Although the new beta of Windows Live Writer is pretty slick it does have one horrible horrible bug that affects Wordpress users.

After installing the second beta I found any attempt to open an existing post or draft from my Wordpress blog would fail with a cryptic error of “ArgumentOutOfRangeException”. After a lot of trial and error I tracked the problem to several posts that used <pre></pre> tags to wrap pre-formatted text such as code snippets.

This was confirmed when I posted my findings on the Live Writer forum, though the problem isn’t just with <pre> tags. Any post containing multiple <script> or <style> tags within the body will also cause an ArgumentOutOfRangeException.

For anyone using these tags in their posts this is very much a show stopper. There’s no workaround in Windows Live Writer, and no planned fix until the next version - which could be months away.

Fortunately, there is a temporary solution.

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I’ve just uploaded a new version of the Keyword Tags for Wordpress plugin that has a few minor changes.

• Removed Windows Live Writer Beta 1 workaround for posts that used the <!–more–> tag.
• Added a workaround for a bug in Windows Live Writer Beta 2 that prevents posts with multiple <pre>, <script> or <style> tags being viewed or edited.
• Cleaned up the options page a bit.
• Improved the ability to edit Wordpress pages in Windows Live Writer
• Fixed incorrect version number (thanks Walter).
• Fixed tags not being displayed in RSS summaries (thanks ‘Snakefoot‘)

The last change is that from version 0.85 Keyword Tags requires Wordpress version 2.1 or higher.

The new files are available on the Keyword Tags page.

I’ve uploaded a new version of Keyword Tags that fixes a problem when run under Wordpress 2.1.x. Due to a change in how 2.1 works, tags could vanish from posts that were being commented on.

Thanks to Simon Dann for pointing out the problem. Like a lot of people I’ve been sticking with the stable 2.0.x version of Wordpress so hadn’t seen the problem

On the subject of Keyword Tags, a version 1.0 final release is still coming. There are a few requested features (tag clouds, local tag links) but the biggest change will be improved documentation for users, and guides for people incorporating Keyword Tags into their own themes.

Download Keyword Tags 0.81

I’ve updated the latest version of Keyword Tags for Wordpress to 0.80. The biggest two changes are that it’s now possible for users to specify their own format for tags and the tag group (previously it was only possible to select from several predefined formats and change the begin/end tags). Unfortunately there was no real way to migrate previous settings to the new format, anyone who modified these values will need to reapply their changes. I think you’ll find the benefits worth it though.

Another change is the addition of compatibility options for two other tagging packages. This was possible in previous versions via the advanced settings, but you would have needed to know the specifics to set them up. The final changes are a rewrite of the options menu to be a little more flexible, and a function names kwt_get_keyword_string that returns the formatted keyword string rather than displaying it.

The download is on the Keyword Tags page.

As someone pointed out to me the latest version of Windows Live Writer now has native support for tagging posts. I think this is a great feature for a lot of people, particularly those who’s blogs are not self-hosted, but for a lot of users I don’t see it replacing Keyword Tags or any of the other packages out there. My preference is to have tags stored as meta data that can be later processed, and while I’m a big fan of Windows Live Writer I don’t post exclusively from it. Having a tagging interface that works both from both client applications and the Wordpress GUI is important to me.

After feedback from a few people, and more time using Windows Live Writer with Wordpress, I’ve uploaded a new version of the Keyword Tags for Wordpress plugin that features several changes;

• Static Wordpress pages (e.g. ‘About’) can now be edited within Windows Live Writer and Ecto.
• Added a fix that stops Windows Live Writer from truncating posts that use the <!–more–> tag
• Added option that will always display drafts above normal posts when viewing a list of posts within Windows Live Writer/Ecto
• Added an option that will set the date and time of a post to the current date/time when a post is published after previously being saved as a draft via XMLRPC. By default there’s a bug in Wordpress where posts are given the date/time they were first saved as a draft if edited via a tool such as Windows Live Writer/Ecto.

Get it here; Feedback welcome!

Update 

I’ve just uploaded a new version (0.75) that has has an option to turn tags into a meta-keyword statement in the header of single posts or pages. I’d had this functionality in my custom theme for a while, but thought I’d make it a global option

I’ve just posted my first Wordpress plugin, Keyword Tags, which adds keyword/tagging capabilities to Wordpress. While many such plugins already exist as far as I’m aware this is the first to support the MetaWeblog API - meaning blogging tools such as Windows Live Writer or Ecto can publish keywords with no need to manually edit tags. 

The plugin also offers the ability to automatically append keywords to posts for services such as Technorati or Wordpress so there is no need to edit theme files. If custom behaviour is required the user may use the simple API to control the output and formatting of tags within their theme.

Read more and download it here: Keyword Tags for Wordpress