View from Oban Bothy

View from Oban Bothy
Showing posts with label OpenLiveWriter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OpenLiveWriter. Show all posts

Wednesday 5 May 2021

Blogger changes…not for the better

I’ve long suspected that Google is trying to dissuade use of their Blogging platform (limiting compatibility with the excellent LiveWriter, and subsequently Open LiveWriter), this announcement on Blogger has done nothing to change my mind:

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Wednesday 20 May 2020

Yet another test with OLW

This one should…..



1) Post with text only created in OLW.
2) Publish as normal.
3) Open Blogger, go to ‘Posts’.
4) Select the post just published and select ‘Edit’
5) Add photos where required (a faff)
6) Update.

I can see the photos...but can anyone else?

Wednesday 13 May 2020

And another...



Well, what fun!

The photos in my last post are visible on my computer, but not other computers....well not on Martin's computer anyway.

One thing I noticed: I hadn't made the album I took the photos from available for public viewing - that's now been changed.

This is a photo that I've copied and pasted from Google Photos straight into Blogger:




This photo is posted using the conventional Blogger method:

Blogger, LiveWriter and OpenLiveWriter.

I strongly suspect that work on OpenLiveWriter has stopped. I downloaded the most recent release which has supposedly fixed the problems encountered when trying to post photographs - it doesn't work, not for me anyway. Text only posts work fine, the brick wall appears when photographs are included in a post.  Things are very quiet on the OpenLiveWriter Twitter and Facebook pages, there's very little activity which more or less confirms my suspicions. I'm guessing that a major reason for this is because Google ultimately want to shut down Blogger (because they don't make any money out of it?) and they're making it more difficult to post. The original LiveWriter, a Microsoft product, provided an easy and very effective way of posting to blogs but Google, who control Blogger, appear to have moved the goalposts which effectively stopped full access via LiveWriter. Microsoft have since withdrawn LiveWriter which led to OpenLivewriter which is Open Source - although apparently still under the umbrella of Microsoft. OpenLiveWriter seemed to work for a while, but it wasn't long before it's access to Blogger was also blocked. Searching the web has uncovered a number of instances where it's been claimed that the problem has been sorted - but they're all beyond my limited technical ability. I'm happy to be corrected in my assumptions, but having spent a long time running round in circles I'm going to take some convincing. Anyroadup, here are a few photos from my first TGO Challenge, 2004.

Update:
This was originally posted using Blogger.
I then opened OpenLiveWriter and selected ‘Open Recent Post’ to open this post.
I then changed the font and font size before updating.
This seems to have been successful. So far.

Update 2:
Although the photos are visible on MY computer, others can’t see them….well Martin can’t.
I realised the album I took the photos from was private, I’ve now changed that to public….let’s see.
Update 3:
Maybe not...





Monday 11 May 2020

Another test

With the latest version of OLW.

The problems I’ve had before are all related to posts that include photographs, text only posts were fine.

The first test, with photographs taken from my computer, failed to post. The error report:

Google.Apis.Requests.RequestError
Insufficient Permission: Request had insufficient authentication scopes. [403]
Errors [
    Message[Insufficient Permission: Request had insufficient authentication scopes.] Location[ - ] Reason[insufficientPermissions] Domain[global]
]

This test post doesn’t have photographs.

Tuesday 29 October 2019

October 2018

Now that I seem to have worked out a not-very-complicated Open LiveWriter method of posting photographs that works (for now), here are some more:

My Tarte Santiago – thanks to Rita for the recipe 


6th October: Cheshire Hare & Hounds Tally-Ho! trail run from Sparrowpit. A cracking route but a not-very-good venue:


The Hounds…well, some of them



Wells & Injured Wislon returning to base

Only a couple of photos (and a Whinge Warning) from my bike ride to Lymm:

Car parking problems are becoming, er, more problematic. The TransPennine Trail car park in Broadheath is used by those working in the nearby offices and factories. There simply isn’t enough car parking space available, nor is there anything like a decent public transport system in place. Ironically the TransPennine Trail, at this point, follows the course of the railway line that was ripped up as part of the Beeching cuts.

