Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Digg This plugin for Windows Live Writer

Update (08/01/07): Source code now available on CodePlex.

Digg This plugin for Windows Live Writer is a plugin to insert a "Digg This" button into to your Windows Live Writer posts. It is a wrapper to the API described in the Integrate: "Digg This" Button page at Digg.

Digg This Sidebar Editor

If you already use Digg, you will surely know how to use this plugin. The functionality is designed to closely match the online submission form. The Sidebar editor is broken into two tabs: General and Appearance.

The General tab contains the information used as defaults for the submission to Digg. The Appearance tab contains properties that allow you to modify the way the Digg This button will look when published.

The simplest way to use this plugin is to specify a post title, specify at least one paragraph of text that will describe briefly the post, place the cursor wherever you would like to insert the Digg This button and click on the Insert Digg This... option in the Sidebar. You will notice that the post title is used for the submission title and the first paragraph is used for the submission text. The first time one of your readers clicks on the button once the post is published, they will be sent to the Digg site to submit the post to Digg. The defaults you specified will appear for the user to either use as is, or modify accordingly.

Some of the features of the Digg This plugin are:

Auto-selection of Title & Text – The Digg This button has the ability to accept recommendations or defaults as part of the submission link. These parameters are used to pre-populate the respective fields when a user submits an entry. Instead of having the submitter type their own text, which they can still do during submission time, the Digg This plugin will take the post’s title and the first paragraph in the post body and use these as the suggested Title and Text properties in the Windows Live Writer Sidebar, respectively.

Submission Character Count – Just like the online submission form on Digg for the Title and Text fields, the number of remaining characters available will appear in the status bar of the Windows Live Writer Sidebar.

Visual Layout of Digg This Button – Using the Appearance features present in the Windows Live Writer Sidebar when the object is selected, you can modify the Layout, Text Wrapping, and Margin properties and see them apply immediately.

Tooltip Help – All fields have an associated tool tip that provides more details about the specific use of that field.

Persistent Options – Changes to the Digg This properties can be used as defaults. These include layout and submission properties, accept for Title and Text, which get overwritten whenever a new instance of the Digg This button is inserted in a post.

Download Digg This plugin for Windows Live Writer Setup

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