Getting started with Windows Live Writer - troubleshooting
Yes, finally I've decided to create my blog page :)
I was thinking about things to write about and in general didn't expect technical problems in establishing a blog page.
Well... I was wrong.
Yes... I was following the blogging guidelines (http://world.episerver.com/en/System/Blog-info/Blogging-on-EPiServer-World/) and everything was fine until I tried to integrate my fresh EPiServer blog with Windows Live Writer.
Picture 1. Configuring Windows Live Writer
After entering homepage url, user credentials and clicking the 'Next' button... quite nasty and not much saying exception has occurred!
Picture 2. Unexpected exception
I have totally no idea why it did occur and if someone else had the same problem so I decided to ask the oracle - google of course ;)
But it gave me no clear answer. This was something really unexpected but made my brain up and running :)
Finally, I solved the problem and posted something here :)
If you're encountering the similar problem the following may help you.
1. Enter your newly created blog page
In my case: http://world.episerver.com/blogs/dariusz-macina
2. Take a look into the source of the page
In the <head> section you'll find something like this:
http://world.episerver.com/util/xmlrpc/RSD.aspx?pageid=25466The link will get you to the RSD (Really Simple Discovery) file. The file in fact is an XML describing blog engine and what is more interesting (from this article point of view) containing a link to the API exposed by the EPiServer blog (methods used by the engine).
In my case it looks like:
<rsd version="1.0">
<service>
<engineName>MetaWeblog (EPiServer)</engineName>
<engineLink>http://www.episerver.com</engineLink>
<homePageLink>http://world.episerver.com/</homePageLink>
<apis>
<api name="Metaweblog" blogID="25466" preferred="true" apiLink="http://world.episerver.com/util/xmlrpc/Handler.ashx?pageid=25466" />
</apis>
</service>
</rsd>
Ok, we're getting closer.
3. Use the apiLink url instead of your blog page url
Yes, that did the trick - no exception anymore :)
Picture 3. Correct homepage URL
4. Select the correct provider
Windows Live Writter won't detect the blog engine type automatically so we have to do it ourselves.
The engine type can be retrieved from the RSD file. Check the <engineName> node and you'll see that in our case the engine is MetaWeblog.
Select the MetaWeblog from the list and provide the apiLink url once more.
5. Here it is up and running
As you can see the homepage is now set to something like:
http://world.episerver.com/Templates/Blog/Pages/PersonalStart.aspx?id=25466&epslanguage=en
which is your newly created EPiServer blog page - problem solved :)
Enjoy!
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