Movable Type templates aren't too difficult to write, but they can be difficult to read. So I've whipped up another plugin to fix that. Simple Template is a plugin that provides an alternative syntax for Movable Type templates 1.

Availability

You can download this plugin here: mtsimpletemplate-1_21.zip

Installation

To install, place the ‘simpletemplate.pl' file in your Movable...

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08.25.2005

Announcing Movable Type 3.2

We're proud to announce that Movable Type 3.2 is now available. This release improves upon what is already the most powerful blogging platform by offering a better experience at every step. This new version combines the strengths and innovations you have come to expect from Movable Type over the past four years, boosted by the addition of over 100 unique new features that will help your blogs truly shine.

Best of all, it's a free update for any licensed user of Movable Type 3.x. Personal users will be happy to find that the Free edition now offers unlimited blogs. And personal users who want a multi-user license...

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3.2 Public Beta

UPDATE The beta blog is live. Read all the entries and download 3.2, there's plenty to play with! Jay's just posted an announcement to ProNet with some juicy details. Movable Type 3.2 will be going into a beta sometime tomorrow...

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Posted on 07/14/2005 | Permalink | Comments (7)

MT 3.1 Screenshots

Movable Type 3.1 is the feature upgrade that everyone was looking for in 3.0D. There are three main new features, dynamic templating, post scheduling and subcategories. Lets take a tour around these new features. These are some screenshots from the...

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Learning Movable Type is now hosted on a new server and now has its own domain name - http://www.learningmovabletype.com. In the process of changing servers and changing URLs, we may have created some broken links or other site hiccups. If you encounter something that just doesn't seem to be working properly, please email me using the contact form.

Humongous thanks to Chad and Arvind for their invaluable assistance with this move.

If you link to Learning Movable Type (and we hope you do) please, please, please change the URL in your link to the new one. That way, Google will find us more easily, and those using Google to find things regarding Movable Type will find us more easily too....

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Co-authored by Arvind Satyanarayan and Elise Bauer Tutorial cross posted on Movalog and Learning Movable Type

The installation instructions in the Movable Type Install Guide contain a section in the Configuration area called Enable Security Features. These instructions tell you to uncomment the Umask lines in your mt.cfg if your server is running cgiwrap or suexec. If you don't know what CGIwrap or suEXEC are, you may be tempted to skip this step. Don't. This step gives your MT installation extra security, which we will explain. (Note that this tutorial is only appropriate for MT installations on Linux/Apache web servers.)

What is CGIWrap or suEXEC?

CGIWrap and suEXEC are features...

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Blog Selective Hacks

One of the biggest problems of simple hacks to the system is that they occur system wide, e.g. if you hacked the entry page to specify a default category, that category would become the default for all blogs on the...

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Posted on 07/30/2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Feedback during Power Editing

Many people have asked me how to display the status of comments and trackbacks on the power edit entries screen. This hack will guide you through the process of adding two fields, as shown by the screenshot. One is...

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Question

When using Movable Type, the images don't appear, no styles are being applied, and the Help links don't work.

Answer

If you installed Movable Type into a cgi-bin, certain files (referred to as "static" files), must be situated outside of the cgi-bin in order to be readable by your browser. The rest of this article explains how to make sure Movable Type can find these files.

Which Files Are Static Files?

Version 3.2 and higher

In version 3.2 of Movable Type, all of the required static files are stored by default in a folder...

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Co-authored by Arvind Satyanarayan and Elise Bauer Tutorial cross posted on Movalog and Learning Movable Type

With the release of Movable Type 3.1 comes a new and powerful feature - Dynamic Publishing. To take advantage of Dynamic Publishing, you need to edit or create a file on your Apache server called .htaccess as explained in the Movable Type Manual. htaccess files can give you extra control over your server, allowing you to password protect directories, enable server side includes, generate custom error messages, and block users by IP address among other things. (See this Guide to .htaccess for more information.)

Note: You should really know what you are doing before...

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SpamLookup is an anti-spam plugin created by Movable Type engineer Brad Choate, which identifies spam based on a number of unique characteristics and administrator based tests. It includes: • IP address blacklist lookups • Domain name blacklist lookups • IP address source correlation • Lookup whitelists • Link limits • Email and Link memory tests • Keyword filtering

This plugin has been updated for Movable Type 3.2 and utilizes the feedback rating framework. Each test that is enabled contributes to the final composite score of a feedback item. The final score after all tests (SpamLookup and other plugins)...

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08.31.2005

Simple Example Templates for Movable Type 3.2

Chris Vannoy has posted some simple Movable Type templates based on the new default templates in Movable Type, but with much of the XHTML structure stripped out so they're easier to read. As Chris explains in his following post, they're not designed to be used on an actual site, since the styling would be pretty ugly by default, but they're a useful basis for creating your own completely custom design if you just need a place to get started.

We'll be producing additional documentation about all the new abilities that templates and styles have in Movable Type 3.2, but this is a great place to start if you...

