To save space on your sidebar listing of categories or monthly archives, you might want to use a pull-down menu like so: Select Category Beginner Tips Categories Definitions General HTML and Javascript Install Marketing Reference RSS Security Servers Style Weblog Goodies

To do this for your category list, make sure that you have category archiving selected as an archiving option in your weblog config, and add the following code to your sidebar:

<form action="" name="pulldown1"> <select name="mypulldown1" onchange="document.location=pulldown1.mypulldown1.options[selectedIndex].value"> <option value="">Select...

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Introduction

Weblogs are not just a one-way medium for publishing. With the use of a singular, often conversational voice, enhanced by the loosely coupled nature of the Internet and lightweight syndication formats, weblogs are akin to conversations, regardless of the size and makeup of the audience. "A" writes about something on their mind -- an experience, the news, or a project's status. "B" reads it and expresses their take. "C" finds both posts interesting and notes something A and B has not mentioned and so on.

Not everyone has a weblog (sadly) and not everyone wants to make...

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Categories provide an alternate means to the weblog's traditional chronological form of organizing entries. Movable Type allows you to enter a list of categories using a variety of methods and assign one or more to each of your entries. You can use MT's categorization facilities to group related entries despite chronology or simply as a means of filtering entry listings in the CMS more easily.

Each entry can be assigned one primary category and any number of secondary categories. The primary category is used when you wish to display information about just one of the categories to which an entry is...

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Introduction

With the most difficult part of running Movable Type -- the installation -- behind you, it is time to get started using MT.

It all begins with The Movable Type Content Management System (CMS). This script is the heart and soul of what makes powerful weblog publishing possible.

The CMS contains the majority of the intelligence and work flow that makes Movable Type what it is. Whether it involves posting an entry, adding a colleague as an author, or publishing your content with a whole new style, it is the CMS that is doing the heavy lifting.

By default the CMS script is...

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All roads in weblogging lead to posting entries, for without posted entries there is no weblog. It should come as no surprise that the Entries Listing and New/Edit Entry screens are where most users will find themselves when working with Movable Type.

In these screens a user can view what entries are in a weblog, filter them based on certain criteria, make new posts and edit existing ones.

Entries Listing

The Entries Listing screen displays either all the entries for the weblog or just the entries made by you. What gets displayed depends on whether or not you have been granted Edit All Posts access.

...

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With the most difficult part of running Movable Type -- the installation -- behind you, it is time to get started using MT.

It all begins with The Movable Type Content Management System (CMS). This script is the heart and soul of what makes powerful weblog publishing possible.

The CMS contains the majority of the intelligence and work flow that makes Movable Type what it is. Whether it involves posting an entry, adding a colleague as an author, or publishing your content with a whole new style, it is the CMS that is doing the heavy lifting.

By default the CMS script is named mt.cgi, although this...

continue reading ...

Weblogs are not just a one-way medium for publishing. With the use of a singular, often conversational voice, enhanced by the loosely coupled nature of the Internet and lightweight syndication formats, weblogs are akin to conversations, regardless of the size and makeup of the audience. "A" writes about something on their mind -- an experience, the news, or a project's status. "B" reads it and expresses their take. "C" finds both posts interesting and notes something A and B has not mentioned and so on.

Not everyone has a weblog (sadly) and not everyone wants to make a post to their weblog for everything...

continue reading ...

Introduction

All roads in weblogging lead to posting entries, for without posted entries there is no weblog. It should come as no surprise that the Entries Listing and New/Edit Entry screens are where most users will find themselves when working with Movable Type.

In these screens a user can view what entries are in a weblog, filter them based on certain criteria, make new posts and edit existing ones.

Entries Listing

The Entries Listing screen displays either all the entries for the weblog or just the entries made by you. What gets displayed depends on whether or not you have...

continue reading ...

Making posts quickly from your browser

Problem

You want to be able to make posts quickly from your browser.

Solution

Set up a QuickPost bookmarklet using the link on the Main Menu.

Discussion

A bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program that can be stored as a URL within a bookmark in most popular web browsers, or within hyperlinks on a web page.

Setting up a QuickPost bookmarklet to post to Movable Type allows you to perform one-click posting and publishing without ever using the Movable Type CMS interface.

Movable Type's QuickPost utility allows you to customize the layout...

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2.6 (2003.02.13)

• Added Text Formatting options. Instead of a simple Convert Line Breaks checkbox, you can now set a different formatting option for each entry. Plugins can add new options to the Text Formatting menu, which allows for greater integration with the formatting within the system (for example, Text Formatting will be applied on the preview screen). • Added PostgreSQL and SQLite database drivers. • Incorporated Brad Choate's Sanitize plugin, adding an mt.cfg setting for a global default and a per-blog setting to override it. Sanitize is turned on...

