Windows Live Writer Plugins

Insert FTP File

The Insert FTP File, or Insert File (via FTP), plugin for Windows Live Writer is a great, automated solution for those who not only need to insert images into posts but also links to files on our server.

For those who want to share files but don’t want to use their own server or don’t want to mess around with FTP there’s always the Box.net to Live Writer plugin.

The old way? Open your FTP program, upload your file, remember where it is, write some text and construct a link to the file you just uploaded.

The new way?

After you’ve installed the plugin (how to manually install a Windows Live Writer plugin) simply click on Insert File (via FTP) which now appears in your Insert menu dropdown and/or sidebar. Select which FTP server to use, select the file to upload, enter the link text you want to use… and you’re done.

Configuration of the FTP server(s) is done by manually editing an XML file. For those who feel uncomfortable about that, simply open the file in Notepad and edit the one entry you see there to reflect your own settings.

Useful.

Download page for Insert FTP File plugin for Windows Live Writer.

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SoapBox Video plugin

Started as an MSN SoapBox video plugin, SoapBox is the video plugin for Windows Live Writer that has it all, does it all.

After the manual installation (how to manually install a plugin) an Insert Video entry appears in your Insert dropdown menu and/or sidebar.

Operation is brilliantly simple. Navigate the video site of your choice: MSN SoapBox, YouTube, Google Video or MySpace. Find a video you like? Copy the URL in your addressbar, hit the Insert Video button and paste it into the window that pops up.

Select which site you’re using. Once the URL is pasted and the video site selected you can even use the Preview button to see what will be inserted. (Note: If you click on Google Video, then paste a link in, you have to click on Google Video again to be able to insert it. Likewise, you might need to switch the radio buttons back and forth to see the preview).

If all is as you want it to be you click on Insert. All code as needed is inserted into your blog post at the place of your cursor.

Between the various video plugins for Windows Live Writer, this one truly is the simplest, most forward one. In fact, the only things that can be improved about this plugin are extended support (by adding Yahoo Video) and by automatically selecting which video site you’re using based simply on the URL you just pasted into it.

Excellent work from the same author who brought us the golden nugget Insert Spaces Emoticon.

Download page for MSN SoapBox video plugin for Windows Live Writer.

Note: this plugin will not work on MSN Spaces as MSN Spaces automatically removes the embed-tags needed.

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Community Server MetaBlog plugin for Windows Live Writer

A brilliant, powerful plugin for use of Windows Live Writer with Community Server.

The plugin can control the URL Community Server gives to your post.

Through the plugin you can also tag your post — and create new tags on the fly as you would otherwise do through the Community Server control panel.

Note: the plugin requires the Community Server MetaBlogExtender and CSModule to be in place to function correctly.

Download page for Community Server MetaBlog plugin for Windows Live Writer.

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Insert Technorati Tags

Insert Technorati Tags is a Technorati-specific tagging plugin for Windows Live writer.

The plugin comes with an installer.

After installation an Insert Technorati Tags entry appears in your Insert menu sidebar and/or dropdown.

Tags are entered as comma separated values which makes using multi-word tags a lot easier.

There is no option to define a template but out of the box the plugin performs as expected: good.

Download page for Insert Technorati Tags plugin for Windows Live Writer.

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Rhapsody Currently Playing

Shortly after the release of Windows Live Writer "currently playing" plugins appeared for popular media players such as Windows Media Player and WinAmp.

But what if you’re a user of the web-based music service Rhapsody (what is Rhapsody?).

Then you use Rhapsody Currently Playing.

The "I’m listening to" link it inserts is by default automatically linked to the song on the Rhapsody website. If a visitor clicks it he can start listening to the same song right away!

The format of the "I’m listening to" link is fully customizable via the options part of the plugin.

Example:

I’m Listening to “The Riddle” by Five for Fighting on Rhapsody.

Rhapsody Currently Playing is a plugin which needs to be manually installed (how do I install a Windows Live Writer plugin manually?)

Currently the plugin is part of Cyclone, a bundle of Windows Live Writer plugins. To install Rhapsody Currently Playing copy the file from the folder with the same name to the Windows Live Writer plugins folder.

Download page for Cyclone, including Rhapsody Currently Playing.

Your comments, feedback, input and tips are appreciated!