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Question

I'd like my visitors to be able to use HTML when posting comments.

Answer

Enable option for weblog

• Navigate to Settings > Feedback : Comments1. • Locate the setting for Allow HTML2 and check the box to the left to turn the setting on. • Press the SAVE button to preserve the change.

Limit HTML Tags

The Sanitize feature protects your weblog from malicious code by permitting only certain HTML tags to be used in comments and TrackBack pings. The default set of allowed HTML tags and attributes is: a href, b, br, p, strong, em, ul, li,...

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Question

Can I pay Six Apart to install Movable Type for me, or upgrade my existing installation to the latest version?

Answer

Yes, we offer these services to those who have purchased a supported version of Movable Type.

Requirements Before We Begin

Please make sure to confirm that your host/server meets the requirements before requesting an installation, as the fee is non-refundable once we begin.

You can view the system requirements and get helpful information on choosing a web host in the Introduction to Installation and Upgrade in the Users Manual....

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Blog Selective Hacks

One of the biggest problems of simple hacks to the system is that they occur system wide, e.g. if you hacked the entry page to specify a default category, that category would become the default for all blogs on the...

Continue reading "Blog Selective Hacks"

Posted on 07/30/2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

More Intuitive Quicktags

Since my latest upgrade to 3.16, I haven't bothered to implement my quicktags hack so I was left with the default quicktags. Out of habit, I hit the quicktags to create the necessary HTML then enter my content, however with...

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Posted on 06/20/2005 |...

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Movable Type's often been praised for both the elegance of its user interface and the way the system's published pages look. But the current generation of default designs have gotten a little long in the tooth, and we wanted to make sure that designers who take the time to make templates and styles get the most value out of their effort. So, we've made some significant improvements to Movable Type 3.2's templates. Here's some highlights: • An attractive new default stylesheet that works easily with 1, 2, and 3-column layouts • Dozens of great new themes available for download for your blog, and the ability to customize these or create your own using professional tools like Adobe GoLive...

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by Category | by Date

Anti-Spam

Getting the most out of MT-Blacklist - MT-Blacklist/Comment Spam Clearinghouse: Getting the most out of MT-Blacklist Birdhouse notes on Comment Spam - Why this web host is forcing comment registration Blacklist to Mod Security - by Peter Wood Brad Choate: SpamLookup - anti-spam plugin Interview with a Comment Spammer - The Register's interview with a blog comment spammer. MT-Approval Plugin - Prevents comment spam from spam bots MT-DSBL Open Proxy Comment Filter - from Brad Choate MT-Moderate - Plugin for moderating trackbacks and comments from Chad Everett Mod Rewrite to Block Bot Spam - Mod Rewrite method to divert comment spam bots to a 403...

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November 2005

11.02.2005

New plugins for Movable Type

As many of you know, there are hundreds of plugins in the Movable Type plugin directory through which you can completely customize and modify the way that the application works. This has always been a great strength of the Movable Type platform and we put great effort in every release to give plugins even more ways to enhance the system.

What you may not know is that since the launch of Movable Type 3.2, dozens of plugins built...

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Movable Type is being used to store a list of classes, and we need to make those class titles available in a form field (class registration) as a dynamically linked list box. The user will be presented with two list boxes, the first with a list of categories, the second (which is disabled until a category is chosen) with a dynamically generated list of the titles in the selected category.

Ingredients

We're going to need two important things here. First, a handy DHTML script from Xin Yang called Chained Selects that's going to power our linked list boxes. The script that you'll be dropping into your directory is called chainedselects.js.

Second, a javascript file...

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Question

How do I show all entries from the same month or category as the current entry on an Individual Archive?

Answer

If you want a list on the Individual pages which only shows entries in the same month or category as the entry, you will need to do this with a second Archive Template and a PHP (or SSI) include.

Create The New Template

Navigate to Templates and click the Archives tab1. Click Create New Archive Template.

Assign the template a name of your choosing (to distinguish it from your normal Monthly or Category Archive Template). In...

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Question

When running the script, I get an error message that says Got an error: Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: [some error].

Answer

Too many connections

Your MySQL server is not permitting any more connections to your database; you'll need to contact your host for resolution of this error.

Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/path/to/socket'

• If your SQL database server is on localhost, but the socket is not in a standard location, you'll need to set the path using the DBSocket setting in mt-config.cgi1: DBSocket /path/to/mysql.sock...

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Things you probably didn't realize you could do with MT-Textile 2: • Hyperlinks for Amazon, IMDB and Google searches. For example (search term can be placed after the last ‘:', or will default to the hyperlinked text): • "James Bond":imdb:Sean+Connery becomes James Bond • "Tangerine Dream":amazon becomes Tangerine Dream • "Movable Type":google becomes Movable Type • ["MT plugins by Brad Choate":google:movable type plugin choate] becomes MT plugins by Brad Choate • Float images to the left and right; center stuff too: • !>/images/me.jpg! (floats...

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