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Live Writer allows you to connect to Wordpress, Blogger, and other online blogging platforms. You can import posts from your blogs. You can compose in Live Writer (similar to you compose in Word). You can send your composition to your Wordpress blog as a draft, or even publish from Live Writer.

How does it communicate with Wordpress (in terms of, if I was to code something similar, what would be the points of action)?

Also notably, Live Writer is able to retrieve the categories list from WordPress! How does it take this from WordPress and embed it on Live Writer?

Docteur
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Justin Munce
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  • I think it uses the [XML RPC](https://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Support) interface. You can also install the official JSON API on your blog (which you'll get automatically with JetPack, but available separately too) if you'd prefer to use JSON / REST. – Rup Apr 23 '15 at 18:16

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As Rup has commented, it likely uses wordpress's XML RPC to communicate with the wordpress server. This is turned on by default since WordPress 3.5.

There is an extensive list of clients that use this procedure to post to your blog on pretty much any platform you care to imagine.

If you would like to try your hand at programming using this method, the wordpress XML-RPC API is the place to start.

There is quite an in depth guide to programming this, which would make good reading. The tutorial uses the PHP programming language, which you'd also have to set up on your machine, using XAMPP for instance. You can use other programming languages using additional interfaces, including Ruby and C#.net.

I've heard that setting featured images can be a bit of a pain, but haven't tried to. It looks as though it should be doable from these two questions though.

Community
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enigma
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  • Thank you Rup and Enigma for pointing me toward XML RPC (and JSON). I see after watching a lot of YouTube videos and reading a lot of tutorials that this is the API between the two. How does a non-WP program (like Live Writer or like a form I might code) call to WP and get information back (for example, particularly, the categories?) and how does it direct its fields to fill the fields on the WP post submission? I am now going to delve into the list of clients provided. – Justin Munce Apr 24 '15 at 06:20
  • After looking through the client list (actually I unknowingly went through these options in earlier research) it seems there are none that supply WP functions. Also, although there is a direction toward "building your own" at the bottom of the page, the links provided don't really go to that -- they just go to code for glueing code together. There doesn't seem to be any online tutorials on coding clients either. The main thing is, besides the text, headline and images (which Live Writer can handle), there is also categories (also available on Live Writer but would like to tweak it) and – Justin Munce Apr 24 '15 at 06:35
  • at least 2 important others: Featured image. Live Writer has no capacity for setting/ adding meta to featured images. Meta: Live Writer has no capacity for including meta (SEO and News SEO) meta before submitting to the WP site. These are really big issues in my world. I'd like to look at coding something up. Any thoughts/direction greatly appreciated. – Justin Munce Apr 24 '15 at 06:35
  • Thanks again enigma, I will be going through that in depth guide (as reading, though, since the 28 comments below show no sign that it worked for anyone). I will also look further into XAMPP with your link. Of the two last links, the first one looks like it might hold some promise. The second one looks to be just about Featured Images on WP (rather than submitting Feat. Images to WP from elsewhere). – Justin Munce Apr 24 '15 at 19:05
  • @JustinMunce No problem! If it's answered your question feel free to tick it as accepted, but no worries if not. Let me know if you come up against anything, I'll always be willing to help. – enigma Apr 24 '15 at 19:11
  • Ok, I ticked it. I'm hoping for more comments though. Would like much if someone knew of a thorough tutorial on how to create a client for WP with meta and featured images, but perhaps that should be another post? – Justin Munce Apr 24 '15 at 20:38
  • @JustinMunce Most tutorials are going to be on a specific part of using XML-RPC. To create a client, you'll have to put them all together, in much the same way that to create a wp theme you have to put together lots of different components. If you want your client to be graphical, that's a whole new section of programming - the easiest way would be to create a local client in php using html to display the graphical processes. But if you're doing that, frankly, you may as well just log into the wordpress site. – enigma Apr 25 '15 at 10:33
  • @JustinMunce The overall process is a bit beyond the remit of this question, so feel free to ask another. Having said that, it's unlikely to get a great response if it's too wide or vague. Maybe try looking at the wp stack exchange site: http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/ – enigma Apr 25 '15 at 10:35
  • That makes sense. I actually don't need to change things TOO much. Really, I just don't like the way WordPress's editor works. The categories window is too small (and I'd like to add background-colors for the main categories including all their child categories), set more Most Used (categories) (30 instead of 10), put the tinyMCE buttons vertical on the side, add a couple buttons, and make the editor replicate what the front end will look like (make a section for where the top-right featured image will display, etc). I just can't find how to hack the various WordPress files that control these. – Justin Munce Jun 09 '15 at 05:34