Question

I understood that each entry is placed on the main index page. Some of my entries are "something special". They should never be placed on the start page. How can I achieve this?

Answer

Depending on how you define "some of my entries", there may be a specific solution. For example, there is a plugin for excluding certain categories. If you want a general purpose solution, you should look at Comparison needed for conditional Generation. In this entry, I describe how certain parts of a page can be conditionally generated.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this entry? Was it interesting or boring? I would like to...

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Question

I would like to link to this weblog. Would you mind?

Answer

I would be very happy if you linked to this weblog. With some luck you might even win a prize. On page Link and Win you can read about the monthly drawing.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this entry? Was it interesting or boring? I would like to hear your comments. If the text was helpful, please consider setting a link to http://www.movable-type-weblog.com/.

No spam please!

For protecting this weblog I have installed the MT-Approval Plugin. You have to view a new comment in preview mode, before it is saved on the server. Moreover, I will view...

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Question

How was the design for this website created? And how much work was put into the website?

Answer

I have got used to designing a website in a graphic tool. In my case this means using Adobe Photoshop CS. After the graphical design was finished, I created HTML and CSS. I started with the files belonging to a standard installation of Movable Type.

Estimating the effort is rather difficult, as this was my very first Movable Type project. I had to do a lot of learning and much was found by trial and error. Based on today's knowledge such a website including design and conversion to HTML and CSS can be done in 2-3 days.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this...

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Question

I have also started to work with Movable Type. But I do not know how you realized "..."

Answer

Over the time I will describe some of this website's internals and their implementation in Movable Type. If you have a special question, please let me know.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this entry? Was it interesting or boring? I would like to hear your comments. If the text was helpful, please consider setting a link to http://www.movable-type-weblog.com/.

No spam please!

For protecting this weblog I have installed the MT-Approval Plugin. You have to view a new comment in preview mode, before it is...

continue reading ...

Question

I can not make TypeKey work. If somebody clicks on the "logon here for using TypeKey" link, there will be a message saying "The weblog ... has not yet decided to use this function ... please inform the webmaster".

Answer

You have to be very careful, when entering URLs for this function. They have to be absolutely identical. Even a difference in upper / lower case will make this function fail.

The following two URLS must match exactly: • The directory, where you installed Movable Type, also contains a configuration file. It is named mt.cfg. It has a setting called CGIPath, which points to your virtual directory for the Movable Type installation. • If you log in to TypeKey, there will be a section named »Weblog Preferences«. You may enter up to 5 different URLs, which you want to be TypeKey enabled....

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Question

Is Movable Type the only software for producing weblogs? Is it the best product for creating a weblog? Why did you choose it?

Answer

Movable Type is not the only such product. There are a couple of other products with similar functions. For example two well-known applications are Blogger and WordPress.

I discovered weblogging by coincidence. Movable type was the software that I found first. Absolutely no evaluation took place. I assume most well-known products have similar functions.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this entry? Was it interesting or boring? I would like to hear your comments. If the text was helpful,...

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Question

I want to change my weblog's banner. However, this is a laborious task. The banner is defined in several templates. Do I always have to change each of these?

Answer

Indeed, the original templates that are distributed with Movable Type are not structured very well. Many parts seem to be copied from template to template. Fortunately, there is a special tag that enables us to write a section for a template once and use it in different situations. Maintenance will be easy, as the changes have to be done at just one location.

Please read Organize your Templates with MTInclude for learning about the MTInclude tag.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this...

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Question

I just installed Movable Type. On the right side of the start page, there is a link labelled "Syndicate this site". Clicking on it shows very strange text. Is it necessary? What do I need this for?

Answer

Readers come to your website and start reading your contents. However, there is also another way of publication. Syndication is a method for making the content available to many types of consumers.

With »Syndicate this Site« an XML file will be created, which contains URLs, titles and excerpts of your entries. Other programs, for example a so-called newsreader, will collect the XML files from several weblogs and presents the data in its own user...

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Question

I always use the »Entry Body« and the »Extended Entry« when creating a new entry. Then a »continue reading« link appears on my start page, pointing to the Individual Entry Archive. When clicking the link, the entry appears. However, it is scrolled vertically, so that the lines of the »Extended Entry« are on top of the screen. I do not like that. Can it be avoided?

Answer

You have to modify the »Main Index Template« for achieving that. • Open your Movable Type project. • Click on »Templates« in the left menu bar. • Click on »Main Index.« • A dialog will appear. In the »Template...

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Question

I have a couple of categories. I preferred if entries belonging to one category were styled in a different way than entries belonging to another category. Can I have per category templates?

Answer

Movable Type does not allow this right out of the box. However, there are a couple of ways for achieving this behavior.

