The Better Upload File Template has been superceded by the Better File Uploader plugin.

As any regular reader of danandsherree.com likely knows, Sherree and I use the Upload File tool in Movable Type to put a lot of photos on this site. The tool works pretty well, but requires a lot of manual intervention: specify a file, an upload folder, a new entry or HTML, and a thumbnail and its size. If there are many photos to add, it becomes a lot of work!

I edited the Upload File templates to better suit our needs: "Show me the HTML" is the default option, clicking "Create a thumbnail…" will resize a thumbnail to the proper dimensions, and a "For...

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Current version: 1.05 (Updated 2005/10/4)

Simply, Better File Uploader is a Movable Type plugin that allows you to create default settings for file uploads. Create default settings to: • Specify a folder to upload to • Append year/month/ to the upload path • Create a new entry or show HTML • Select a thumbnail size • Build photo galleries quicker

Better File Uploader is also the successor to A Better File Upload Template.

Installation

Better File Uploader requires the BigPAPI plugin. BigPAPI is included in the below distribution. Better File Uploader requires Movable Type version 3.2 or higher. • Download BetterFileUploader.zip and unzip. • Upload to your plugins/ folder, preserving directory structure. The result should one file in the...

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Better File Uploader allows you to create default settings for file uploads. Create default settings to specify a folder to upload to, append year/month/ to the upload path, create a new entry or show HTML, select a thumbnail size, and build photo galleries quicker.

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A very minor update to the Better File Uploader and Better Entry Preview plugins: their documentation links reflect their URI here on Eat Drink Sleep Movable Type (it previously pointed to danandsherree.com).

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The Better File Uploader plugin for Movable Type has been updated to version 1.06. This release fixes a small bug: The "enable easier photo gallery creation mode" checkbox wouldn't actually disable that mode. The option will now correctly be disabled if the button is unchecked, removing the For Photo Gallery button from the file upload screen.

Download the plugin, or learn more about Better File Uploader.

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Better File Uploader is at version 1.04 now.

An astute user pointed out a problem with Advanced Archive Publishing and your selected upload directory. (Advanced Archive Publishing is the thing that gives the Local Archive Path and Local Site Path options. If you're not using Advanced Archive Publishing you've only got a Local Site Path option.) Better File Uploader now works correctly under both circumstances, as you can see in the screenshot at the right.

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I've added a minor feature to the Better File Uploader plugin: fast selection of HTML. Just click in the textarea where your HTML is shown and it'll get selected for you - no more careful selections to ensure you've got everything.

Download the plugin, or learn more about Better File Uploader.

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Thanks to some great feedback, the Better File Uploader plugin has a few new features: • Per-weblog settings. • Default option: local archive path or local site path. • Thumbnail size: longest side or fixed option.

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If you use the Upload File feature in Movable Type, you've no doubt got a folder full of uploaded files. If you use the default "Local Archive Path" or "Local Site Path" destination, you've got a folder full of uploads mixed in with your web pages. I always want to keep my uploaded files separate from all of the web pages just for organization. But now my /uploads/ folder has over 1300 files in it and finding anything is impossible. I needed a better organization method and I didn't want to have to actively think about it.

2005/04/19 Update: The method has been refined quite a bit with The Easy Way, using JavaScript.

2005/05/10 Update: This method is superceded by...

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About a year ago, I wrote an article, introducing a method for displaying a random image every time someone visits a web page. Administration was simple: just add or remove images from a folder on the server, and they would appear (or disappear, respectively) from the pool of random images being displayed on that page.

There are many benefits to randomizing an image on a web page, one of the most significant being the feeling of freshness it can add to an otherwise static site. Visitors returning to the page feel that, although the content might not have been updated, something has changed, and the site might be worth revisiting again in the future.

The Downside

Although the implementation...

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Movable Type has a nifty feature called "alternate templates" which allows you to substitute the default MT interface with a customized one. These aren't "individual archive" or "category archive" template replacements, these are replacements for the actual entry-editing interface.

I've only made a handful of alternate templates, but more will be added here as I create and modify them. (You might want to look at set up first.) Currently available are: • Updated 2005/08/29: edit_entry.tmpl is for creating and editing entries. • Added 2005/05/30: preview_entry.tmpl is for previewing entries. (Deprecated. Superceded by the plugin Better Entry Preview.)...

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1.3 (2001.12.11)

• Fixed bug where days="N" would override category="Foo" in <MTEntries> tag. (cwodtke) • Added DBM file locking (shared lock when reading, exclusive when writing). • Export process now exports excerpts, and import now imports them. • When you upload a file, if a file by that name (at that location) already exists, you now get a confirmation screen to overwrite the file, or not. (Requires that File::Temp is installed.) • Added search and replace functionality. • You can now upload files into specific directories...

