[update 2010-08-29T19:00Z It’s become clear that Zemanta is worthy of a category. There will be much to do with Zemanta and I also needed to experiment with how little I need to do to add a category. This update with Zemanta as a category is in aid of both objectives.]
When I installed Movable Type 4 on nfoCentrale, my first blog posts were accomplished with the browser interface to the Movable Type configuration.
As part of Movable Type 4, I took the option to integrate Zemanta. I didn’t quite understand what it was, but I did take advantage of it in making early posts.
Once I succeeded in configuring Windows Live Writer for operation with my first blogs created/restored using Movable Type, the authoring interface seemed barren without the Zemanta panel and suggestions.
Today, I learned that there is a Zemanta plug-in for Windows Live Writer. The announcement was about an upgrade for the Wave 4 (Windows Vista and above only) version of Windows Live Writer, but I thought I’d chance it back here on WLW 14.0 on Windows XP3.
I have completed the plug-in in stall. On opening WLW, the Zemanta panel showed up at once. It didn’t customize to my Zemanta account, of course, so I needed to figure out how to have it recognize my already-established Zemanta account and not greet me as MARKO!
The Zemanta preferences open up in my browser, so I am not that confident that this creates any recognition in the plug-in. Going to the preferences page does give me more opportunities to customize Zemanta for my use though, and I browse around in other material that I had not dug into before.
On the preferences page, I logged-in properly and these preferences should work for me.
I didn’t notice anything different back on Windows Live Writer. Zemanta is updating and showing me recommendations on today’s hot topics. Zemanta is also offering links for phrases that I have entered in the text above. I am still unsure that it is recognizing my account preferences. I don’t see my Flickr recommendations in the Media Gallery, for example.
I also have some concerns for how images are handled. I won’t know about that until I post using some Zemanta-sourced image. This post will test that and confirm how well Zemanta in Windows Live Writer works with in the resulting Movable Type post. Here is a Zemanta-sourced image obtained by clicking it in from the plug-in Media Gallery:
Well, I still can't get the WLW plug-in to recognize my account. The plug-in apparently works through Internet Explorer and I am not sure that it is handling that properly.
My funniest experience was attempting to follow the feedback link, which opened a web page inside the plug-in panel.
Once I did all of the things necessary to make a trouble report, I was finally asked to log in, but it apparently didn't like my Zemanta password at that panel. So I tried creating an account and it told me my e-mail address had already been used. Wonderful catch-22 situation.
I used a different e-mail address, but this will not tie to my account on Zemanta.
I will try some other things, but I am very close to having had enough moments-of-truth with this deal.
I've wasted too much time and gained too little joy attempting to have the Zemanta plug-in somehow recognized my preferences from the Zemanta site. I may have to uninstall and start over, although if there are registry settings involved, that may be even more joyless.
Fortunately, it is easy enough simply to disable the plug-in in Windows Live Writer. I'll do that rather than mess up Marko's profile, whoever Marko might be.
I wanted to add a category for Zemanta and track further updates to Zemanta and how I manage to solve the problem of hooking up my preferences when using the Windows Live Writer plug-in.
Meanwhile, I am following
http://getsatisfaction.com/zemanta/topics/cant_get_wlw_plug_in_to_recognize_my_preferences_and_zemanta_account
and trying those different experiments to see what will work. There is an old issue on this too, but my relative duplicate has received some support responses.
[I also used this addition of a new category to learn whether I can get a new category going without republishing the site. The answer is yes, as you can see from the category addition on the update of this post.]