professional

Just downloaded the new Windows Live Blog Writer. Am not a big Microsoft fan but this shows why Microsoft is so good when it comes to User Interface. The design is sleek and its loaded with features.

The one feature which really got me was the preview pane. I have been using lots of other Blog editing tools but none of them had this. The preview pane actually shows how the blog will look when its posted not just a simple mockup.

The other feature like inserting links, pictures, videos etc are common among all the blog editors. But windows takes it a step further by providing a plug-in framework. Using this framework developers can provide custom built insert options. Whole galary of plug-in have already been created and they are all pretty useful.

One Plug-in which I have been looking was the Code formatter, And here it is in all its glory.

   1:  class MyClass {

   2:      public static main(String[] args) {

   3:          System.out.println("Hello world");

   4:      }

   5:  }

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }UPDATE : Looks like my blogger theam doesn’t like the code generated by the code formatter plugin. It looked nice in Windows Blog writer.

Looking forward to more useful plugins which can enrich the blogging experience. I remember the days when I used to edit the blogs on blogger website. . It was one of the biggest turn off during my initial blogging days.

And here is the screen shot of the preview pane.