Select the text you want to turn into a link and click on the hyperlink icon or press CTRL + K

In the “Insert Hyperlink” windows click on the “Link to” button next to the URL field and then hit “Previous Post”

Now you can see all your previous post and choose the right one

Click on ok and the link is set.

via Jamie Thomson

The Wordpress developer team tries to secure Wordpress. Hence, they deactivated the XML-RPC and the Atom API.

Without these APIs it is not possible to post to your blog using a desktop blogging software like WIndows Live Wiriter.

Thankfully they didn’t delete this API. It can be activated in Wordpress Administration (Settings –> Write).

via Frank Bültge

flickr user Irregular Shed shows us how:

This is Windows Live Writer running on Windows XP, running virtually on Ubuntu 8.04 running virtually on Asus Eee PC. This setup let windows use 192 MB RAM. An according to the guy who did this, it’s perfectly usable.

Irregular Shed’s blog - Blogging from inside a virtual XP machine. w00t.

The new version number of the Live Writer Technical Preview is 14. When i saw this, I remembered that the previous release had version number 12. I assumed, version 13 was a developer release and never public. So I asked Ste and he forwarded my question to Scott. Apparently Microsoft Software never has a version number 13, because it’s an unlucky number. So Live Writer didn’t had a release 13.

What a bummer. I was looking forward to Windows 13 which wouldn’t need a keyboard or mouse as it could read its users mind

The new SDK isn’t a release, it’s a Technical Preview like the new Live Writer an therefore it’s not intended for production use. That’s why Live Gallery doesn’t accept plugins based on the SDK 1.1 Technical Preview. It’s also possible that the Developer Team make breaking changes in the new SDK code and new plugins won’t work in final release anymore.

The SDK has get two new plugin base classes:

Publish Notification Hook
Header/Footer Source

Publish Notification Hook

The new class PublishNotificationHook allows you to develop plugins which can run actions after pressing the Publish button. These actions can be executed before or after publishing the post. You can also cancel the publishing process.

Examples for use could be:

• Notification on new posts to services e.g. Twitter
• Ask for confirmation if no tags or keywords are provided with the post and cancel the publishing process if necessary
• Show a warning when the post contains invalid XHTML

With this new base class you can save settings in the post file for later use. Plugins written on that class have to be enabled or diabled for every blog configured in Live Writer individually.

Let’s go to some development stuff. It’s very easy to develop PublishNotificationHook plugins. Follow these steps:

1. Create a new .NET Class Library (e.g. in Visual Studio)
2. Add a reference to WindowsLive.Writer.Api
3. Create a new class extending PublishNotificationHook
4. Assign a GUID and a Plugin name with WriterPluginAttribute
5. Overwrite OnPrePublish and/or OnPostPublish method

Here a tiny code example:

using System.Windows.Forms;
using WindowsLive.Writer.Api;

[WriterPlugin("????????-????-????-????-????????????", "My Plugin Name")]
public class MyPublishNotificationHook : PublishNotificationHook
{
    public override bool OnPrePublish(IWin32Window owner, IProperties properties,
            IPublishingContext publishingContext, bool publish)
    {
        // Do pre-publish work
        return true;
    }

    public override void OnPostPublish(IWin32Window owner, IProperties properties,
            IPublishingContext publishingContext, bool publish)
    {
        // Do post-publish work
    }
}

Header/Footer Source

This type of plugins are used to add some text to the header or footer of a post. The user can’t modify this text in the Edit section of Live Writer but this text is visible in the preview section and in the published post.

This type of plugins could be used for example for:

• Header: Insert a Digg button
• Footer: Insert Social Bookmark links

The interessting part of this new base class is that the permalink of the post can be used even if it’s not exist yet.

Plugins which make use of this base class have to be enabled or disabled for every blog configured in Live Writer individually.

Let’s go to the development stuff:

1. Create a new .NET Class Library (e.g. in Visual Studio)
2. Add a reference to WindowsLive.Writer.Api
3. Create a new class extending HeaderFooterSource erbt
4. Assign a GUID and a Plugin name with WriterPluginAttribute
5. If permalinks are used, overwrite the RquiresPermalink property and return true
6. Overwrite GeneratePreviewHtml and GeneratePublishHtml

using System.Windows.Forms;
using WindowsLive.Writer.Api;

[WriterPlugin("????????-????-????-????-????????????", "My Plugin Name")]
public class MyHeaderFooterSource : HeaderFooterSource
{
    public override bool RequiresPermalink
    {
        get { return true; }
    }

    public override string GeneratePreviewHtml(ISmartContent smartContent,
            IPublishingContext publishingContext, out Position position)
    {
        position = Position.Footer;
        return “<p><a href=\”#\”>Digg This</a></p>”;
    }

    public override string GeneratePublishHtml(IWin32Window dialogOwner,
            ISmartContent smartContent, IPublishingContext publishingContext,
            bool publish, out Position position)
    {
        position = Position.Footer;
        return “<p><a href=\”http://digg.com/submit?url=”
            + publishingContext.PostInfo.Permalink
            + “\”>Digg This</a></p>”;
    }
}

There are another changes like TaskServices which can run tasks in background.

SDK download (contains documentation and samples)

Live-Side.net

For feedback please use the Live Writer Developer forum

What is new in the Windows Live Writer 2008 Technical Preview 06/2008?

• Improved category management: The categories are instant searchable (Microsoft Windows Vista)
• Image cropping
• Word count
• Image alignment: Images can be centered and not only text
• Typografic replacement
• Automatic glossary linking
• Improved User interface
• Soapbox Video Upload
• Improved image publishing
• Lightbox support (lightbox plugin necessary in the blog)
• New image border
• Image tilting
• GIF support
• Check for Updates /Notification
• Writer SDK 1.1 (Scott Lovegrove post an article about the new SDK on Live-Side.net)

Send Feedback

The following resources are available to you for providing feedback to the Writer team:

• For feedback about the Technical Preview, please use our Windows Live Writer (Beta) Forum.
• For feedback about the SDK, please use our Windows Live Writer Developer Forums.

via Live-Side.net and WriterZone