Question

I've logged in to Movable Type, but everything I click takes me back to the Login page again.

Answer

This is related to the cookie Movable Type must set to keep you logged in during your session.

Note: There is a Known Issue in version 3.16 which prevents the login cookie from being set correctly when Movable Type is installed in the root folder of a domain. This issue was resolved in version 3.17 (released on June 2, 2005), so you should upgrade in order to correct this particular type of login problem.

If the Known Issue above does not...

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The "Warn/Die" plugin lets you control the Movable Type build process. The 'MTWarn' tag lets you output messages from your templates during the build process. These messages might be used for debugging purposes or might just be informational. The 'MTDie' tag lets you halt the build process.

Availability

You can download this plugin from here: mtwarndie-1_0.zip

Examples

<MTWarn>Building...

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Movable Type was originally built as a hobby, at a time when asking users to upgrade frequently was a fun part of participating in the blogging community, not a burden. At the time, there wasn't even an idea that blogging would become an industry.

In that environment, there were different expectations for the product. Commercial users were rare and most people who installed and used the product tended to be highly tech-oriented. Most people who have used Movable Type know its quirks and know how to work around them and there are little nagging issues that we, as early users and developers, have all grown to accept. Unfortunately, as a new generation of customers discover the platform,...

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Question

I'm using some custom HTML inside an MTPings container, but the code disappears when the page is published.

Answer

Note: This issue has been resolved in version 3.17 (released on June 2, 2005), so upgrading will eliminate the need for the workaround shown below.

This is a Known Issue with the version of the Nofollow plugin released with 3.16. To work around this problem, disable Sanitize: <MTPings sanitize="0">

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We've just posted an writeup in the ProNet articles section entitled How to speed up publishing in Movable Type. If you're not using Movable Type 3.1x's dynamic publishing feature and experiencing slow rebuild times, it's a must read.

In addition to this article, we've been working to expand our documentation overall. Some overdue additions to the core Movable Type docs include full documentation of configuration settings, which finally covers all the little details of the mt.cfg file, and comprehensive instructions for Installing Movable Type on Windows.

We'll be continuing to make improvements, but all of these resources should help even the most advanced user find some...

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For you Movable Typers who also use PHP, here's a little function that will let you link to content from previous years. Read on to see it.

This routine lets you link dynamically (or statically if you prefer) to blogs from prior years. Small caveat-- this requires that you archive entries on a daily basis. Here's the code-- just make necessary changes to the "archive_path" and "href_path" variables...

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Movable Type 2.6 incorporated my Sanitize plugin. So if you've upgraded to MT 2.6, you no longer need the plugin files. So here's what you would do to remove them.

Again, these steps are only necessary if 1) you installed the Sanitize plugin on your pre-MT 2.6 blog; 2) you've since upgraded to Movable Type 2.6 or later. • Locate the ‘sanitize.pl' in your Movable Type plugins directory. Delete that file. • Locate the ‘sanitize.pm' file in your extlib/bradchoate directory. Delete that file.

Now, you may be wondering what to do about the sanitize="..."

attributes you have...

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05.31.2005

Movable Type Cheat Sheet

One of the great things about Movable Type being localized into a number of languages and having such a broad international presence is that we get great contributions from our community around the world. The latest contribution is Jörg Petermann's Movable Type Cheat Sheet, which he's published in both German and English.

The Cheat Sheet, available in both PDF and PNG formats, covers all the standard Movable Type template tags, as well as common attributes for the tags and the date format used for output. Most of these tags also apply to TypePad's advanced templates as well, so it's worth keeping a copy of the Cheat Sheet...

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It's frustrating that MT's Include tag doesn't process files for MT tags. So how do we fix that? Well...

This one is so short and simple, I'm just supplying it here within my weblog. If you want it, copy and paste. # includeex.pl, to be placed in the MT 'plugins' directory. package plugins::includeex; use MT::Template::Context; MT::Template::Context->add_tag('IncludeEx' => &IncludeEx); sub...

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Question

Visitors who are trying to comment on my weblog with some browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari) aren't able to do so; they still see the sign in link, instead of the comment posting form. If they use another browser (Firefox, Netscape), they don't have this problem.

Answer

There are several reasons why this might occur in some browsers but not others:

Caching issues

The browser is caching the page; have your visitors refresh the page after signing in to force the page to update.

Your pages are encoded with UTF-8.

Some browsers are more likely...