Another sad sight (site?), a matter of a hundred yards or so from the car park above. The Bay Malton pub, once frequented by workers from the adjacent Broadheath industrial area, is now closed.


October is Warburton Souling Play preparation time. We always have a rehearsal, just to make sure that we remember the words and actions from the previous years. And then we retire to to Saracen’s Head in Warburton to compare notes….and drink beer. I couldn’t perform in the play this time round – I had to go to Florida. Again.

The Gang with a potential Souler on his first Play outing


Three generations of Soulers…probably.

And now for something completely different, a quick and tasty dinner of chicken and roast vegetables:


Another trip to Florida:


When it it rains in Florida it gets very wet:




I bought a couple of these filters from Walmart in Clearwater – I didn’t realise that Sawyer are based about 3 miles from our Florida apartment.


Some photos to remind me of our Florida apartment, prior to it being sold. Dad was never happier when he was here, he looked forward to his annual 6 month stays. It was good to see him so happy. I’ll miss the apartment for that.




Ho hum.



Wednesday 9 October 2019

Another Open Live Writer update

…and this one works at the moment.

The ongoing Google / Blogger / Open Live Writer palaver has put many bloggers off posting of late – and that includes me.

A not-very-well publicised (and not entirely straight-forward installation process) OLW update seems to work – for now.

To update:

R Click on the existing OLW icon, select ‘Properties’

Click ‘Open File Location’ to open an Explore folder/

Rename ‘Update’ or ‘Update.exe’ to ‘OldUpdate’…keeping ‘.exe’ if present.

Go to http://openlivewriter.org/ and download the latest OLW.

To post photographs it is essential to first save them in Google Photos and then cope and paste from there.

That all works for me on Win7 using Firefox.


Once again, many thanks to Dave Burdick who has come up with this solution. 


Addendum:

This worked for a while today.

Photos were posted into my blog and the were successfully published.

A few hours later all the photographs had disappeared……and now they’ve come back again.

Is this Google deciding that they don’t want anyone to post photographs unless they use their ghastly Blogger?



Another test

Using the updated (?) OLW



…and it works!

For now.

Wednesday 24 July 2019

Posting photos into Blogger using OLW

Clouds over Manchester Airport t’other night:

More clouds:

From Vierdaagse:

Method of posting photos from OLW into Blogger:

Ensure photos to be used are saved in Google Photos.

Create post using OLW as usual.

To paste photos into OLW:

Go to Google Photos

Click and open the photo to be used, then ‘Copy Image’

(It’s important that you actually open the image, don’t just click on it)

Copy & Paste the photo into OLW

Post to blogger when ready.

Job done



With grateful thanks to Dave Burdick in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Thursday 18 July 2019

Test post with photographs…maybe

This is a test to check out a method of posting photographs using OLW.
I’ve not been blogging recently, simply because of the amount of faffing needed to post with photographs – the apparent result of a spat between Google and the Open Live Writer team.


The situation is further complicated by the uncertainty of successful posting even without photographs, plus the total unhelpfulness (if that’s a real word) of the Google Blogger team – who declare that they’re working to improve the Blogger experience.


Yeah, whatever.

Last weekend’s ex-OMers meet:


Monday 1 April 2019

Another test 1st April 2019 – not a joke

There’s supposed to be a piccy here…but it won’t upload

Blue plaque on Alf’s old house.

There’s probably a decent toothpaste to deal with it.

Thursday 21 February 2019

Breaking News… 21st Feb 2019

Open LiveWriter and Blogger are once again talking to one another

A blessed miracle!

Almost. Photographs won’t post.

This was better than last week when NOTHING would post.

Tuesday 5 February 2019

Test Post, images added in Blogger

Test post to try to identify the latest Open Live Writer / Blogger compatibility problem.

Original post was text only and posted without problem using OLW.

If I try to post with images from OLW the post is rejected (Error 400).






Text in between two added images


Thursday 21 September 2017

The Rain in Lleyn…4th Sept 2017

(Not) Backpacking

I’d prepared two dehydrated backpacking meals, different stuff to what I’d normally take so I was looking forward to trying the new stuff out:.

