Open Live Writer Test

 

Thanks to a comment from Dave Burdick on my last blog post, I found out that Open Live Writer was up and ready to use.  Yay!

My initial few attempt to download it failed.  My first thought was to go to blogland and see if anyone else was able to get it to work and if so, what was their secret?

I got lucky.  Sam and Donna's Blog had the solution.  He said he had to go to Control Panel and uninstall the version he downloaded last week, and then into the download folder to delete the setup program.

I tried his suggestion several times but still kept getting error messages.  I wasn’t sure if the “new” program I kept downloading was actually the new version or not, but I finally got it to work. I’m not really sure how or why, but I’m not complaining.

So….  this is a test.  I find it looks a little different, but doesn’t appear to be so different that I can’t find my way around.

I noticed the little smiley faces are back.  They had disappeared in LW, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get them back, so I gave up.  I need to figure out how to remove the black box around them, but that’s ok. 

So here is a test.  bold.  Yes it works

italics.  Yes.

underlining.  yes

center justify. oops.  seems a little off

change font color.  Yes, but it was a little tricky.

 

Now for the big test.  Pictures!  My biggest complaint about using Blogger to post blogs was the length of time it took to download one single picture.  In LW, you could add a picture instantanously, but when you went to post the blog, it took a few minutes for the blog to post, but  I never minded the wait, because while it was posting, I could move on to something else and not have to stare at the screen while one single picture loaded, and loaded, and loaded.  

So far, so good.  In attempting to download a picture, it is giving me the option of searching my computer, or the web, just like LW used to.

It looks like you can size the photos however you like. This is  their default medium.  It is a little large for my liking, but it can be changed to your liking.

 

This is small.  There is quite a difference between small and medium, isn’t there?

 

You have the option to customize and set as a default what size you want for small, medium and large.

Let’s see how that works. You can make your sizes to be the default size for all three sizes, or you can resize on the fly by grabbing and dragging the photo on the screen.

 

It appears to work well.  I will post a few more pictures and the true test will be to see IF it posts, and then how long it takes to actually post the blog.

 

By the way, these pictures are all from the Keys.  We’re getting a little homesick since we’re not going to be able to get down there this year.  

 

I think this is the size I’m going to set as my “large” size photo. You can change it to exactly fit your blog and this seems to fit well and center properly and not hang over the edge.

 

I am still experimenting with my size for “medium”

 

You can tilt your photos.   Sherry will probably like that. 

 

I am still having trouble finding out how to add and remove borders.  I know it’s here somewhere.  The black line above is the border of the previous picture that I tilted.  I can’t seem to remove it.

You can add a map and add a push pin. This is Cudjoe Key, which is our little piece of heaven in the Keys.

 

This is Bahia Honda State Park.

 

You can add watermarks.  This is my “Key West Cruiser.”

customize photos to black and white

or not.

 

I found the borders, under picture styles.

 

turtle mating here…actually there is another one. The female was underneath these two males who were fighting for the female.  We were worried they were going to drown her.    They were so busy fighting that our boat drifted right next to them. This was not zoomed it.

Still have a black border underneath the picture I can’t seem to get rid of it.  Will work on that later.

 

So far, I am loving the new Open Live Writer. I would gladly pay money for this program. 

If you are using Blogger or a Word program to cut and paste, I would suggest you at least give it a try. 

It’s a wonderful blogger program. 

 

maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t seen if it will post yet. 

Here goes. wish me luck

 

OKay. That was fast.   I got a “403” error. 

 

UPDATE.

I don’t know why this wouldn’t post initially but after writing another post with no pictures and it published, this one went right through.

 

As you can see, I need to tweak things.  

Apparently my pictures are too large and I need to resize them….oops.

I guess in the old Live Writer I had adjusted my photos so that they fit without running over to the sidebars. I’m not worried, it will be an easy fix, but I don’t have time right now.