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Hello World! I'm posting via IM! I've put up my own IM drone on my server which talks to my Movable Type XMLRPC interface. It's pretty easy to do. Hop over to the Bloggerbot site for the Perl source code. (title and category have to be added separately for now... gotta fix that somehow)

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Question

How do I use the formatting buttons and keyboard shortcuts when editing my entries on the Create New Entry or Edit Entry screen?

Answer

To use the formatting buttons and keyboard shortcuts, you must first highlight the text you wish to format, and then either click the appropriate button, or press the appropriate keyboard shortcut combination.

Formatting buttons are not available in all browsers. Please see Formatting buttons are missing for more information.

Keyboard shortcuts work in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. • Bold - Ctrl-Shift-b...

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This plugin allows you to define search and replace parameters for elements you produce from Movable Type templates. Keep reading for the details.

More details forthcoming-- for now I'm just providing the download link. The readme.txt in the zip file has all the relevant information.

Availability

You can download this plugin here: mtregex-1_61.zip

...

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06.30.2005

New in Movable Type 3.2: A home for administrators

One of Movable Type's biggest strengths is the platform's support for an unlimited number of weblogs. Once you've got a thriving community of bloggers creating entries and publishing their thoughts, though, it quickly becomes necessary to manage the weblogs on your system.

To meet this need, we've introduced an entire new area of functionality in Movable Type 3.2: The System Overview. We've chosen the System Overview as the first feature to highlight in this new release because it represents a single home for administrators. It's one place to go to oversee everything that's happening across your...

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UpdateAuthoredOn is a plugin that modifies the interface of Movable Type. When the plugin is installed, you can click a button to set an entry's Authored On timestamp to the current date and time.

Requirements

UpdateAuthoredOn requires the BigPAPI plugin, which is included with the UpdateAuthoredOn distribution.

UpdateAuthoredOn is compatible with MT 3.16 and higher.

Installation

To install the UpdateAuthoredOn plugin, upload the file UpdateAuthoredOn.pl to the plugins directory within your Movable Type directory. If BigPAPI.pl is not already present in your plugins directory, upload that as well.

Terms of Use

UpdateAuthoredOn is available free of charge under a Creative Commons license....

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Do you like seeing those little smiley emoticons in other people's blog? Then this is the plugin for you!

This plugin will add 13 smiley faces to your Movable Type edit entry screen. With a click, you can add any of the emoticons to your entry's body and extended entry fields, as in the screenshot at the left.

Installation

Smilies requires the BigPAPI plugin, which is included in the distribution. Smilies has been tested on version 3.2 of Movable Type only, but should work with MT 3.16 and higher - I'd appreciate hearing if anybody is successful with other versions. • Download Smilies.zip and extract. (A donation will support continued development...

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Most people who know and use Movable Type are extremely web savvy, but that doesn't mean they don't still want to sit down with a good book sometimes. We've rounded up a few books that would be of interest for almost any Movable Type user, from newbies to experts.

One of the most popular titles is Rogers Cadenhead's Movable Type Bible Desktop Edition. Though Rogers has gained some fame from having registered the new Pope's name as a domain name, he's been tasteful enough to refrain from promoting the fact that he's written a bible himself. Aside from the restraint he's shown, the book is great for its in-depth coverage of the best ways to use Movable Type's features, covering...

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• Initial beta release

Back to top | Permalink | Comments (0)

0.02 (2001.09.25)

• Added FTP URLs to installation instructions. (Daniel Talsky) • Fix some warnings. (Caroline van Oosten de Boer)...

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Movable Type is the premier weblog publishing platform for businesses, organizations, developers, and web designers. Powerful customization gives you control over everything you publish and the elegant interface keeps things simple and clear.

Features

• Unlimited Blogging

Movable Type offers the ability to publish an unlimited number of blogs quickly and easily through a single installation of the application. And the platform supports posting by as many authors as you need, with no limit on the numbers of entries, comments, or TrackBacks the system supports. • Powerful management...

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WeblogsActionMenu is a plugin that modifies the interface of Movable Type.

The dropdown menu of available weblogs in the header of every Movable Type screen is a handy way to jump from one weblog to another. What's not so handy is that you have to first go through the other weblog's menu in order to do anything with that weblog. WeblogsActionMenu lets you jump directly to a specific action for a different weblog than the one you're in.

Requirements

WeblogsActionMenu requires the BigPAPI plugin, which is included with the WeblogsActionMenu distribution.

WeblogsActionMenu is compatible with MT 3.16 and higher.

Installation

To install the WeblogsActionMenu plugin, upload the file WeblogsActionMenu.pl...

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