Mar 30

xPollinate – Windows Live Writer Cross Post Plugin

Adam Toth @ 9:00 am

xPollinate is a Windows Live Writer plugin that enables you to cross post your blog entries to other blogs, as well as other social networking sites via Ping.FM. Use it to increase your exposure, reach more audiences, or even to create backups of your blog posts.

You can download the plugin from the associated CodePlex site, or from the Windows Live Writer Plugin Gallery here.

This plugin is based on another CodePlex plugin project (http://www.codeplex.com/clarius/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=6626) by Daniel Cazzulino, but with additional features and functionality.

Version 1.0.0.4 includes the following features:

  • Cross post to multiple blogs at the same time
  • Choose blogs to post to at cross post time
  • Set plugin defaults through the options dialog, and override at posting time.
  • Ability to turn comments and trackbacks (pings) on/off at the cross posted blog
  • Add header or footer html to each cross posted entry
  • Cross post to Ping.FM
    • Supports triggers and services
    • Post using blog, microblog, or status methods, simultaneously or individually
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45 Responses to “xPollinate – Windows Live Writer Cross Post Plugin”

  1. EddieM says:

    Hi i am about to load in this plugin for LW something i have been looking for for some time now.

    My ? is can it be possible to make it somehow work with the WP plugin All in one SEO pack.
    So within your plugin it lets me fill in the extra fields the ALL in one SEO pack adds to each WP post page. like.

    Title:
    Description:
    Keywords (comma separated):

    This way it is added into the All in one SEO extra post areas for each new post or page??

    Thanks

  2. EddieM says:

    Ok i loaded it in and i do not see it in LW???
    Anything special i need to do to see it or make it work?

    I am using the current version of LW Build 14.0.8050.1202

    I would love to be able to post to many blogs at the same time.

  3. Adam Toth says:

    Hi EddieM,

    That isn’t the current version of Live Writer. The most current version is 14.0.8064.206. You can get it if you go to http://download.live.com. Just run through the installer again and it’ll upgrade Live Writer. You should see the plugin after that, but please let me know if you don’t.

    It seems that this plugin keeps looking for a specific version of Live Writer, even though I tell it not to. I’ve posted a thread in the Live Writer developer forums about this, but so far have gotten no response.

    Regarding your other question, it won’t be able to add those extra fields to Word Press. This plugin uses the same mechanism to post that Live Writer does itself, and Live Writer doesn’t yet have a way to set extra fields of data when posting to Word Press.

  4. EddieM says:

    Hi thanks when i did a check fpr updates it says i had the current version.

    I did the update and not your plug is showing up but i am having a problem

    It is not uploading the image to the other website.

    Here is the LW site it is first going to.
    http://lasvegasweddingsphotography.com/ you can see the photo of the guitar player.

    Now using your plugin i sent the same post to this site and i get no image.
    http://atmoreweddingphotography.com/

    ?? any clue on this?
    Thanks

  5. Adam Toth says:

    Interesting, I haven’t seen that before. Are you using a certain kind of image plugin for Live Writer?

    My plugin looks for any relative urls in the source post (i.e. “/images/file.png”) and makes them absolute pointing to the source blog (e.g. “http://sourceblog.com/images.file.png”). It doesn’t actually upload any image files to the destination blog.

    It looks like it is posting the local path to your images (file:///Documents and Settings/…).

    I’ll look into it…

  6. Adam Toth says:
  7. EddieM says:

    test

  8. EddieM says:

    I can not leave a long blog post to you about your plugin it will not work i have been trying many times it just shows up bland so i am going to try and post it in parts.

  9. EddieM says:

    The new version working for the images now you can see the two links i posted before.
    BUT the next problem that needs to be fixed is the categories and Tags look at the main post and you can see it shows categories and tags but in the cross post it now has no categories or tags making it not show up for the categories i would need it to be in or for the tag it needs to show up under.

  10. EddieM says:

    One other thing – not sure if this can be fixed – when i make a cross post and then re-edit the main post and repost it it works 100% in LW for the main blog but for the cross post it will not replace or update the cross post it just makes a new post so you then end up with two of them. Can this be fixed to?

  11. EddieM says:

    This is just not working i can not post anything long at all do you have a e-mail address i can use???