The main meals consisted of:

1) Remains of a Shepherds Pie. All mashed up and mixed prior to dehydrating. It was supplemented with 50gms of Smash.

2) Remains of a chilli con carne + rice. The rice and chilli were dehydrated separately and bagged separately.

3) This wasn’t all dehydrated, but consisted of some smoked Polish sausage, 50gms of Smash, and 1/3rd tin baked beans – dehydrated.

As things worked out the stuff didn’t get used. Read on….


In the beginning:

The Plan was for Lucky the Dog, Mike, Dawn and me to backpack a section of the Lleyn Peninsula coast in glorious sunshine.

Even the best plans fall apart sometimes.

The weather forecast was for a bit of damp followed by a few days of overcast dryness – quite acceptable backpacking conditions.

What ACTUALLY happened was that a huge amount of wind-driven wetness descended on Llanystumdwy….famous for Lloyd George and my dad. And a pub that only opens 3-4 nights of the week. It was quite a nice pub though.

We had two cars and with this in mind Plan B was quickly concocted: instead of backpacking through the wetness we’d go out for linear day walks. Plan B was put into action – it worked quite well. Mostly. Apart from getting lost.

Day 1

It was still raining. So we breakfasted hugely on egg, bacon & tomato butties – washed down with lashings of tea & coffee. After which it was still raining but not quite as much. The Afon Dwyfor at the back of the campsite had risen by about 4ft overnight – the roar of the water thrashing about was impressive.

Dwyfor in spate


That was supposed to be an embedded video but Open Live Writer and YouTube don’t seem to like to talk to one another. Kids, eh?

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If the video clip doesn’t work, this photo may illustrate the state of the river.

Some random photographs taken in Llanystumdwy:

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Anyroadup, we went to Llanbedrog and dumped a car there in the National Trust car park. Then we went to Abersoch and dumped another car there in the hugely expensive car park. Not having any more cars to dump we thought it would be a bit of a wheeze to walk back to Llanbedrog, and that’s precisely what we did.

The rain had stopped by this time but it was rather grey and only a bit miserable.

We walked east, often a good direction, passing the harbour / marina before dropping down to the beach.

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For Alan R:

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The tide was out and apart from a couple of dog walkers and a defunct jellyfish that resembled an enormous blob of lumpy wallpaper paste, we had the sands to ourselves.

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Anybody recognise this plant found growing on the edge of sand dunes? The leaves are hugely thick – perhaps to store water?

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Looking back over Abersoch

As we bimbled along eastwards the clouds lifted and the sun made a welcome appearance – Snowdonia appeared out of the murk:

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On the descent to the beach we came across this interesting sculpture:

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Aberdaron’s ‘Tin Man’ – it looked more like a woman with a babe in arms to me

I gather that the original statue was a wooden ship’s figurehead – but that suffered malicious fire damage many years ago.

The route down to the beach was seriously steep, it took an age to get down – ask my poorly L knee. It wasn’t too happy.

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Llanbedrog’s colourful beach huts

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Llanbedrog Beach

Then it was back to the cars and back to Llanystumdwy (via Pwllhelli’s Asda) for far too much to eat and a comfortably large amount of beer. Bottled Hob Goblin Gold seeing as you asked.

The pub was shut.

Day 2

Even though the weather had improved Plan B was still in operation: one car was left at the Aberdaron NT car park, the other at the Whistling Sands NT car park. We wandered off in a nominally south-ish direction, following the cliff-top path as much as possible. I was surprised to come across a young 80+ year old couple from Knutsford, just down the road from JJ Towers. This couple, clad in finest Paramo, were clearly made of the right stuff – it was a pleasure to stop to chat with them.

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Looking north over Whistling Sands

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Dramatic coastline, similar in character to the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and part of the the South West Coast Path.


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On Mynydd Mawr:

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.

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The former Coastguard lookout at Mynydd Mawr.

The sun was shining brightly and warmly, good conditions for backpacking – apart from the lack of water. Running water was scarce, any that we discovered was decidely iffy. Much of the coast was used by cattle.

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Over the sea to Bardsey in the late afternoon sun.


