The default styles that come with MT are what is known as 'fixed' styles. This means that size of objects and their positions are fixed and are defined in pixels (px) This also means, no matter what a person's screen resolution, everything will be the same width and in approximately the same position. Now this may seem good but - especially with MT's default styles - looks bad depending on the screen resolution. Taking for example MT 3's default styles, on a 1280x1024 screen resolution, the weblog appears as quite a narrow bar that is centered on the screen - not very appealing at all.

The other option to 'fixed' designs is 'fluid' designs. A fluid design uses percentages when defining...

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Some of you may remember the MT Tabs bookmarklet I had created oh so long ago that was quite simply a page that listed all the template tags available for easy reference. The best part of it was that it loaded in your browser's sidebar so it wouldn't interfere with and be separate from your Movable Type installation.

Well that bookmarklet (I'm trying to phase out the name "MT Tabs", it was badly chosen and didn't really reflect what the bookmarklet did) has been updated in a major way. What's new: • Major overhaul of interface so that the tags are now more appropriately grouped and all the tags are now present (including ones I didn't know existed!) • All tags have been...

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In MT, use of the <MTBlogCCLicenseURL> has been hardcoded to the 1.0 licenses, however these have been outdated and v2.0 of the licenses have been released a while ago. So lets hack the files so we can still use the tag.

You'll need two files, lib/MT/Util.pm and php/lib/cc_lib.php. Find in them the following line

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/$code/1.0/

and replace it with

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/$code/2.0/

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In the past few weeks I've managed to make MT Blogroll work on a Windows/IIS environment. I have only tested this plugin on one server so I'm not entirely sure how well this works. So Download MT-Blogroll_2.02.zip and follow the installation instructions. The only difference for you Windows users is that the contents of the lib/ folder in the distribution must go into the extlib/ directory hence you get extlib/Blogroll etc.

The only requirement is that you have MT 3.16 installed as important bugs were fixed.

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UPDATE

Typepad has moblogging built in but what can you do with MT. There are certain scripts you could setup on your servers. Pop2Blog is one such script, and another is pop3-to-blog. However with these scripts you would need to setup cron jobs to scan your emails and then post to MT.

That's when I found Mfop2

Mfop2 allows you to moblog without setting up any special scripts on your own mail server. To use Mfop2, all you have to do is register some of your blog details and you will be able to post to your blog from your mobile by emailing your blog entry with images attached to mfop2@bastish.net.

Another interesting option is mobileMT

mobileMT is a WAP interface for the MovableType...

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The link for the rss feed has now changed. I've finally embraced Feedburner so that I can track stats etc (no ads yet don't worry). The new feed is located here while the sideblog feed can be found here I have put permanent redirects onto the old rss files (both combined and normal) to point to the new Feedburner feed. Most RSS readers will pick this up and update it accordingly. If not then manually change it if you wish to keep up to date. Sorry for the inconvenience. The link to the Planet Movable Type feeds will remain the same as I don't want to mess around with any tracking tools used by the sites that are aggregated!

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A while ago, I had posted about creating a Typelists plugin for MT that would model Typelists in Typepad, I later found out that Tim Appnel was already developing a similar sort of plugin. I had emailed him that day to know where he stood in the scheme of things and got a reply back a few days ago. I've reproduced his reply here with his permission !

I am developing a "TypeLists for MT" app. I got all of the base objects working and tested. I'm also most of the way through the application. What's left is the interface (HTML), testing the application, creating various other lists and documentation. Oh... and a better name. I can't say exactly when I will finish since I have a number of...

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There are nice tools out there to help you optimize your weblog not only for speed but usability. Here are some •

Web Page Analyzer - a tool that will check how long it takes your site to load depending on the connection speeds. It will also show you what objects on your site are the biggest and most expensive. It also provides some useful tips on how to better optimize your site. •

Online CSS Optimizer - a tool that will basically optimize your css by combining a lot of the definitions. •

W3C Link Checker - a validator from W3C that will check all your links and highlight those that need to be changed/removed etc.

If you use Firefox, install the Web Developer Extension that has all of...

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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 in the afternoon. Here comes the best part of the announcement, its a public beta, what this means is that the beta blog will be an open environment and anyone will be able to download a copy and use it.

I've managed to get my hands on some early test builds and the new release is just staggering. So much has changed that 32 posts simply don't do it justice. Almost every single hack I've ever posted onto Movalog has found its way into this release in one way or...

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(Cross Posted: Chinwags)

Calling Javascript Writers

I'm struggling, struggling. Let me lay out what I wish to do and you Javascript writers tell me whether it is possible. For browsers that don't support content loading in sidebars (eg Opera or Safari) I have created a frames version of MT/WP Tabs. Now I wish to take it to the next level. When someone clicks the bookmarklet for the frames version, I want the current page to appear in the main (right hand side) content with the MT/WP Tabs appearing in the left "sidebar" If you manage to figure out how to do this I will credit you with it on all files that contain your code also I will give you a GMail Invite. If you manage to figure it...

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I'm quite pleased to announce MT Tabs. MT Tabs is a sidebar with quick links to nearly every MT tag. Clicking on these links will take you to the corresponding section in the MT manual to show you how to use the tag and extra syntax.