  12. Adam Toth says:

    Hi EddieM,

    Sorry for the comment not showing up. My blog is set to mark a post for moderation if it has more than a couple hyperlinks in it. It hasn’t been a problem so far but I’ve made a change that should help that.

    Anyway, I’ve added your requests into the project site, and when I have some time in the next week I’ll try and work on those.

    I haven’t had a need to use categories or tags for my cross posts, since I post to totally different blog engines, which have different levels of support for tags/categories/labels. I’ll see what I can do.

    The duplicate post when editing is just how it works right now, the same as the WLW Cross Post plugin this plugin is based on. I’ll look into this one as well.

    Thanks again for the feedback, keep it coming.

  13. Adam Toth says:

    If you register for an account at CodePlex, you can vote on these issues and also request more changes and features here:

    http://xpollinate.codeplex.com/WorkItem/List.aspx

  14. Trying out WLW + xPollinate - Robbie Coleman says:

    [...] funny how an Idea I roughly duct taped together about a year ago is now done much better by someone [...]

  15. Bing says:

    hey guy, seems the WLM has upgraded to a new version 14.0.8089.726 days ago.

  16. Adam Toth says:

    Thanks! I’ll post a new version of xPollinate ASAP.

  17. Jeff San George says:

    Love your tool but does not work with the current version of WLR. When can we expect an update. Are Donations taken?

  18. Adam Toth says:

    Hi everyone, sorry for the delay. I posted a new version, 1.0.0.3, that works with the new version of LiveWriter.

    http://xpollinate.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=34348

  19. joel F. says:

    Live Writer is asking for a ping.fm “API Key”. Ping.fm says that it no longer uses api key for users only needed for app developers. Please help would like to use you app to cross post. Thanks

  20. Adam Toth says:

    Hi Joel,

    I may have worded it poorly. It is your application key at Ping.FM:

    http://ping.fm/key/

    Enter that key, and you should be good to go.

  21. karamchand Ballal says:

    How I can get the rss from http://www.Indiavision.com to be picked directly by ping.fm for posting to windows and orkut?

  22. Rill says:

    Hi Adam,
    Love the plugin! I was just wondering would you be working in support for hellotxt.com services too? Thanks again for the awesome work!

  23. Adam Toth says:

    Hi Rill,

    I do have plans to support HelloTxt. Thanks for the suggestion, it isn’t going to be that hard to implement. Check back soon for an update.

  24. Rill says:

    Hi Adam,
    That sounds wonderful! I look forward to it. Now I know this sounds like I’m pushing my luck, but dont ban me yet! I was also wondering if you’d be able to make a plugin for Pixelplus.com it’s very similar in nature to ping.fm/hellotxt, only difference is it’s mainly for posting images/videos to multiple blog/imagehost providers.
    I’m not sure how difficult it’ll be to implement a system similar to, say, flickr4writer but I thought I’d throw it out here and see what you thought. Thanks again for listening!

  25. Rill says:

    Whoops! sorry, thats supposed to be PixelPipe.com not PixelPlus. This is what happens when you go a week without coffee

  26. bertina says:

    good.
    This is what happens when you go a week without coffee

  27. Bob G says:

    Great plugin; I use it often. But I have one issue… I often post an article directly at a blog, then decide to cross-post. I open the article in WLW, then click xpollinate. I receive the warning “Current blog post must be published before cross-posting.” Even if I republish the article from WLW, I still receive the warning. I suppose I could just post all articles from WLW, but then I wouldn’t have access to all of the unique publishing functionality in each site.

  28. Adam Toth says:

    I hear ya Bob G. That bothers me also. This should be a pretty easy fix, so check back.

  29. Ferry Meidianto says:

    Hi Adam,
    Would you spare some time to fix Bob request? I need it too :-)
    Thanks in advance!

  30. Adam Toth says:

    Hi Ferry and Bob G. I have a fix for this, would you be willing to test? If so, leave a new comment here and fill out a valid email address (it won’t display on the site anywhere, only I can see it) and I’ll mail you a link to an installer.

  31. Hector Keiss says:

    Hey may I quote some of the content from this entry if I link back to you?

  32. LaShawn says:

    Hello,

    I just came across this site and loved the thought. I installed it on LW, then I got a popup saying my LW wasn’t current. I downloaded the new version, and now I can’t find the latest version of XPollinate at all! I even did an un-install and re-install. It still won’t show. Can you help me?

