Windows Live Writer
I decided for my first blog post that I would mess around with Windows Live Writer to see how it works with Movable Type.
Setup was easy. I followed the instructions here to create a WLW Manifest file for Live Writer. I was initially unable to log in, but that was my own fault. I didn’t realize that I had a separate API password for logging in via the RPC script. If you don’t know your API password, log into Movable Type, and go to your profile page. It’s at the bottom.
After spending a few minutes messing around with Live Writer, I have to say that I like it. It’s nice to be able manage my blog posts in a single place, whether I’m online or offline. It does a very good job rendering our blog’s CSS, although your mileage may vary here. The program is nice and simple, I didn’t have to spend any time figuring out how things work. With the exception of the authentication error, I was up and running very quickly.
I’ve only run into one glitch so far. The “post draft to blog” action is grayed out. I guess that feature hasn’t been made to work with Movable Type yet. While this won’t be a problem for me, I can see that being a useful feature for others. So for now it seems my drafts can only be kept on my local computer.
I haven’t used any other programs like this, so I’m not sure what else is out there. But for now, this is all I need.