Blogging to a Different Tune: Using Windows XP and the Windows Media Player 9 Blogging Plug-In
Published: April 22, 2003
By Microsoft's Zach Robinson and Sean Alexander
Editor's Note: Past articles by members of the online community are archived for your use. The information may become outdated as technology changes. For the most current information, please search the Web site or post a question in the newsgroups.
If you're not familiar with blogging, it's Web logging, a form of personal Web publishing. Typically, blogs are updated on a more frequent basis than other personal Web sites and include links to content selected by the author—thoughts and opinions, journal items, and comments from readers about the blog entries.
Blogs have caught the attention of the press because they're a unique form of expression and news distribution that's growing rapidly. By some estimates, there are over 1 million active bloggers worldwide.
Part of the new Windows Media Player 9 Series Fun Pack is the Blogging plug-in. The Blogging plug-in is designed to make it easier for you to add information to your blog entry about the song currently playing on your computer. Posting the name of the song and artist that you're listening to is a great way to share your mood with your friends, family, and audience. Figure 1 shows a sample blog entry. Figure 2 shows a sample blog entry that shows what I'm listening to as I write an entry.
Figure 1. A sample blog entry.
Figure 2. A blog entry with song information added.
In this column, I'll explain where to get the Blogging plug-in and how to use it to tell your blog readers about the music you're playing when you write each blog entry.
How the Blogging Plug-in Works
To use the Blogging pug-in, you must download and install it and you must have a compatible blog client application and blog host service. See Download Windows Media Player 9 Series Fun Pack for system requirements needed to run the plug-in well.
The Blogging plug-in builds upon the new plug-in feature of Windows Media Player 9 Series by making it easier for third-party programs to identify the currently playing song. The plug-in operates in the background and has no user interface. You'll notice it's working by seeing the currently-playing song information displayed in the title bar of the Player. This can be useful in itself, even if you don't publish a blog. For more information about plug-ins, see Galan Bridgman's column Windows Media Player 9 Series Plug-ins.
Figure 3: When the Blogging plug-in is enabled, the artist and song name are displayed in the title bar of the Player.
The Blogging plug-in is designed to honor your privacy settings. No personally identifiable information is transmitted over the Internet. The plug-in can easily be turned off by changing the settings in the Options dialog box. To turn off the Blogging plug-in:
1. | In Windows Media Player, on the Tools menu, point to Plug-ins, and then click Options. |
2. | In the Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 4, clear the Blogging Plug-in checkbox. 
Figure 4: The Options dialog box lists available plug-ins.
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Using the Blogging plug-in, you can make the following information about your music available:
| • | Current Album |
| • | Current Author |
| • | Duration of Song |
| • | Title of Song |
| • | Name of File |
The rest of this article explains how to download, install, and set up the Blogging Plug-in by following four easy steps.
Install the Blogging Plug-in
You can download the free Blogging plug-in separately or as a part of the Windows Media Player 9 Series Creativity Fun Pack. When you install it, the plug-in is turned on and shows up in your plug-ins list as shown in Figure 4 above.
Choose a Host
If you don't already have a blog, you'll need to decide whether to host it on your own Web site or sign up with one of the blog services such as Blogger or Erablog.net.
Download a Compatible Blog Client
A wide range of Windows XP-compatible applications that work with the different services allow you to author and post blog entries. The table below lists compatible blogging programs and their compatible services. This list includes blog programs that are known to be compatible with the plug-in at the time of this column; other blog programs may also be compatible.
What if your favorite blog program doesn't support the Blogging Plug-in? Never fear—we've provided a series of code samples in popular languages for blog client developers so they can add this feature to their applications. Just contact your favorite blog client developer and point them to the samples. These are provided without support, but the code is straightforward.
Create Your First Entry with a Blog Client
The method you use to post entries is going to vary between blog clients. For this example, we'll use the w.bloggar client.
To install w.bloggar
1. | Under Channels, click Download in the left pane, choose your language, and then click the link that says Click Here. |
2. | Click Open, and then follow the instructions in the Setup wizard. |
3. | After setup completes, click Start, point to All Programs, and then click w.bloggar. |
4. | You must configure w.bloggar to work with your blog service. For more information about how to configure it, see the w.bloggar FAQ. |
5. | When you start adding blog entries, just click the musical notes icon and it adds a line at the top of your blog entry: [Listening to: currentlyplayingsong ]. |
6. | Clicking the artist name will search Windows Media.com for artist information and available songs and samples from the Web. You can manually add your song information to your blog entry (with code for illustrative purposes), as shown in Figure 5. Note that not all clients and settings will display code. 
Figure 5: W.bloggar client editor with song detection using the Blogging plug-in.
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7. | Spell check and, with some clients, preview your post, as shown in Figure 6 below, then click Post. 
Figure 6: Preview of blog entry with currently playing song displayed.
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As you can see in the preview window above, the blog entry is ready to be published, complete with information on what song you're listening to. This is just one example of what can be done as more blog programs add these and other features.
For Bloggers and Developers
Displaying currently playing music information is a relatively new idea in the blogging world with sporadic support. It's our hope that this plug-in will be of value to you whether you're a blogger or a developer.
One final note, this Blogging plug-in and samples are not supported by Microsoft. I developed the code for this plug-in on personal time. If you like the plug-in or have suggestions for future versions, please feel free to contact us at the Windows Media Player Plugins Newsgroup. Just leave a subject line with the word "Blogging" in it and we'll do our best to respond. Happy Blogging!
Zach Robinson is a development lead for the Microsoft Windows Media Core Services team and a frequent contributor to the Windows XP Music and Video newsgroups, where he has posted more than 300 newsgroup replies in a month. For more information about Zach Robinson, see Meet the Experts: Zach Robinson.