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I’m still playing with my Lumix TZ70 camera – in reality the colours in the hedgerows were very vivid than is shown here. I must try harder.

Navigation was a little <koff> difficult, the paths on the ground often didn’t coincide with what appeared on the three different maps we were carrying between us. Being as what we were nominally following an official Long Distance Path this was all a bit of a poor show. You couldn’t even rely on the Coastal Path signposts – on more than one occasion we came across signposts that just pointed into either undergrowth or ground that was clearly impassable.

Whatever.

Back to the cars, Asda and the campsite – for lots of lovely grub (c/o Lucky’s Dad) and more beer. The pub was still shut.


Day 3

The day began with more egg & bacon butties. The eggs came from the farm where we were camping – they were a bit tasty.

It was a windy morning, and that was just the weather. We parked up at the NT car park at Plas yn Rhiw and proceeded to wander off, up what we took to be the coastal path. We had it on good authority that we really were on the coastal path, the Coastal Path signposts should have aroused our suspicion.

As it happened we only got a bit misplaced a few times.

Mist and clag descended a few times, severely curtailing our views.

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Hell’s Mouth

Foolishly(?) following signposts we passed a lovely little hamlet overlooking the sea. We  suspected that we were on the right path – but there was always a nagging doubt.

Even more foolishly I suggested a change in direction of travel. This change entailed a bit of a scramble. Okay, a LOT of a scramble. I’m not very good at scrambling. Oh well.

Eventually, and blindly following Lucky, Dawn & Mike, I got to the top of an Everest of a hill, Mynydd y Graig I think. There were signs of a Hill Fort and a Standing Stone. I didn’t look too hard, I was more concerned in not falling off this mountain of a, er, little hill.

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Lucky & Mike, climbing without oxygen

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The Tenzing moment

Once at the top the walking was much easier, we even had some views when the cloud lifted.

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Another hill beckoned. This was either a Munro or a Marylin or something. Whatever it was 177m ASL and Mike needed it for His List. Penarfynydd was actually a bit non-descript, but what the hell. It would probably be better on a sunny day.

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Time to turn round and return to the car. More misleading signposts successfully misled us. In spite of this we managed to find our way back to the car and a far easier navigate to a nice little car park at the east end of Hell’s Mouth.

Dawn had planned a dip in the sea at Hell’s Mouth but the wind was far too strong and the sea currents looked a bit perilous.

Instead she rolled up her trouser legs and went for a paddle with Mike. Lucky didn’t play with a ball very much. I flew my kite, the one I use to support vertical aerials when I play radio. The wind was so strong that I began to wonder whether the line was going to be strong enough to hold on to the kite. It was, but I’ll be more careful in future.

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Once back at the ranch more lovely grub followed, again c/o Lucky’s Dad. Dawn had an early night, so did LTD, Mike & me, but our early night involved a visit to the pub which was now open. The beer and the welcome were both good.

There were only half a dozen customers in the pub that evening. It’s good that it stays open, even if it’s only for a few evenings in the week. I hope it survives, we’re losing too many pubs.

We had a good few days away, it wasn’t what we’d planned but it worked out well in the end. Thanks to Lucky, Mike & Dawn for a fun time…we must do it again soon. Next time we’ll do it in an area with less confusing paths.


More photographs are here.

Wednesday 31 May 2017

Problems with Open Live Writer

I’ve been having a problem creating blog posts using the latest version of Open Live Writer, build 0.6.2.0

All seems swimmingly well when I enter text, images can be added with ease…..but then the problem raises it’s head:

I can’t put the cursor where I want it to be around the images.

Typically I’ll insert a couple of images and then try to insert a line above or below one of the images.

I’d do this by clicking the mouse at the point where I want the cursor to be. Normally the cursor would appear and I’d be able to Cr to insert spaces.

Except that it doesn’t do that anymore. The cursor ends up somewhere else in the draft…..certainly nowhere near the place I want it to be.

The mouse is fine – it works well using other software: M$ Office stuff, OpenOffice etc.

I can’t find any reference to this on openlivewriter.org

Anyone else having the same problem….or better still, does anyone have a solution?

Tally-Ho! Whitworth Wander / Turkey Trot 2023

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