Tag Generator for Live Writer: Problems and Workarounds

One topic of emails and questions I receive are in relation to the Tag Generator, a plugin available for download, for Live Writer, a blog writing tool.

First some history. The Tag Generator was originally written over two years ago to provide myself a way to automatically generate tags for my blog posts. I got tired of doing it manually. It worked well for me so I decided to create a plugin that others could use. It uses the Microsoft Word thesaurus to verify words in the blog and their meanings. It isn’t perfect but its better than nothing. Obviously some of you agreed as over 14,000 downloads took place. However over the last couple of years, for various reasons, no work was done on this plugin and a new version of Live Writer was released. While the Tag Generator plugin still works, it does not support the options feature for plugins that came out with this version of Live Writer. In addition, as you all know, Windows Live Spaces no longer supports blogging, instead choosing to support the Word Press blogging resources. Generating these tags are obviously pointless.

You might wonder to yourself why I just don’t sit down and rewrite the plugin and be done with it. Basically it is because I am too busy at the moment to do so. I will at some point I promise. I apologize to those of you who have been frustrated. But this blog post today is to tell you how I still make use of this plugin and how  you can too.

First after you are done writing your post, right click on your document and click select all.

Then click “Insert” in the Live Writer toolbar and click “Generate Tags”.

Click the option or options you wish to generate the tags for and click the button “Generate”

Add, modify or delete the tags you wish…..but do not click the Insert button at the bottom! Instead select all of the words in the “Tags” text box and copy them. Then in the Set tags text box at the top of Live Writer, paste these words in their textbox.

Now your post will be tag ready for publication whenever you choose!

I am sorry for the hassle. I still find this plugin extremely useful for me and I promise I will get around to redoing it for you at some point. But this works fine for me for now and hopefully will for you as well.

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Automatic Tag Generator Plugin for Windows Live Writer on Top10Tech.com

They put a very nice instructional flash video which I think will work here too. I wish I had thought of that. The original link on top10tech.com is here. Thanks much to those folks for promoting it.

If you have not downloaded it you can get it here.

Also wanted to throw a shout out to Scott Lovegrove who has been working with me on ways to improve the tag generator for a future release. Even though he is a C# diehard he is still pretty cool. 🙂

Thanks much Scott.

  http://www.utterli.com/fp/video_player450.swf?1228230664

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Live Writer Plugin Automatic Tag Generator Posted To Gallery

You can get it here. You will need the new version of Live Writer to install it.

I tested with the new version of Live Writer and all was good. There are some things that I still want to do with it but it will work for now.

Make it a great day!

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Interesting Questions about the Automatic Tag Generator Plugin for Live Writer

Hello again. I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some of the more interesting and common questions about this plugin that I have received. Incidentally, if you want to try it out you can download it here. Don’t forget to put it in your plugins folder. The last version was uploaded at about 11PM CST on 12/1/2008. Yes, you are correct in assuming I have no life. 🙂

By the way, if you need another sign I have no life has anyone besides me noticed that the stats for our blogs has been down since about 11 last night? I shows 0 pageviews for me today there but my Statcounter shows 80 pageviews for today. No I don’t sit up all night and compare stats but I do follow it. I am a developer and like statistics. I think there is a correlation anyway.

When you see some of these questions you may wonder if you email or message me that I may put your email on a blog entry like this. Have no fear. Names are changed to protect the innocent and sometimes the not so innocent. The question you ask may be what someone else is wondering anyway.

Why are you beta testing a plugin? Doesn’t it either work or not work?

Under normal circumstances you might be correct. However this plugin differs in that tag generation is subjective to each user and what I like may not be what you like. So I thought I would entrust it to a few hundred of my friends and see what feedback is obtained. Because it is subjective, and reputations are formed and altered overnight I want to make sure I get it right.

Why do I have to see a form popup and look at the tags? I just want it to insert what the tags are and let me go on my way.

You are probably the same user who comes up to me at work and says “I just want to click a button and have it work.” No, you can’t have it that way. This is not Burger King. You can’t have it “your way”. Why? Well, because I said so first of all. Second because there is going to be times when tags are generated that you won’t like. If you misspell a word and use it more than once it will end up being included as a tag. And that would be embarrassing to you AND to me.

This next statement is from a developer: I downloaded your dll and looked at it in Reflector and the code is a mess.

Well it is good to know that someone has less of a life than I do. Only such a person would take the time to decompile a beta project and criticize the code. But here is the scoop on that. Originally this was just going to be used for me when I wrote it. It was going to be quick and dirty and I was going to be done. But then others I talked to thought this would be a good idea for users in general. So I switched gears and began looking at it through those eyes. Have no fear eventually I will put everything into neat little functions that will be pleasing to you and easy for you to rip off. (I can say that with a smile on my face cause I give away code every day!)

I love this plugin!

Thank you. The check is in the mail.

Why do you split words up like “Windows Live Writer”. Shouldn’t that all be one tag?

This question reflects a lack of understanding of how tags work. It does not matter what order they are in. In fact, splitting them up is actually going to generate more results as people who look for Windows and Writer alone are also going to see your post.

Why do you use the Microsoft Word thesaurus? It sucks.

