I have tried a few programs to post articles to Joomla! from my desktop.  ScribeFire worked well within the Firefox environment, but I could not yet succeed in uploading pictures with it.

I have used Windows Live Writer for WordPress blogs for some time now, and were very satisfied with the ease I could get it to work on that CMS.  But Joomla! was another story.

I used the Movable Type API plugin as was suggested by a few people, but got this error:

A strange “http/” would get added on to the website address after setting up the account in Windows Live Writer.

I wrote to Microsoft and got immediate and very detailed help from them.  Thanks Therese!

But even though I followed their instructions to the T, I still had the same problem.  I even tried deactivating the other xmlprc plugins in Joomla!, as a number of people advocated, but to no avail.

Then I thought, maybe the plugin has an update, which it had, installed it, and voila, success!  Download Movable Type API from here.

I was quite cross with myself that I did not think of that sooner!

This post was thus written from Windows Live Writer, and I think this is the best solution for writing from your desktop!

But, lo and behold, all was not right just yet!

When I tried to install WLW on another Joomla! installation, with the exact same setup as on the other Joomla! site, I got this error:

An invalid server response when trying to publish to the Joomla! website.

I scouted around for solutions, and in the end decided to use one of the other xmlprc plugins, metaWeblog.  Download metaWeblog from here.

But that did not work right away, until I discovered that it needed a system plugin Real Simple Discovery.  Download RSD from here.

When both the Metaweblog xmlprc plugin and the rsd plugin were activated, and the other xmlprc plugins deactivated, everything clicked into place, and I could use WLW with this Joomla! installation also!

To conclude:

Windows Live Writer works with Joomla! with either metaWeblog or Movable Type, when Real Simple Discovery is also present and activated, and the other xmlprc plugins are deactivated.