Desktop Blogging & Using Windows Live Writer with Drupal

When you’re running a startup, there is never enough time to do everything you need to do. Blogging can easily get overlooked. But what better way is there of sharing your experience and expertise with the world. One thing that doesn’t help facilitate regular blogging, is the sloppy interfaces presented in Word Press and Drupal. Especially since the people who can contribute the most to a blog are not necessarily the system administrative type.

Desktop Blogging to the rescue! There are a couple very nice programs that allow you to create clean, elegant blog entries, and make the blogging experience much more enjoyable.

Windows Live Writer (FREE) – this is a very good desktop client for blogging. Once you have set it up, it is very easy to compose blogs, insert images, and post them to your site. You can even go back and edit them without ever having to login to your website.

BlogJet (30–day Trial; $40 to buy) – this appears very similar to Windows Live Writer but has some extra added power. We think this program may function well not only for blogging but also for creating content for our website (e.g. pages).

With that said, I’d also like to share my experience in setting one of these programs up to work with a blog. For blogging novices like me, it can be very difficult and frustrating to find information. Especially with something as dynamic as Drupal (an attribute-based content management system), with much power comes much responsibility. So for anyone who is having the same problem I had, here is a lead on how to set up a desktop blogging client. They are all similar, but I chose the free Windows Live Writer.

Setting Up Drupal for Windows Live Writer

For Administrator (i.e. if you haven’t set anything up)

1. Download the Windows Live Writer BlogAPI from Drupal.org and extract it into a folder (make sure the version you download is compatible with version of Drupal you have, and make sure you remember where you put the folder)

2. Install the module using a FTP Client like FileZilla.

a. Once you have installed FileZilla, run the program, and click File -> Site Manager, click New Site.

b. Add your website/blog URL under Host (e.g. findwatt.com), Servertype=FTP, then add the username and password given to you by your website hosting company.

c. Once you have connected to the FTP, navigate the Remote Site folder structure (on the right) to find the modules folder (/html/modules). Then navigate the local site (your computer) and find the folder named after your module (i.e. wlw_blogAPI). Select both folders (so they’re highlighted grey).

d. Right click on the wlw_blogapi folder and select Upload. Now you’ve uploaded the module to drupal.

e. Now go into your Drupal admin and enable the module. And your’e done with the setup.

 For User (i.e. once admin has set it up, here’s how to connect)

1. Download and Install Windows Live Writer (you may need to sign up for a Windows Live account first)

2. I can’t give any better instructions than this post (from the guy who wrote the module)