Question

I downloaded both the Full Package and the Upgrade Package from my account, and they both look the same. Shouldn't they be different?

Answer

Due to improvements in the installation and upgrade process, including renaming the configuration file which ships with the download from mt.cfg to mt-config.cgi-original, we're now able to offer a single distribution package that works regardless of whether you're upgrading from an older version or installing Movable Type for the first time.

This not only simplifies our ability to prepare the...

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Question

How do I add a new weblog in Movable Type?

Answer

Assuming you have the necessary permissions to create weblogs in the system: • Determine the location for your new weblog and create the folder for it on your server, using FTP or a File Manager provided by your host. If your server is not running under cgiwrap or suexec, remember to set the permissions on the new folder to the UNIX equivalent of 777.

Tip: It may not always be necessary for you to create the weblog folder yourself: in version 3.21, Movable Type will try to create the folder...

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Note: This plugin used to be called LastModified, and had an MTLastModified tag. Since version 2.65, Movable Type has had a built-in MTEntryModifiedDate tag, making the plugin tag obsolete, but MTIfModified is still useful.

This Movable Type plugin implements a template tag for displaying a section of template code conditionally based on whether or not an entry was modified since it was created.

Installation

To install the IfModified plugin, upload the file IfModified.pl to the plugins directory within your Movable Type directory. If you do not already have a plugins directory, create one before uploading the file. For more information about Movable Type plugins, see the documentation.

Contac...

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Question

When using Movable Type, the images don't appear, no styles are being applied, and the Help links don't work.

Answer

If you installed Movable Type into a cgi-bin, certain files (referred to as "static" files), must be situated outside of the cgi-bin in order to be readable by your browser. The rest of this article explains how to make sure Movable Type can find these files.

Which Files Are Static Files?

Version 3.2 and higher

In version 3.2 of Movable Type, all of the required static files are stored by default in a folder...

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Question

I had to re-install Movable Type, and when I imported all of my entries, they were assigned new IDs. Can I get my old IDs back?

Answer

Movable Type has to assign new entry IDs during the import to avoid overwriting any entries which already exist in the installation with the same IDs, so this behavior is intentional. There really isn't an easy way to fix this, because the entry ID is used extensively throughout the database to tie all the data together for a particular entry.

This is one reason why the default file naming convention was...

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Question

When running the script, I get an error message that says CGI Error The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers..

Answer

Windows 2003 Server doesn't set the current working directory to the same path as the CGI script. You can confirm this discrepancy by looking at the top of your mt-check.cgi results: # Current working directory: (path) # MT home directory: (different path)

To correct this behavior, you (or your host) should do the following: • Create a new "virtual directory" under...

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Question

When running the script, I get an error message that says CGI Error The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers..

Answer

Windows 2003 Server doesn't set the current working directory to the same path as the CGI script. You can confirm this discrepancy by looking at the top of your mt-check.cgi results: # Current working directory: (path) # MT home directory: (different path)

To correct this behavior, you (or your host) should do the following: • Create a new "virtual directory" under...

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Question

When I try to run any of the Movable Type files, I see the source code of the CGI script in my browser.

Answer

If you see the source code, then your webserver has not been configured to run CGI scripts from the folder where you've installed Movable Type.

This is not something that you can configure yourself on a hosted account, so you will need to contact your hosting provider and ask them to enable CGI for your account (or for the webserver as a whole).

If you run your own webserver, or if you have access to the webserver configuration...

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Question

How do I configure Windows to recognize .cgi files as Perl scripts?

Answer

• From the Start Menu, navigate to: Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services • In the IIS Administration console, use the left-side navigation to go to: Local Computer > Web Sites > Default Web Site. • Right-click on "Default Web Site" and choose "Properties". • Select the "Home Directory" tab, and then click "Configuration". • Click the "Add" button. • In the form, fill in...

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Question

When I try to login for the first time with Melody/Nelson, I get a 404 Page Not Found error.

Answer

This typically means your CGIPath as set in mt-config.cgi1 is incorrect. • Make sure the CGIPath is the URL you use to log in to Movable Type, minus the mt.cgi piece: CGIPath http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/mt/ • Remember to include the trailing slash (/) at the end of the path.

• Also, case sensitivity may be an issue on your server. Make sure your CGIPath uses all lowercase letters (unless a capital is truly part of the folder name, i.e., MT rather than...