The Microsoft Word thesaurus usually sucks only when the user tinkers with it and makes it suck.

I have noticed that the tags seem to have no logic at all in how they are chosen. Can you tell me how you decide what to include as a tag or what not to include?

Nope. It is an ancient Chinese secret handed down by my ancestors in Ireland generations ago. Just kidding.

Here is how it works. If the word is 3 letters or less it is kicked out. If it has endings such as “ly”. “ed”, “ing” and a few others it is kicked out. If it has more than 3 meanings it is kicked out as it is presumed a common word. If it is a verb but it is capitalized I assume it to be a noun. (e.g. excel or Excel) and it is retained as a tag. If it has no definition and no related words and it is not used more than once in the post it is kicked out. It it has no definition, but has related words and those words return as a noun (or verb if capitalized) that word is retained as a tag. If the word has any kind of number in it it is kicked out.

Are you dizzy yet? I know I am! I am amazed I came up with the logic that does it as good as it does at this point as I am not anywhere close to an English major. (My friends are saying “we know this” and smile.)

Don’t use Microsoft Word. Microsoft doesn’t support automation of Microsoft Word and it is poor form to automate Microsoft Word from a dll.

Hmmmm good point. Lets see what I can think of…..

I know! Don’t use the dll!

I suppose I could have written my own thesaurus but I would have written a 15 megabyte dll then.  And I know that would please everybody!

Why do you make me download and install the .NET Framework 3.5 to use this little plugin?

Because I can…. 🙂

Seriously though, it is worth the upgrade.

After I click “Generate” it doesn’t do anything while the tags are generating.

I will work on a sound and graphic explosion that will show while you are waiting. I also thought of using the “Jeopardy” theme.

Seriously though that is noted as a good suggestion.

Well that’s it. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. We are almost done to where we can put this out for everyone. And if this sounds like something you sent me don’t be offended. I was just having a little fun. 🙂

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WordPress and Blogger Support For Automatic Tag Generator Plugin For Windows Live Writer

Due to requests for such support I have added functionality for the creation of these tags as well. Thank you for your comments and please keep them coming. Thanks. If you have downloaded the plugin already you will need to download it again.

UPDATE: You will need to enter your blog name for blogger tags. For example, if the name of your blog was “scorpion53061” a textbox is provided for you to enter that information in the options screen. I apologize for my lack of knowledge regarding blogger tags up to this point but I had not seen them prior to today. Thanks. If you read this before 12:10 PM CST youw will need to replace the plugin dll.

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Get Related Words in Microsoft Word Thesaurus using vb.net

Good Morning! It has been an eventful weekend. Usually I don’t do a lot of posting on non business days but events have overtaken me a bit. First the first beta of the Automatic Tag Generator for Windows Live Writer Plugin was completed. If you are interested in testing it you can get it here.  Be sure to place it in your plugins folder for Windows Live Writer, usually at “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins”. Don’t forget to leave me feedback ok? Next, we had our 10,000th page view last night so another posting was as a result of that. And finally, I did my sharing thing earlier that I like to do on Sundays so I did another posting for that. Throw on top of that some really unpleasant weather here so it was actually pretty busy.

But it is Monday so back to work. While writing the tag generator, it became necessary to review the results were returned by the Microsoft Word Thesaurus of words that were related to the word I was searching for. Why? Well at times if you were to look for the word “rumors” in the thesaurus it would return no definitions but it would return related words to “rumors” which might be important to what you were writing about. So here it is. We write all the related words to a string for this example. Note the loop uses “1” instead of “0” as Microsoft Word is not zero based. Make it a great day!

Sub GetRelatedWords(ByVal QueryWord as String)

Dim Word as New Word.Application

Dim mySynInfo = Word.Application.SynonymInfo(QueryWord)
Dim myPos = mySynInfo.PartOfSpeechList
Dim relList = mySynInfo.RelatedWordList

If UBound(relList) > 0 And mySynInfo.MeaningCount = 0 Then
For i = 1 To UBound(relList)
teststring2 = teststring2 & ” ” & relList(i)
Next i
End If

End Sub

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Automatic Tag Generator For Windows Live Writer PlugIn Nearly Complete – Need Beta Testers

Good day all. This is to give you an update on the progress of the Automatic Tag Generator For Windows Live Writer Plugin I am working on.

I request anyone interested in beta testing the plugin to contact me via message or comment here. The plugin will require MS Word 2000 or above to be installed on your computer and that the .NET Framework 3.5 be installed.

The plugin logic is nearly complete. Below are screenshots of what it will look like along with explanations of what each screen does.

The options screen opens when click “View” and “Generate Tags” in the insert menu in Windows Live Writer. It will contain the title and text of your blog in the screen. You can have Technorati Tags or Windows Live Tags (or both) generated by selecting the checkboxes. Once you are ready to move on you click “Generate”.

http://cid-a0d71e1614e8dbf8.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/Public/options.JPG

Once complete, the tab “Create” opens. There the tags generated appear in the grid, the ability to modify, delete or add tags in the middle and the tags currently being generated in the textbox on the right. One you click “Insert” it will insert the newly created tags into your blog entry.

http://cid-a0d71e1614e8dbf8.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/Public/create.JPG

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