A few days ago when I was tinkering around with the design, I heavily used CSS and HTML reference sidebars found here. Then Aine - a friend from IRC - said how nice it would be if there was something similar for Movable Type, well now there is !

MT Tabs is compatible with Internet Explorer 5+ for the PC, The Mozilla/Netscape family - including Firefox ! Suggestions, advice and improvements would be greatly appreciated ! I've only managed to get it to...

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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 first beta, so the final product may not be exactly the same.

Dynamic Templating

The first thing you notice is when you go to the manage templates page. A new build options section has been created and gives you the following three options: • Build All Templates Statically • Build Only Archive Templates Dynamically • Set Each Template's Build Options Separately

The options do what they say, if you chose the last option then a check box...

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Discussion cross posted on Movalog and Learning Movable Type

One of the key features that Six Apart promotes about Movable Type is MT's ability to publish dynamically. What is dynamic publishing? And what are the benefits (and downsides) to dynamic publishing over static publishing?

Elise Bauer, editor of Learning Movable Type, and Arvind Satyanarayan, author of Movalog, discuss some of the pros and cons of dynamic publishing. Non-techie luddite-wannabe Elise shies away from anything that seems like it might not be worth the effort and so far hasn't even tried dynamic publishing. Plugin creator and MT hack-master Arvind has embraced dynamic publishing with his usual boundless...

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Updated October 16, 2004

The results of the LMT Web Host Survey are in! Thanks to all who participated.

The first step in installing Movable Type is making sure that your web host meets MT requirements. In addition to the basic requirements there are many other factors to consider, in particular the quality of support, the reliability of the service, and the degree to which the host's staff is familiar with Movable Type. Which web host you choose can make a big difference in terms of the ease with which you install and maintain your MT weblog.

What to Look for in a Host Provider

Absolutely Necessary: 1. Ability to run custom CGI scripts 2. Perl installed on server, version...

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2.6 (2003.02.13)

• Added Text Formatting options. Instead of a simple Convert Line Breaks checkbox, you can now set a different formatting option for each entry. Plugins can add new options to the Text Formatting menu, which allows for greater integration with the formatting within the system (for example, Text Formatting will be applied on the preview screen). • Added PostgreSQL and SQLite database drivers. • Incorporated Brad Choate's Sanitize plugin, adding an mt.cfg setting for a global default and a per-blog setting to override it. Sanitize is turned on...

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Updated

Occassionally databases get corrupted, servers fail or web hosts go out of business. So it's a good idea to back up your Movable Type blogs. There are many methods for doing so, a few of which I will cover here. The back-up process is much easier if you are using MySQL as your database, which, by the way, is one good reason to use MySQL over the default Berkeley DB.

TypeMover

TypeMover is a new plugin for the purpose of backing up, restoring, and/or migrating your Movable Type weblog. It is compatible with MT3 and later versions of Movable Type. From the TypeMover website:

TypeMover is a MovableType plugin. It adds backup, restore and migration features that let you get...

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2.5 (2002.10.08)

• Localization: the MT interface can be available in multiple languages, on a per-author setting. • Integrated Jay Allen's mt-search (Thanks, Jay!). We've made the following changes from version 1.31b: • Rewrote ``new comments search'' to make it more scalable (using recently_commented_on functionality) • Added a search log through the Activity Log. • Added search request throttling, to help against denial of service attacks. • Merged mt-search.cfg directives into mt.cfg....

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This is a grouped list of all entries. It is sorted by title ascending.

You can also read a commented Sitemap or a simple list of all entries.

Basics

• In the Beginning nothing but Problems • Movable Type Basics / 1 • Movable Type Basics / 2 • Movable Type Basics / 3 • Weblog Spamming Basics

Installation

• Installation under Windows 2003 • Migrating to MySQL

Configuration

• Date Formats • Grouping a List of Entries by Month • Organize your Templates with MTInclude • What is a Permalink?

Plugins

• A Tag within a Tag • Avoid Spam Comments • Build Conditions with the Compare Plugin • Comparison needed for conditional Generation • Enabling Tags in an Entry...

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This is a simple list of all entries. It is sorted by title ascending.

You can also read a commented Sitemap or a list of all entries grouped by category. • A Tag within a Tag • Avoid Spam Comments • Build Conditions with the Compare Plugin • Comparison needed for conditional Generation • Contact • Copyright • Date Formats • Deadline for 'Link And Win' is near • Design Change and Starting the FAQ • Disclaimer • Enabling Tags in an Entry • Error Page 404 • FAQ: Avoid Scrolling when opening Individual Entry Archive • FAQ: Bad ObjectDriver with MySQL • FAQ: Correcting Typos and Grammar • FAQ: Designing the Movable Type Weblog • FAQ: Different Templates for different Categories • FAQ: Entries or Comments with alternating Style...

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Many Movable Type users have wished for the ability to define additional custom fields for entries. A future version of MT may include such functionality. This plugin is a stopgap measure until we have a version of Movable Type that allows custom fields. It lets you define custom fields on a per-weblog basis, by creating one or more SQL tables to store the additional data (this plugin has been designed to work only when using MySQL as your MT backend; see below for more on this).

Some users have managed to add custom fields to their copies of Movable Type by modifying the field definitions within MT. See this page and this thread and this thread. However, this approach has several...

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