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2.1 (2002.05.02)

• Added webMaster, language, lastBuildDate, and pubDate to both RSS templates. • Added encode_html="1" to all RSS fields that didn't have it already. • Added Norwegian dates. • Added test for mt-check.cgi to determine whether we are running under cgiwrap or suexec. • Added a new global tag attribute encode_url (thanks to Scott Andrew LePera and others for the idea). • Changed the behavior of the publish flag in blogger.newPost; previously, if set to false the new entry would be saved as a draft. This was a bad idea, for...

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Updated again Monday night, midnight, Oct 4

This post is in reference to: Attacked!. I've posted the following update on that post and here.

One possible way that this attack could have happened is if someone else on my shared web server used a simple php script to read my database username and password. With this information, he or she could have accessed my MySQL database and made changes to the templates. I have sent a request to my web host to address how they handle PHP security. In particular, I was advised to suggest that my web host start using a PHP directive called "open_basedir" to restrict the files that PHP can open. The information on this directive can be found...

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Today we are releasing Movable Type 3.17. This release addresses four issues that do not affect the majority of installations, but are critical for users with certain configurations.

Version 3.17 is not a required upgrade if your Movable Type installation is not affected by these issues.

Changes in this release include: • Installation at the root of a domain no longer continually logs out the user. • Fixed URL-encoding of uploaded file paths (e.g. images%2fbeach-pic.jpeg) • Fixed a bug in the nofollow plugin which causes HTML sanitization of everything within an <MTPings> block. • Fixed a bug in mt-db2sql.cgi which caused it to fail in certain situations when subcategories...

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Question

I'm getting an Invalid Login message when trying to sign in to Movable Type.

Answer

First Login?

• Is this your first login attempt after installing Movable Type? If so, did the installation script run successfully? Until it reports success, you will not be able to log in. • Are you entering the default username (Melody) and password (Nelson) correctly? These are case sensitive.

Changed Hosts or Servers?

Are you trying to log in after moving servers, and you are using the Berkeley database?

When you change hosting providers (or just move...

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This section of the appendix details all configuration directives that can be defined in mt-config.cgi. Through use of these directives, you can control numerous aspects of the system.

Except for those which define things specific to your system (e.g. CGIPath and your database settings), all of them have defaults set by Movable Type. This means that not every directive will appear in mt-config.cgi. If you wish to override the default for a setting which does not appear in the file, simply add it and the desired value to your mt-config.cgi.

...

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3.2 (2005.08.25)

Major Features

• New dead-simple AJAX-powered installation/upgrade process (see screencast demo) which replaces mt-load.cgi and all mt-upgrade* scripts. Also eliminated the upgrade distribution since only the config file would be different. • Combined mt.cfg and mt-db-pass.cgi into mt-config.cgi. Shipping as mt-config.cgi-original so as to prevent overwriting when upgrading. • Introduced the new System Overview section which allows administrators to configure and manage aspects of the system across all weblogs • Introduced a plugin-based feedback rating framework which scores comments and TrackBacks upon submission on a scale from -10 (least desirable) to 10 (most desirable)...

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Over time a lot of content will be generated by a site, especially a weblog or news-oriented site. Finding that content in a reverse chronological archive can be difficult and frustrating. Local search can make a site more accessible by providing readers with the means to dynamically zero in on the content they are looking for.

Built-In Search

Movable Type's public search interface originally began as an add-on to MT developed by Jay Allen before formal plug-ins existed. The code was later integrated into MT version 2.5.

The search engine provides a rudimentary means of querying an MT system for...

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The name of the author of the comment. • default

If a name is not given, the value of this attribute will be used.

Back to top | Permalink | Comments (0)

MTCommentAuthorIdentity

...

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Question

I'm using a plugin, and the output does not change when I refresh the page.

Answer

Most Movable Type plugins are static, which means they only change when the templates are rebuilt. If you want something that will change every time your browser refreshes, you need a dynamic solution.

Examples of dynamic solutions are PHP, SSI, and Javascript. If you are using the MySQL backend, you can also use PHP to connect directly to the database.

With the implementation of dynamic publishing in version 3.1 of Movable Type, more and more plugins...

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Question

When performing various functions in Movable Type, I get errors that include SCALAR reference and/or refer to problems with Serialize.pm.

Answer

These errors are almost certainly an indication of database corruption.

Corruption occurs most often with the Berkeley database. Berkeley is far more susceptible to this, and unfortunately, there are few options for recovery. You will most likely need to reinstall with a fresh database, recreate your weblogs, and import your entries.

When reinstalling, we strongly advise you to choose MySQL as...

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