Attach To Process

Just a quick note on debugging Windows Live Writer plug-ins. I only mention it because I have not seen it discussed elsewhere, you can attach Visual Studio to the Live Writer process. Attaching to the Live Writer process enables you to step through the code line by line, as you would a Windows Forms App in Visual Studio.

If you are already developing Live Writer plug-ins, you may be aware that by adding the following line to the Post Build Event, you can import the plug-in directly into Live Writer upon completion of a successful build.

XCOPY /D /Y /R "$(TargetPath)" "C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins\"

On loading up Live Writer after successful build, switch back to Visual Studio and click on Debug > Attach to Process. You’ll now be presented with a window similar to the one in the screenshot below.

Double clicking on WindowsLiveWriter.exe will now provide debugging capabilities to the plug-in. Try it, create a a couple of break points and start interacting with the plug-in in Live Writer. I use this same technique for debugging Windows Services.