Windows Live Writer and Drupal 6: client configuration

Using Drupal as a blogging platform is pretty powerful. The challenge is that many blogging tools, like Windows Live Writer (WLW), don't seem to support it very well. It was okay with support on Drupal 5, but then it got broken. A few people have found some ways to hack the Drupal core, but that is not reasonable.

So, we built a WLW Module for Drupal 6.  With support from the pros on the Writer team at Microsoft, we have a fully featured option now. If you need to install it on your Drupal 6 site, please see the tutorial on the WLW and Drupal 6 Site Configuration.

If you would like to learn a little more about Windows Live Writer, be sure to check out our tutorials on adding images and attaching files with Windows Live Writer.

Here are the step by step client installation instructions:

1. You can download the latest final release version from Windows Live, but we recommend downloading the latest beta (Writer 2008) from the Writer Blog.
2. When you install, you can go through all the defaults if you wish. You’ll have many choices to make. You only need to install Writer.
   
3. Simply go through the install as you would any other desktop application.
4. Upon launching WLW the first time, you’ll need to indicate that you already have a blog set up.
   
5. On the next screen, you’ll be given three choices. You need to select “Another weblog service.”
    
6. You will then need to add your Weblog Homepage URL and Username/Password. Make sure that you enter as the example below replacing the word “example” with your own domain name.
   
7. We designed this to work with the Movable Type API. Enter your xmlrpc.php path. Unless you have changed your Drupal instance, it will be the same as mine below. Make sure that you replace “example” with your own domain name.
   
8. You should have all the options that you have configured in the site configuration. If you don’t see all the appropriate options, make sure that your username has rights to manage your content via Windows Live Writer and that the content type is set to be managed as well. You can see our tutorial on Windows Live Writer – Site Configuration for more information. (These options should match those from Step 5 bullet 1 in the site configuration tutorial.)
   
9. After you have selected next in Step 8, you should see the screen below. Currently, the theme doesn’t get downloaded as we’d like. Selected yes or no here has no difference in effect.
   
10. You can name the content type anything you want. If you have multiple content types that you are managing, be sure to put the content type in the name of the settings so you don’t forget.
    
11. If you want to manage another content type, go to the Weblog menu at the top of Windows Live Writer and select “Add Weblog account…” then start in step 6 and when you get to Step 8 simply choose a different content type to manage.