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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Jason Kottke has written a thoughtful piece on the difference between standards and semantics, and if you're just learning this stuff by way of my site (heaven forbid) or some of the many others out there, it's worth your time to read it and consider his points.

Let me start out by saying that Jason is absolutely correct. You are allowed to use <font> tags in your valid XHTML. You are allowed to continue designing with tables. As long as you lowercase your tags and watch your nesting, there is nothing stopping you from building your XHTML sites without a lick of CSS.

But if this is all you're doing, you are like the driver of the VW Beetle carefully pulling...

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Continuing on from yesterday's post showing how to make a slideshow from posts in your Movable Type weblog, you might be interested in other ways to present your blog posts so that people who don't read blogs can keep up with what you're publishing.

Today we'll look at Microsoft Office's support for XML, particularly WordML, the XML Schema used to make documents in Microsoft Word's XML format. (If you just want to see the end results, take a look at wordml.xml, showing the Professional Network blog as a WordML file.)

To understand how this works, it helps to know a little bit about how WordML works. John R. Durant's blog has some indispensable links about this topic. If you want to...

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Simple static site templating with a CSS focus.

I use a very lightweight templating system of my own devising on this site that strikes me as something that might be of value to someone, somewhere. No database required, although you could certainly use one in conjunction with this method if you feel so inclined.

This is pretty basic stuff, so feel free to skip this one if you're an old hand at server-side scripting. Then again, it sets up a lot of the CSS tricks I use around here, which may prove interesting even so.

Around 1998 or so, I maintained a semi-large site for a local ISP which grew pretty quickly, so templating was largely a matter of global find and replace. It...

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2.51 (2002.10.29)

• Added Windows right-click bookmarklet functionality, where you can use a Post to MT Blog right click option to open the bookmarklet. Thanks to Anil Dash for the code. • Added a generic <MTElse> tag, which can be used to supply an ``else'' condition to any conditional. Thanks to Brad Choate for the code. • Added an <$MTEntryPermalink$> tag, which does the right thing when displaying the link for an entry: if an individual archive, it is not followed by an anchor; otherwise, it is. • When rebuilding files, only rewrite the...

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Google recently released some useful tips on how to optimize the use of Google Adsense on one's web pages. No surprise - the hottest "hot spot" for the best click-through returns lies right in the middle of your content.

How does one place a Google Adsense ad (or any other ad, bit of text, or image for that matter) between entries on the main index page of your MT weblog? By using a simple trick of the "lastn" and "offset" attributes outlined in the MT manual here.

Normally on your Main Index template, you would have your MTEntries section laid out like so:

for MT 3.2:

<MTEntries> <$MTEntryTrackbackData$> <MTDateHeader><h2 class="date-header"><$MTEntryDate format="%x"$></h2></MTDateHeader>...

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Research shows that low-vision people need dramatically different web design. CSS lets you give them what they need.

Readers of A List Apart will by now be quite familiar with screen-reader users, the largest group of disabled web surfers whom standards compliance actually helps. In a previous article, for example, I examined how well image-replacement techniques work in screen readers (not very).

But - surprise! - most people with impaired vision can still see something, and a large but unquantified segment of this group sees well enough to use a computer with a magnified or zoomed display. We have not done a good job of catering to...

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Question

What's the easiest way to change the look of my weblog?

Answer

The stylesheet template controls the layout and colors of your weblog. Other stylesheet options for various versions are available from Movable Type Styles.

For versions prior to 3.2, copy and paste the stylesheet you like into your Stylesheet template. Save and rebuild the template to see the changes on your weblog.

For version 3.2, see Applying a New Style From the Style Library.

Note that when choosing a new style for your weblog, you should select from among those...

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Question

When I use the MTEntryExcerpt tag, all the HTML is stripped from the text.

Answer

When Movable Type auto-generates the excerpt, it first removes HTML from the entry body text, and then counts to the number of words you've specified for the Excerpt Length setting under Default Weblog Display Settings (on the Settings > General screen)1. If the HTML were not removed first, then the excerpt could inadvertently include open HTML tags, depending on where the word count ends.

The solution to this is to enter your own excerpt text into the Entry Excerpt...

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Specifying the Publishing Model

Problem

You want to specify the publishing model on a per-template basis.

Solution

Set the publishing model using the Dynamic Publishing options on the Publishing Settings tab.

Discussion

To begin click the Settings button on the Weblog Toolbar. In the Publishing tab under the "Publishing Preferences" section you will find controls labeled "Dynamic Publishing."

The default option, "Build all templates statically," is one in which all content will be generated as static files. "Build only Archive Templates dynamically" is how we recommend that...

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Question

When clicking View Site from within Movable Type, I get a 403 Forbidden error.

Answer

In most cases, this means that no index file has been generated in your weblog directory yet. Follow the same diagnostics as outlined in 404 on View Site to troubleshoot this error.