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One of Movable Type's most powerful traits is its flexibility to adapt to practically any weblog design or use you can imagine. For the average user, most of this flexibility comes from Movable Type's template engine.

The template engine is crucial to automating the process of publishing and is what makes a publishing system go. When a rebuild is performed, templates are merged with content to create a page that visitors can view in their browsers.

These templates are what control the design and layout of your site and what keeps that design separate from the content. Templates describe where you want...

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Enabling an Entry for Comment

Problem

You want to allow comments to be made on an entry.

Solution

Set the Allow Comments pulldown menu on the New/Edit Entry screen to Open.

Discussion

"Turning on" comments for a particular entry is easy. While creating or editing an entry, simply set the Allow Comments pulldown menu to Open. Depending on the display options you have set for the New/Edit Entry screen, this control may or may not be visible. Also depending upon the Default Settings for New Entries for the weblog, it may already be set to Open.

This control is dependent upon the...

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Controlling the Naming of Archive Pages

Problems

You want to control the naming of files for a particular archive template.

Solution

Modify the template's Archive File Path on the Publishing Settings tab.

Discussion

The Archive File Path allow you to customize the names/paths of your archive files. This allows you to define a directory structure and file naming from a weblog's archives. For each Archive Template that you use, you can define an Archive File Path in the pulldown menu to its right on the Publishing Settings tab. This pulldown includes a number of common options...

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Moving to a Different Weblog

Problem

You have multiple weblogs in your system and want to move from one to another.

Solution

Select the name of the weblog in the Weblogs pulldown menu found in the Primary Navigation and press Go.

Discussion

One of the most useful features of Movable Type is the ability to manage multiple weblogs from one installation. The Weblogs pulldown menu found in the Primary Navigation makes moving between multiple weblogs quick and easy. This control contains weblogs that you have permission to access. Simply choose one and press Go....

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Assign Multiple Categories to an Entry

Problem

You want to assign more then one category to an entry.

Solution

Follow the Assign Multiple Categories link found on the New/Edit Entry screen.

Discussion

As discussed in "Posting a New Entry", you can assign a category to an entry with the Primary Category pulldown menu. Assigning multiple secondary categories works a bit differently.

From the New/Edit Entry screen, click the Assign Multiple Categories link under the Primary Category pulldown menu. A list will appear with the names of every category in the system. The primary...

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Creating a Category or Subcategory

Problem

You want to create a category or subcategory to assign entries to.

Solution

Use the Create action on the Category Listings screen.

Discussion

Creating a category is a quick and easy affair. Before you can begin, you must check that you have Edit Categories permission for the weblog.

Begin with the Category Listing and click the "Create new top level category" link. To create a subcategory, click the "Create" link next to the parent category.

If you are making a new entry and need to create a new category, Movable Type provides a...

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Customizing the Edit Entry Screen

Problem

You want to customize your view of the New/Edit Entry screen.

Solution

Click the "Customize the display of this page" link on the New/Edit Entry screen.

Discussion

Movable Type allows you to customize the New Entry and Edit Entry screens. This customization is on a per-author, per-weblog basis. In other words, as an author, you can have different screen layouts for each weblog that you post to, and when you customize the screens, your customizations will be seen by you only; your preferences will not be seen by other authors in the...

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By default, Movable Type offers two formatting options for the text in your entries: None and Convert Line Breaks. The former leaves your entry intact without any conversion and is appropriate for HTML-formatted entries. The latter includes basic formatting of paragraphs and line breaks allowing you to write as you would normally.

The Movable Type Plugin API allows you to add additional options via plugins such as the popular Markdown and Textile.

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Introduction

One of Movable Type's most powerful traits is its flexibility to adapt to practically any weblog design or use you can imagine. For the average user, most of this flexibility comes from Movable Type's template engine.

The template engine is crucial to automating the process of publishing and is what makes a publishing system go. When a rebuild is performed, templates are merged with content to create a page that visitors can view in their browsers.

These templates are what control the design and layout of your site and what keeps that design separate from the...

continue reading ...

2.5 (2002.10.08)

• Localization: the MT interface can be available in multiple languages, on a per-author setting. • Integrated Jay Allen's mt-search (Thanks, Jay!). We've made the following changes from version 1.31b: • Rewrote ``new comments search'' to make it more scalable (using recently_commented_on functionality) • Added a search log through the Activity Log. • Added search request throttling, to help against denial of service attacks. • Merged mt-search.cfg directives into mt.cfg....

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