Mathieu Roseboom

To update this blog I use Windows Live Writer. After playing around for a while I discovered that this application can be extended with plugins. So I decided to spend my sunday afternoon on trying to make my own plugin. And it turned out that this is actually pretty easy and interesting as well.

To create your own plugin, just open up Visual Studio, create a new class library and add a reference to the Windows Live Writer API. This API can be found in c:\program files\Windows Live\Writer.
After that you can specify what kind of plugin you'd like to create. There are several types.

Example:
Because code says more than words, a short example.

   1: Imports WindowsLive.Writer.Api

   2: Imports System.Windows.Forms

   3:  

   4: <InsertableContentSource("PluginName"), _

   5:  WriterPlugin("310A4D7F-97F4-4db7-9A4A-DF6E88A4AF3D", _

   6:               "PluginName", _

   7:               PublisherUrl:="http://blogs.windowsclient.net/MathieuRoseboom", _

   8:               Description:="Description", _

   9:               ImagePath:="Image.png")> _

  10: Public Class MyPluginContent

  11:     Inherits ContentSource

  12:     ' Methods

  13:     Public Overrides Function CreateContent(ByVal dialogOwner As IWin32Window, ByRef content As String) As DialogResult

  14:         Dim frm As New frmMain

  15:  

  16:         frm.ShowDialog()

  17:         If (frm.DialogResult = DialogResult.OK) Then

  18:             content = form.Code

  19:             Return DialogResult.OK

  20:         End If

  21:         Return DialogResult.Cancel

  22:     End Function

  23: End Class

  24:  

  25:  

The pluginarchitecture uses attributes to determine the plugins. The InsertableContentSource attribute defines the plugintype. The WriterPlugin attribute defines that this class is a Windows Live Writer plugin and Windows Live Writer will automatically register this plugin.

The class inherits from ContentSource. This basically means that this plugin inserts content. (what's in the name)
The content parameter which is given By Reference can be filled with the end HTML code.

Resources:

• Windows Live Dev
• Windows Live Writer SDK
• Creating a ContentSource plugin