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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Textile is a ‘Humane Web Text Generator,' created by Dean Allen of Textism. After seeing Textile in action, I decided that I must create a Movable Type plugin that does the same thing.

I came to that decision before Movable Type 2.6 and the custom text filter thing were announced. In fact, seeing Textile spurred me to write to Ben about a way for MT users to have more text formatting choices and the option to select them on a per-entry basis. To my delight, he replied that "it's already in the works."

So here we are a couple of months later. MT 2.6 is in beta (and very near to release)...

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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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Update: A 2.01 release of MT-IfEmpty is now available, which mainly adds support for dynamic publishing in MT 3.1x.

You can download this plugin here: mtifempty-2_01.zip.

Usage: <MTIfEmpty var="EntryTitle">(untitled)</MTIfEmpty> <$MTEntryTitle$>

Embedded expression support works like this: <MTIfNotEmpty expr="[MTEntries days='1']1[/MTEntries]"> We...

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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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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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09.29.2004

Behind the Scenes - Brenna Koch

Behind The Scenes is a new series where we here at Six Apart discuss what tools (software, technology, etc.) we use to do our work.

I'm Brenna Koch and I work in technical support for Six Apart. If you're curious, "Cook" is how you pronounce my last name. I usually hear "Cotch" since that's how it is said in some areas and I also hear more ah... interesting variations. But now you know.

We have many browsers around in the support department but my favorite is Safari. I utilize keyboard commands with my bookmarks bar for fast access on the sites I use all the time like my test weblogs and pages in the help system...

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