Open Live Writer (also known as OLW) is a free and open-source desktop

blogging A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

application released by

.NET Foundation The .NET Foundation is an organization incorporated on March 31, 2014, by Microsoft to improve open-source software development and collaboration around the .NET Framework. It was launched at the annual Build 2014 conference held by Microsoft. T ...

. It is a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

of Windows Live Writer 2012 by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

. Open Live Writer features

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

authoring, photo-publishing and map-publishing functionality, and is currently compatible with

WordPress.com WordPress.com is a platform for self-publishing that is popular for blogging and other works. It is owned and operated by Automattic, Inc. It is run on a modified version of WordPress software. This website provides free blog hosting for regis ...

, WordPress (hosted), and

Blogger A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

, with support for more platforms planned. The application's source code is available on

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under the

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History

Windows Live Writer

Open Live Writer is a fork of Windows Live Writer, which is based on Onfolio Writer, a product Microsoft obtained from the acquisition of

Onfolio Windows Live Toolbar was a browser extension toolbar for Internet Explorer. It superseded MSN Search Toolbar. Windows Live Toolbar provided a simple search interface that starts to list results as the user types in a search query, and uses Bing ...

in 2006. The Onfolio Writer team worked together with the

Windows Live Spaces Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging platform and social network service. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking services, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of comm ...

team to release Windows Live Writer. After the release of

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

, Microsoft encouraged the team responsible for the software to focus on

Metro-style app Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps (formerly Windows Store apps and Metro-style apps) are Application software, applications that can be used across all compatible Microsoft Windows devices, including personal computers (PCs), tablets, smar ...

s, and the last major version of Windows Live Writer was released in 2012. On June 12, 2014, Scott Hanselman announced the idea of making Windows Live Writer open-source. Nearly a year later, it appeared that open-sourcing the program was approved by Microsoft. Later that year, .NET Foundation announced an open-source fork of Windows Live Writer.

Initial announcement

On December 9, 2015, Scott Hanselman announced the forking of Microsoft's Windows Live Writer as an open-source project called Open Live Writer. The announcement notes that the original Windows Live Writer 2012 application will remain a property of Microsoft and will continue to be offered as part of Windows Essentials while Open Live Writer will be developed independently as a separate project as part of .NET Foundation. A downloadable preview version of the application was offered the same day alongside the full source code on GitHub. On 27 September 2016, Open Live Writer became available on

Windows Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...

Version history

References

External links