm

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#91273 16-Oct-2007 18:32

Kev is a good developer - he created our Geekzone Friends for Pocket PC and a Windows Mobile Blog application Diarist. But you know coding the API for use with Live Writer would be small nightmare, right? Although I guess we could probably do it in a couple of days - if I had this kind of time available now...

KevDaly

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#91276 16-Oct-2007 19:38

Something I've toyed with the idea of doing is writing something built around the ASP.NET 2.0 Provider model....so I'd write something like an HttpHandler (seems fair enough to start with, although WCF in its SOAP-less incarnation might be the way to go in the long run) that would deal with all the MetaWeblogAPI XML-RPC gunk (which I'd just like to say I hate, loathe and despise) and have that talk to an abstract MetaWeblogDataProvider to deal with the actual database interaction (or the interaction with whatever pre-existing code does that, if possible).

So site owners would just need to provide the implementation for the last bit (which shouldn't be a biggy since data access code will already exist for the form-based interaction. Or the email-based interaction. Whatever).

That's not something that there's a lot of call for but Geekzone might be a reasonable fit (depending on whether it's built on ASP.NET or just vanilla ASP).

The advantage is that you'd then be able to use any of the popular blog editors.

PS. I resolve not to use the word "interaction" for the rest of the week.

chakkaradeep

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#91277 16-Oct-2007 19:42

I think if we have to use Live Writer, we have to write our own weblog provider.

Have a look here - http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/MetaWeblogAPI.asp

The above post tells how one of the guys configured his website blog and used Windows Live Writer to blog

KevDaly

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#91279 16-Oct-2007 19:54

chakkaradeep: I think if we have to use Live Writer, we have to write our own weblog provider.

Have a look here - http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/MetaWeblogAPI.asp

The above post tells how one of the guys configured his website blog and used Windows Live Writer to blog

It's the same issue with any blog editor if your site doesn't already support a well-known API.
MetaWeblogAPI is a good one to implement (despite its horribleness) because it's been around for yonks and is very widely supported.

freitasm

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#91281 16-Oct-2007 20:13

We use vanilla ASP 2.0 on Geekzone. I guess I could put together a simple script that implemented the following:

metaWeblog.newPost (blogid, username, password, struct, publish) returns string
metaWeblog.editPost (postid, username, password, struct, publish) returns true
metaWeblog.getPost (postid, username, password) returns struct

This should be somehing we can do in a day or two... But we have some priorities at the moment, including server migration, database update and more...

chakkaradeep

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#91283 16-Oct-2007 20:18

freitasm: We use vanilla ASP 2.0 on Geekzone. I guess I could put together a simple script that implemented the following:

metaWeblog.newPost (blogid, username, password, struct, publish) returns string
metaWeblog.editPost (postid, username, password, struct, publish) returns true
metaWeblog.getPost (postid, username, password) returns struct

This should be somehing we can do in a day or two... But we have some priorities at the moment, including server migration, database update and more...

No worries

We could try out later when things are calm. I can assist in live writer development