You can use the Supplemental Category Tags. This is a collection of several category-related tags. Among others, the collection also contains the »MTIfCategory« and »MTIfPrimaryCategory« tags for creating a condition based on an entry's category.

On MT Extensions, Per Category Templates you can read a tip about how to use the...

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As you've probably seen, either through rumors in the blogosphere, in the FAQ linked on our company homepage, or in Mena's account on Mena's Corner, we (Six Apart) have acquired LiveJournal. A lot of the details are covered in those links, but there's some information that might be of specific interest to the Professional Network community:

(Re-)Introducing LiveJournal

Most of you are probably familiar with LiveJournal, but it might be worth reviewing what it is and how it works for those of you who haven't had a chance to take a look. As you might know, LiveJournal is a hosted journal service that's similar to TypePad in some ways. However, LiveJournal is strongly focused on community,...

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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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So yeah, we know that there's been an elephant in the room, sorry it took two days to announce that yes indeed, Six Apart did acquire LiveJournal. It has been hard not to react to all the questions and comments but we needed to finish all the legal documents and close the deal officially before we could say anything.

Finally I can spend some time talking about why we did this deal, what it means for LiveJournal users, what it means for Movable Type and TypePad users and for Six Apart and Danga. I hope that I can even dispel some crazy rumors.

As my posts tend to be pretty verbose, I'll first link to a FAQ that should answer a lot of questions that people may have. Once you've read...

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If you are looking for help making the transition to CSS layout (that's Cascading Style Sheets), you've come to the right place. I am cataloging here as many useful cross-browser CSS layout techniques as I can find, and some that I made up when I was bored last Thursday. All the examples on this site have been reduced to only their essential code, and you will find the source displayed on each page to hopefully make it quick and easy to understand the inner workings of the CSS. Feel free to steal all the code you find on this site, and consider linking back here on your site or in your source comments.

You will also find below links to various online CSS resources and tutorials, appropriate for both the novice and the seasoned CSS veteran....

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In Comparison needed for conditional Generation I showed how to use the Compare Plugin for managing variations of a page type. The plugin allows comparing values and optionally inserting one or the other code segment into the output stream. However, the simple condition "if one value equals another value" is just the beginning. We are also able to create complex conditions. It is not even that difficult.

Basics

The Compare Plugin offers a number of tags, as for example MTIfEqual, MTIfNotEqual, MTIfGreater, MTIfGreaterOrEqual, MTIfLess, etc. Most of them work the same way: they take at least two mandatory attributes, a and b. The plugin compares the values of those two...

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02.17.2003

Text Formatting Plugins Available

As we mentioned in our original post on Text Formatting, we hoped that Text Formatting plugins would make it easier for non-technical users to author and format weblog content. We released 2.6 just last week, and already plugin developers have implemented some exciting new Text Formatting options: • Timothy Appnel released a beta of his TikiText text formatting. • Brad Choate released version 1.1 of his Textile plugin. • Gregor Purdy released a POD text formatting text formatting plugin. • And, since we forgot to mention it previously, Adam Kalsey released MovableJive, a "port of some classic text filters".

Posted by Benjamin Trott at...

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(Note that this tutorial is appropriate for MT versions 2.661 and earlier.)

Say you want to send an email to your weblog readers when you update your blog, so they know to go to your site. There are various ways to do this. Movable Type has a built-in email notification feature. Unfortunately it is probably the least robust of the many wonderful MT features as I will explain shortly. With some serious hacking of the code the feature becomes more functional. Another option (which I prefer) is Bloglet, a third party service that can seamlessly provide email notifications for your site.

1. Movable Type's built-in Email Notification feature. Using MT's email notification feature, you...

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Usually a weblog is not the best place to give a good introduction into a certain subject. The author writes about whatever he wants. He doesn't care whether the current entry fits to the last entry or not. With this sitemap I want to give a complete listing of all entries and bring some structure into the chaos.

You can also use a simple list or a category-grouped list of all entries.

Why do I start a weblog?

There are probably many reasons for starting a weblog. Maybe you are interesting in mine. • In the Beginning nothing but Problems • Wake up! • Trying to be a Global Player

Basics

When I first read a weblog I thought its structure was rather difficult to understand....

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Strange adding a category called categories... but I digress.

Two Roads Diverged...

I've been working on a new blog in which I want to sort the categories in order other than alphabetical. Now, there is an quick and ugly solution, and there is a time-consuming and beautiful solution. First, we'll look at the ugly way of sorting your categories of the U.S. Presidents:

The Easy, Ugly Way

Create first category for Washington, only call it 01:Washington. Create second category for Adams... name it 02:Adams. So and so on through the U.S. Presidents. When Movable Type builds your page, it catches those initial numbers and puts them in order by number. A...

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