Chad Everett has updated his MT-Notifier Plugin for Movable Type to version 2.2.2. This excellent plugin lets you send email notifications to subscribed readers of a weblog when you update your site.

As one of the award-winning plugins from our contest, Notifier's got some great functionality. You'll want to grab the new version to make sure you get all the latest functionality.

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Question

One of my authors can't login, and either didn't set or doesn't remember his password hint.

Answer

Please see the Knowledge Base article on Lost Password.

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Question

When visitors post comments to my site, they see a 500 Internal Server Error; however, the comment does show up within the Movable Type interface.

Answer

This typically means your server does not support the background tasks feature. Try disabling this feature in mt-config.cgi1 by adding the following line to it: LaunchBackgroundTasks 0

Then, save mt-config.cgi and upload it back to your server in ASCII mode.

1 In versions prior to 3.2, the configuration file is named mt.cfg.

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Question

The larger my weblog gets, the longer my rebuilds take. How can I improve rebuild time?

Answer

You'll want to take a look at our Professional Network article on How to Speed Up Publishing in Movable Type.

One thing not mentioned in that article is that heavy use of the MTInclude tag can also slow down your rebuilds. If you're re-using a lot of content across multiple templates and files, you may want to consider using PHP or SSI includes instead of the MTInclude tag.

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Question

I made some minor changes to my template, but after rebuilding, the changes don't show.

Answer

• Download Digest::MD5 and unpack it with unzipping software.

• Upload the Digest folder inside to your webserver, in ASCII mode, into your extlib directory.

• Rebuild your site.

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Question

How can I list recent comments to my blog on my Main Index page?

Answer

There are two basic variations on this type of display.

Via MTComments tag

You can put the following into your Main Index Template: <MTComments lastn="6" sort_order="descend"> <p><$MTCommentAuthor$> said:<br /> <$MTCommentBody$></p> </MTComments>

This will display the 6 most recent comments made on any of the entries in your weblog, and sort them in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

Via...

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Question

Where did the name "Six Apart" come from?

Answer

The co-founders of the company, Ben and Mena Trott, were born exactly six days apart.

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Question

Dates on my entries are missing elements such as the day of the week or the month, even though I'm using valid date tag formats.

Answer

Note: The information in this article applies only to versions below 3.2.

The default blog_language may not have been set (due to a bug in certain versions). (You may also see certain Use of uninitialized errors during rebuilds as a result of this bug.)

Go to Weblog Configuration > Preferences, and then select a setting for Language for Date Display.

Save this change and then rebuild your site. ...

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Question

On my search results page, an edit entry link is included for each result, and when I click that link, it takes me to the Edit Entry screen for that entry. I don't want my visitors editing my entries!

Answer

The default search template contains the tag <MTEntryEditLink>, which is generating the links you are seeing. These links will only be visible to you if you are logged into your installation of Movable Type (and have permissions to edit the entry in question).

So, the links will not be present to those visitors to the search...

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Question

Whenever I click certain buttons in the interface, such as the Delete button, nothing happens, and I also see a Javascript error.

Answer

Many of the functions in 3.x are controlled by static Javascript files. Please see Images, styles, and documentation do not show up in the Knowledge Base for more information on the proper configuration for the static files.

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Question

I want to change the extensions on my archive files from .html to something else. How do I do this?

Answer

There is a File extension for archive files setting on the Setting > Publishing screen1 where you can specify this.

Do not enter the leading period (.) when entering your desired file extension.

If you are using Archive File Templates, note that you must specify the file extension in the Archive File Template itself - the file extension defined in Weblog Configuration > Preferences will not be automatically applied.

Note: You cannot leave this...

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Required: MySQL, PHP

If you have PHP enabled and a MySQL database, you can use this closecomments php file.

Keep in mind - this puppy is going to close the comments on your entire database - meaning every single blog that's on that installation using that database.

Step 1: As always, Unzip the shit.

Open the file in a text editor and change the bold printed stuff to your own information (leave the single quotes - just change the stuff inside them):

$database = 'your_database_name'; $dbuser = 'database_user'; $dbpass = 'database_password';

Then change this field:

$closedays = 10;

Right now it says, "I'll close all comments on any entry older than 10 days". You can change that...

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Question

I'm trying to set up a cron job for scheduled posting, but it's not working due to errors.

Answer

Error: Can't locate MT.pm

This means the cron job command is incorrect. It should be: cd /full/path/to/your/mt/install/; ./tools/run-periodic-tasks

For Windows servers, the run command should be the path and filename of your Perl interpreter, followed by the path to the tool. For example: C:Perlinperl.exe ools un-periodic-tasks

Be sure to set Start In to be the full path to your Movable Type directory. For example: C:Inetpubwwwrootmt...

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Question

I see that in the examples in the documentation, some tags use $ and some don't. What is the difference?

Answer

Movable Type allows you to put $ in certain tags to distinguish them from other HTML tags if you wish. However, there are two basic types of Movable Type tags: variable tags and container tags.

A variable tag is a substitution tag. It is a placeholder for a dynamic piece of information. For example, the <$MTEntryTitle$> tag is replaced with the title of the entry.

A container tag contains what might be called a...

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Required: Java, Plugins

I did this so long ago and over so many migraines and fumbling around, I don't know exactly where I got it from. So I'm just going to wing it.

Put this in the <head> part of your comments template.

<!-- Script for clickable smilies --> <script language="javascript"> <!-- function writeImgTag(code) { var cache = document.comments_form.text.value; this.code = code; document.comments_form.text.value = cache + " :" + code + ":"; document.comments_form.text.focus(); } //--> </script>

You need the above code so that when someone clicks a smiley, the code pops up in the window they are typing in.

How I got them where they are is a bit...

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Question

I get an error message that says Can't call method "[something]" on an undefined value.

Answer

Can't call method "maketext"

Make sure you uploaded the following files and folders, all in ASCII mode: • extlib/I18N/ (and everything inside) • extlib/Locale/ (and everything inside) • lib/MT/L10N.pm • lib/MT/L10N/en_us.pm

Can't call method "id" on an undefined value at lib/MT.pm line 770

Please upgrade to the latest version of Movable Type - there was a bug in previous versions where a Tag error in a Template would cause this error to appear, instead...

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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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Question

Most of the text fields (such as for entry text or template code) are extremely narrow.

Answer

This is an indication that the styles for the interface are not being applied correctly.

Follow the instructions in Images, Styles, And Documentation Do Not Show Up to resolve this issue.

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Question

When I create a new entry, sometimes I see buttons for bold, italic, underline, and links. I logged in today in a different browser and they are missing! What happened?

Answer

Formatting buttons appear only in browsers which are able to use them. The browser you are using may not support the functions at this time.

Currently, the browsers in which the buttons are available are: • Firefox • Mozilla 1.3+ • Netscape 7.1+ • Internet Explorer 5.5+ on Windows • Opera 8 on Windows • Camino for Mac

Safari does not properly support the Javascript for rich text...

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Question

When running the script, I get an error message that says Got an error: install_driver(sql) failed:, where sql is either mysql, Pg or SQLite.

Answer

This error means you have configured mt-config.cgi to use a SQL database option, but the appropriate required module is either not installed, or is missing a component it needs.

If the error references mysql, then the DBD::mysql module is not properly installed.

If the error references Pg, then the DBD::Pg module is not properly installed.

If the error references SQLite, then the DBD::SQLite...

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