If Movable Type is generating an index file correctly in the weblog directory, and you are still seeing this error, then your server may not be configured correctly to display the index file as the default page for that directory.

In other words, if you can browse to the...

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Question

When I use the <MTEntryExcerpt> tag to display the excerpt for my entry, the HTML is removed from the text.

Answer

The behavior of the <MTEntryExcerpt> tag differs depending on whether or not you have entered your own text in the Excerpt field on the Edit Entry screen.

If you do not enter your own excerpt for the entry, Movable Type will automatically generate one for you based on the Entry Body and your specified Excerpt Length setting in Settings > General : Default Weblog Display Settings1. This is the equivalent of...

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Learning Movable Type has an article that guides you through the steps of creating a three blog layout. The only problem is that the #container width has ben set to 904 pixels. This means that on a 800x600 layout you're going to get the nasty horizontal scroll.

The best way around this is to create a fluid three column layout ( what are fluid/fixed layouts ?).

1.Change the width of #container to 90%

2.Delete #center and corresponding div tags in all your templates

3.Duplicate your sidebar, find the following/similar code in your stylesheet #right { float: left; width:200px; overflow: hidden; }

And replace it with the following: #right { float: right; width: 20%;...

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UPDATE: No more CSS, have MT auto indent.

The "Primary Category" drop down menu just lists the categories sorted alphabetically and doesn't obey the category heirarchies you may have setup. This is especially annoying if you have several similarly named sub categories under different parent categories. So here's a hack that will change the way that field works, the categories will now obey the category heirarchy as shown in the screenshot (click for a larger view) It's probably best to note that I'm not the most perl savvy and this code may not be the most efficient/quickest/best way to do it but it works for me.

You'll need CMS.pm, open it up. Replace everything between

## Load...

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Movable Type's often been praised for both the elegance of its user interface and the way the system's published pages look. But the current generation of default designs have gotten a little long in the tooth, and we wanted to make sure that designers who take the time to make templates and styles get the most value out of their effort. So, we've made some significant improvements to Movable Type 3.2's templates. Here's some highlights: • An attractive new default stylesheet that works easily with 1, 2, and 3-column layouts • Dozens of great new themes available for download for your blog, and the ability to customize these or create your own using professional tools like Adobe GoLive...

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Question

When clicking View Site from within Movable Type, I get a 404 Not Found error.

Answer

• Have you created and saved a new entry with a status of Published (rather than Unpublished); or used the REBUILD SITE option to generate your weblog files?

• Is your Main Index Template set to rebuild automatically? Make sure the option for "Rebuild this template automatically when rebuilding index templates" is checked on the Edit Template screen.

• Do you get any errors when publishing an entry or rebuilding your site? If so, resolve the errors...

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The default entry URL file name structure for Movable Type 2.6 looks something like this:

http://www.yourblog.com/archives/000123.html

This structure puts all of the files into one archive directory and assigns each of them a number corresponding to the number of entries you have entered so far in your weblog.

What if you would prefer to have the URLs for your entries include the actual name of the entry and maybe even the category they are in? Something like this:

http://www.yourblog.com/archives/name_of_category/title_of_entry.html

Easy.

1. Using the entry title instead of the entry number. On the left hand side of your weblog edit window, click on "weblog config" navigation...

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GlobalSanitizeSpec

Movable Type has a sanitize function that is automatically run against all comments and TrackBacks submitted to your blog and also any content produced by a template tag with the sanitize attribute defined (see Global Filters for more details).

This is done to remove any code (HTML or otherwise) that could compromise the security of your site. The function works by only allowing certain HTML tags defined by this setting. Any other tags, and all processing instructions (PHP or Javascript, for example) are stripped.

By default, Sanitize is turned on...

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11.30.2004

Interview with Nick Bradbury

A good interview with Nick Bradbury of TopStyle and FeedDemon fame, with tips on becoming an independent software vendor:

If you plan to do this for a living, focus on building tools that make peoples lives easier or more interesting, and chances are youll last longer and find your work more fulfilling.

Posted by Anil in Blog Strategy at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Trackback (0)

11.30.2004

More on the MT3 Bible

Rogers Cadenhead talks a bit more about the newly-released Movable Type 3 Bible Desktop Edition, and is very generously giving away five author's copies to people who comment on, or link to, his post...

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The default styles that come with MT are what is known as 'fixed' styles. This means that size of objects and their positions are fixed and are defined in pixels (px) This also means, no matter what a person's screen resolution, everything will be the same width and in approximately the same position. Now this may seem good but - especially with MT's default styles - looks bad depending on the screen resolution. Taking for example MT 3's default styles, on a 1280x1024 screen resolution, the weblog appears as quite a narrow bar that is centered on the screen - not very appealing at all.

The other option to 'fixed' designs is 'fluid' designs. A fluid design uses percentages when defining...

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