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Current version: 1.01 (updated 2005/09/24).

The Better Entry Preview plugin's purpose is to make the entry preview screen more useful. The included styles give the entry preview environment a feel that a traditional editor might like by using larger type, more line spacing, and a serif font. Tapping the beginning of what is possible, floated elements will now float around text, rather than falling above or below text. With customizable styles, the entry preview window can be made to mimic your web site's look quite easily.

Better Entry Preview is the evolutionary step of the preview_entry.tmpl alternate template, and is a plugin based on BigPAPI.

Download Better Entry Preview and BigPAPI as a .zip file. Extract, and upload to your...

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UPDATED 09/10: There was a problem with the files as phps so I've zipped them UPDATED 09/04: To fix SmartyPants

So you've downloaded the very new 3.1 with all the amazing features but you've found one problem, your plugins no longer work with the dynamic templating. Well its not only plugins, text filters also no longer work.... Here are some methods by which you can combat this problem, some may not work in all cases but its better than nothing for other cases.

• Text Filters In a previous tutorial I had linked to PHP Markdown, but a few people have contacted me about Textile as well. So I have collected PHP versions of Markdown, Textile and SmartyPants Just download the following...

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I've assembled some templates to build a photo gallery with Movable Type. What makes mine different and special from all the others? Easy: it's compatible with MT version 3.2. That means it'll work with the StyleCatcher plugin and the Movable Type Style Generator!

The only special requirement to use these templates is PHP. PHP is used to calculate the image size. The plugin Better File Uploader - with its For Photo Gallery button - will make adding photos go much quicker.

I've created a small example gallery, if you're interested in seeing the result before trying it yourself.

Setup a New Weblog

First, you'll want to create a new...

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I have been playing around with Zoto and I'm quite impressed.

Uploading Pictures

One of the things about this service is the ease at which you can upload photos. Just download their client (called Zulu) set it up to scan folders where you put your photos and it'll do the rest for you meaning it scans the folders, makes thumbnails of the images and uploads them ! If you add photos to those folder then the client will pick them up too. I experienced a few problems with the client. It told me it had uploaded all my photos yet when I looked in my account they didn't show up, on uninstalling and reinstall the client they showed up !

Of course you could manually upload them, by selecting...

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I've assembled some templates to build a photo gallery with Movable Type. What makes mine different and special from all the others? Easy: it's compatible with MT version 3.2. That means it'll work with the StyleCatcher plugin and the Movable Type Style Generator!

The only special requirement to use these templates is PHP. PHP is used to calculate the image size. The plugin Better File Uploader - with its For Photo Gallery button - will make adding photos go much quicker.

I've created a small example gallery, if you're interested in seeing the result before trying it yourself.

Setup a New Weblog

First, you'll want to create a new...

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3.16 (2005.04.13)

Security

• Made several important improvements with regards to application authentication and security.

Notifications

• Fixed ``Send Notifications'' feature for multiple recipients. • Fixed a bug where comment notifications weren't being sent for some moderated comments.

Error checking

• Improved validation of user input in many places. Leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed from author names, category names, and blog names. None of these can be left blank except for a known issue with editing the...

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For a few months, I had deliberated adding a WYSIWYG Editor into the Movable Type entry screen and when Typepad implemented an editor into its interface I got jealous. So, here's a way to implement the very powerful HTMLArea into Movable Type (currently only Internet Explorer, Mozilla browsers and other Gecko based browsers supported)

1. Download HTMLArea 3.0 rc-1 and upzip it 2. Upload the files to a folder called htmlarea in your StaticWebPath 3. Open up tmpl/cms/header.tmpl and add the following in <head>...</head> tags

<script type="text/javascript"> _editor_url = "<TMPL_VAR NAME=STATIC_URI>htmlarea/"; _editor_lang = "en"; </script>...

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2.51 (2002.10.29)

• Added Windows right-click bookmarklet functionality, where you can use a Post to MT Blog right click option to open the bookmarklet. Thanks to Anil Dash for the code. • Added a generic <MTElse> tag, which can be used to supply an ``else'' condition to any conditional. Thanks to Brad Choate for the code. • Added an <$MTEntryPermalink$> tag, which does the right thing when displaying the link for an entry: if an individual archive, it is not followed by an anchor; otherwise, it is. • When rebuilding files, only rewrite the...

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