Microsoft Live Writer & Umbraco

Using Live Writer to produce website content in Umbraco

I was always vondering what is Content Channel tab in uses properties section used for. What ever I set in that tab for my admin user, nothing happends. This is the reason why I started googling about this feature in Umbraco and after few minutes I run to an answer on umbraco page http://umbraco.com/follow-us/blog-archive/2007/9/12/microsoft-live-writer-beta-3-released-and-100-umbraco-compatible.aspx.

It is pretty old post, but I decided to give it a try and see what is going to happend. So I download Microsoft Live Essentials which contain Microsoft Live Writer, installed it and after some more googling I found some instructions how to setup Microsoft Live Writter to post content to Umbraco.

The following are steps you need to take in order publish your content from Live Writer.

1. Setup a channel for user account you will use to login from Live Writter

 Umbraco Content Channel

  • Name field is mandatory and represents channel name which you will select in Live Writter account setup.
  • Start Node in Content represents the node in which creted articles will be stored
  • Search all children
  • Start Node in Media Library
  • Document Type is the the type of document

2. Setup Live Writer - step 3

After downloading and installing Live Writter, start it from Windows Start Menu. The wizard for fonfigurating new account will appear.
In first step, you need to point Live Writer to your Umbraco instance and give to it username and password you use to login to Umbraco.

 Live Wrotter Setup 1

In this case I'm using my Umbraco instance hosted on IIS Express which is started from VS Express 2013 for Web.

3. Setup Live Writer - step 2

In this step you need to select Metaweblog API and type the address to your website in the following format http://<WEBSITE DOMAIN>/umbraco/channels.aspx

Live Writer Setup 2

4. Setup Live Writer - step 3

 Select channel name you previously created

Live Writer Setup 3

5. Setup Live Writer - step 4

After this step you will be asked to download your blog template for better look and feel. This option did not work for me, so I suggest you to click No and continue.

Setup Writer 4

6. Setup Live Writer - step 5

 In this final step you will be asked how would you like to have your blog/website account saved in accounts list in Live Writer.

Writer Setup 5

After this you are ready to start writing your articles and by simple clicking on publish button, your article is send and published in your Umbraco CMS instance.

 Blow Writter

References

Disclaimer

Purpose of the code contained in snippets or available for download in this article is solely for learning and demo purposes. Author will not be held responsible for any failure or damages caused due to any other usage.


About the author

DEJAN STOJANOVIC

Dejan is a passionate Software Architect/Developer. He is highly experienced in .NET programming platform including ASP.NET MVC and WebApi. He likes working on new technologies and exciting challenging projects

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