  33. Adam Toth says:

    A new version of LiveWriter must have just come out. I’ll recompile against the new version and put up a new build of xPollinate tonight.

  34. Kevin says:

    Hi Adam

    I updated WLW yesterday and I can confirm xpollinate no longer works. Can you drop me a mail when you have released new version? It is a great tool and I am missing it already.

    Cheers

  35. Peng says:

    When posting a blog that is in Chinese language, all Chinese characters become garbled.

  36. Adam Toth says:

    Uploaded version 1.0.0.4, which works with WLW 14.0.8117.416. You can get it at http://xpollinate.codeplex.com.

    This release also includes an updated fix to enable xpollinate on posts that are opened directly from a blog.

    NOTE: If you open a post directly from a blog, and then edit and add photos/videos/file attachments, the urls to those items may be incorrect if you use xpollinate and don’t publish back to your blog first.

  37. Adam Toth says:

    Hi Peng,

    Other users have reported Unicode issues. I may not be able to fix that, as I don’t have a way to check or specify the encoding of the posts via the methods that Live Writer gives me.

  38. Ferry Meidianto says:

    Hi Adam,
    Posted an error report in xPollinate discussion on CodePlex.

  39. Kevin Forbes says:

    Hi Andy just downloaded new version and it is now showing again in WLW. I thought all was well untill I went to post and got an unexpected error which I have copeid below.

    Hopefully this is just an over sight and an easy fix at your end. On another note do you design software full time? Can you drop me an email I may be interested to use your services if they are available? Thanks

    Invalid Cast Exception

    ystem.InvalidCastException: [A]WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorForm cannot be cast to [B]WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorForm. Type A originates from ‘WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor, Version=14.0.8117.416, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ in the context ‘Default’ at location ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Writer\WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.dll’. Type B originates from ‘WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor, Version=14.0.8117.416, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ in the context ‘LoadFrom’ at location ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins\WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.dll’.
    at Toth.WLW.Plugins.XPollinate.CreateContent(IWin32Window dialogOwner, String& content)
    at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.ContentSources.ContentSourceManager.PerformInsertion(IContentSourceSite sourceSite, ContentSourceInfo contentSource)

  40. Adam Toth says:

    Thanks for the reports. I have uploaded 1.0.0.5 on CodePlex. Please try it and post results.

  41. Kevin Forbes says:

    working great so far. Cheers

  42. Kevin Forbes says:

    Hi Andy

    Just had a proper play with it and I am affraid there are still some bugs. I am getting error messages all the time trying to connect to my blogs wven when not using your plug in. If I switch it off the error messages go away. When I initialy click the Xpollinate link for a moment it tells me WLW has stoped working then it will randomly post to some of my blogs and not the others. Here is a sample of the messages I am getting. The blogs and ping fm are all set up properly.

    Checking blogs…
    Posting to 4 Oil and Gas Job… Done…
    Posting to 4oilandgasjobs… Done…
    Posting to The Oil and Gas Job…
    Error…
    Network Connection Error – Error attempting to connect to blog at:

    https://oilandgaspeople.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php

    The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.
    Checking Ping.FM…
    Posting to Ping.FM blogs… Error…
    The request was aborted: The operation has timed out.
    Posting to Ping.FM Microblogs… Error…
    The request was aborted: The operation has timed out.

  43. Aaron Couch says:

    Adam,

    First off I want to say you did an excellent job with the xPollinate plugin! I use many social networks and I am really trying to spread my blog! What better way than making posts to all my social networks and linking them back to my blog. So thank you so much for that! It helps a ton.

    But I do have a question that I hope you can answer. When submit a post to Facebook and Tumblr the characters ex: ( ‘ & # etc) are shown as � and I am not sure why. This is an excerpt of my latest blog to give you an example:

    “Next go to �Account Security�. It won�t be opened like it is here. You will have to click �change� to expand it.”

    Any thoughts on this? Your help is much appreciated! Thank you.
    -Aaron

  44. Steve says:

    This looks great…is there any way to add functionality to support spinner syntax like {text1|text2|text3} so unique versions can be submitted?

    Thanks.

  45. wholesale digital camera charger says:

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