WLW Good For Community Server, Great for LAMP
Kevin Briody mentioned there is a new version of Windows Live Writer. The following line really struck a cord with me:
...and excellent support for Wordpress, Typepad, and other engines.
I learned of the new version a couple of months ago. Since that time, I have been trying to track down someone who would be able to share a pre-release drop with us so that we could be sure Community Server was ready for it the day it was released. The answer was always no. Working for a company with many RDs, MVPs, and ASPInsiders I have never had any trouble getting my hands on early builds, especially where our involvement not only benefited us, but also benefited Microsoft.
After walking through a couple Community Server test posts, I fired up my test Wordpress.com account and see they have built in links to areas of their control panel, nice WYSIWYG support for excerpts/read more and some other things and cannot help wondering if we could not have offered similar functionality if we were involved.
I really hate ranting on this blog, but this kind of behavior makes no sense to me. I can understand why Microsoft would choose to better promote LiveSpaces and SharePoint, but I do not understand why you would keep out another tool that not only runs on .NET, but also powers just about every important blog site running on .NET; even your own sites.
Maybe to some this seems like not that big of a deal. I am assuming we can add some API updates at a later date. But is a very poor showing on their part. The Live side of the business is struggling to become relevant in the face of the Google onslaught. With this being my first real experience with the team I am not that impressed.
Note: I fully get that Wordpress has a significant market share and I commend Microsoft for their great support of a non-windows tool. I just do not get why you would not take care of those around you as well.
Note 2: We do support the full MetaBlog API. I am guessing this new functionality is based on support for custom extensions to API.
Note 3: BTW, the update is super nice and I still highly recommend it.
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Comments
Joe Cheng [MSFT] on on 5.31.2007 at 6:12 PM
I don't (yet) know where the lines of communication broke down, but on behalf of the Writer team I'm very sorry. I just talked to my boss (dev manager of Writer) and he said he is now directly in touch with the right folks on your side so this should not happen again.
FWIW, our support for WordPress got so good because their users have been absolutely unrelenting in their demands for these features. We didn't consciously make a decision to support them and shun you, we just went about fixing the problem that users were demanding, but then forgot or failed to connect the dots with you. Again, I'm sorry and I'm looking forward to better CS/Writer integration in the future.
This also goes for any other blog server implementers who are reading this--if you have trouble getting heard by the Writer team, please e-mail me at joecheng *AT* microsoft *DOT* com.
Spike Washburn (Writer Dev) on on 5.31.2007 at 6:49 PM
Please don't get too worked up about this, we're just trying to execute fast and light around here (which is a whole other challenge :-)).
The "customization API" you referred to that Wordpress and Spaces are using is just an XML file that can be plopped into the webserver's root folder. The DasBlog guys managed to get it up and running for their community in no time after the beta launch yesterday. If you want to see the quick and dirty example of how they did it, just read this post:
www.hanselman.com/.../WindowsLiveWriterBeta2DasBlogAndTheCustomizationAPI.aspx
You basically just slap a customization XML file in web root, and you're ready to go. While you're at it, post the XML file for your user community and writer a blog post to engage them for more cool integration ideas like the DasBlog guys did. No one is using any of the advanced customization stuff yet, so getting ahead of WordPress' current customization is easily done if your team is motivated to do so.
The excerpt support is based on the MovableType API, which most blog servers already support, and which Writer mostly supported in beta1. We didn't support the mt_text_more field in Beta1...which frankly would let Writer trash posts that did use it :-(. We now support this field in Beta2, so servers that supported MovableType got it for free, there was no custom API extensions involved for this.
We're definitely not trying to dis anyone, we want to see more and more publishing APIs from the server vendors so we can do more cool things with the product. Starting a standards group to talk about it for a year is one way, doing some good clean hacking is another way (and the way we prefer ;-)).
Scott Watermasysk on on 6.01.2007 at 5:38 AM
@Joe: our support for WordPress got so good because their users have been absolutely unrelenting in their demands for these features.
Hi Joe, thanks for the comment. I really have no problem with you supporting other platforms. This is not just a case me saying "what about us" after the fact.
I proactively contact folks like Spike and was told No. So while I applaud you for listening to your Wordpress users, my real beef is that we were denied access and which could have made this a moot point.
Thanks for following up.
Scott Watermasysk on on 6.01.2007 at 5:45 AM
@Spike - the problem is things are not always that easy. This could have (and should have) been something that our users did not have manually deploy. A little upfront communication could have made things much easier on our end users which is my #1 goal. I am not asking for special support, just access to improve our users' experience.
I am not trying to make this an ugly issue. I simply want to help our users have the best experience using both of our software and it is frustrating to see easy opportunities slide by especially when I have had such great experiences with other teams, so I know it is possible.
Thanks for the comment and hopefully we can get some changes in place for our next update.
Vermyndax on on 6.01.2007 at 9:37 AM
Why is it Microsoft's fault that they didn't hook up with you on WLW? One of the reasons that I dumped Community Server and went with Wordpress was because of CS's terrible implementation of the metablog API. Almost every utility that I tried against it failed to work well enough to be considered production, while they worked just fine against Wordpress.
I'm calling a bluff here - I think the CS team needs to do some work on the metablog API and make it better. Every implementation of it from .Text and upwards was pretty lacking. To me, it seems like the CS team sometimes takes a Microsoft-centric approach to something that is pretty much a standard - such as the metablog API - then warping it to their own means and not supporting the full monty.
Microsoft then improves their tool and it triggers you to feel as though you're left out? I'm not buying that one, sorry.
Scott Watermasysk on on 6.01.2007 at 12:26 PM
@Vermyndax, thanks for the comment, but please read the full post. CS implements the full Metablog API, these "extra" features are extensions to the metablog api and extra XML configuration files.