Configuring the System

Problem

You need to configure a Movable Type system.

Solution

Add to and modify the configuration directives in mt-config.cgi, the Movable Type configuration file.

Discussion

Configuration directives define the baseline information Movable Type needs to run in any given environment. These should not be confused with the system and weblog settings accessed through the MT interface. The configuration contains only the basic information that MT needs to get running.

The following steps detail the basic configuration each installation will initially need in...

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3.16 (2005.04.13)

Security

• Made several important improvements with regards to application authentication and security.

Notifications

• Fixed ``Send Notifications'' feature for multiple recipients. • Fixed a bug where comment notifications weren't being sent for some moderated comments.

Error checking

• Improved validation of user input in many places. Leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed from author names, category names, and blog names. None of these can be left blank except for a known issue with editing the...

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With Movable Type 3.2's focus on enabling community, we wanted to make sure that a blog administrator can recognize the people who build the community around a weblog. And if you're keeping a personal blog, you want to make sure your friends feel welcome when they visit your site.

TypeKey Authentication

Last year, we released the TypeKey authentication service to allow commenters to identify themselves in a consistent manner. This lets site owners assign persistent rules to an individual that act every time that person visits a blog. Since then, over a million people have signed in with the service, and a thriving community has sprung up around the TypeKey service and protocol.

The TypeKey authentication...

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03.16.2004

Testing Begins & More Info about 3.0

We're taking our first steps towards the release of Movable Type 3.0. The pre-beta version has just finished its initial two rounds of alpha testing and we're now opening the testing to a larger audience (we've picked 300 random addresses from those who applied and will be adding more as time progresses).

The testing that we're conducting will not only help ensure a stable final release but will also give us an opportunity to receive feedback on feature implementation from both users and developers.

Starting today, we'll be giving all of our users much more information on what to expect in Movable Type 3.0....

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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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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...

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Question

When I try to log into Your Account, I get an error message that says "Your User Record Could Not Be Found".

Answer

A Movable Type account will not exist for you until you download a 3.x license using your registered TypeKey name. You must first select a license from our Pricing page and then log in with the TypeKey username when prompted. Downloading the license is what creates the account in our system.

Paid Licenses

If you paid for a supported license, you'll need to use the order number link from your email receipt to...

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07.13.2005

Announcing Movable Type 3.2 Beta

Over the past two weeks, we've been telling the world a lot about Movable Type 3.2 and now it's time to show it.

Today, we are releasing the first beta version of Movable Type 3.2 and we encourage everyone to download it and see for themselves.

You can find the details over on the Beta Blog. We hope to see you over there!

Posted by Jay Allen at 06:19 PM | Permalink

07.05.2005

Intermittent "500 Server Errors" in MT (RESOLVED)

If you are experiencing intermittent "500 Server Errors" while using Movable Type and are using MySQL for your database, we are aware of the cause...

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Updated August 29, 2005. Originally posted in 2004.

Spammers have discovered bloggers and sooner or later if you allow comments or trackback pings on your weblog you will get spammed.

Blog spam appears in many flavors:

1) Basic comment spam. The spammer leaves a short uneventful message in a comment field in one of your entries. The spam comes from the URL placed in the comments URL field. These URLs link back to every conceivable scam. The spammers leave URLs here to create a link from your site to theirs, thus increasing their Google ranking. Spammers are also now linking to legitimate sites that have not cleared their pages of comment spam, thus increasing the Google rank...

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Movable Type uses a template system to generate the pages of your weblog. To change which content elements and how they are displayed on the pages of your blog, you need to make changes to the appropriate templates.

Selecting "Manage Templates" from the sidebar navigation in your weblog edit screen will show you the list of templates, but what do they all do? And, if you are trying to conserve storage space on your server, are there any you can delete?

Index Templates

Index templates have individual output files, specific to the template. Let's go down the list.

Click on image to enlarge

• Atom Index - The Atom Index produces an Atom syndication feed, atom.xml for those...

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Authentication status

This option allows you to set up TypeKey (or a compatible service) on your blog to enable authenticated commenting. This is highly recommended as an extremely effective and easy anti-spam technique.

The "Setup Authentication" button will launch a wizard in a pop-up window that will easily allow you to complete the setup. You may also enter your TypeKey token (found on your TypeKey profile) manually into the space provided.

If you are not using TypeKey, but instead a TypeKey-compatible service, you must enter the token manually....

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• Once an entry or category has been set to receive TrackBack pings, disabling pings for it through the UI will not actually refuse pings to that item but will suppress display of those pings. • Rebuilds will fail silently after saving an entry if a problem exists in your templates (for example, mismatched tags or a missing include module). An error will be shown, however, upon manual rebuild using the "Rebuild Site" functionality. • The nofollow plugin will cause a spurious warning for users with older versions of Perl upon running mt-check.cgi, mt-testbg.cgi or any of the...

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•

01: Installation and Upgrade

• Introduction • Choosing the Right Weblog Platform • Finding Perl on your Server...

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Right after having bought Movable Type there were problems. Fact is that the installation description does not contain specific information for the Windows platform. Because of this, it took some time until I finally managed to make it work.

Looking back after having completed the installation successfully, it is not difficult. Until Six Apart gives better installation instructions for Windows users, maybe my description will help.

Introduction

The installation consists of the following parts • Installing the Perl runtime environment • Copying the Movable Type components • Configuration of some Movable Type files • Configuration of MS IIS • Creating the Movable Type Database

All screenshots can be...

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Changing the Comment Registration Service

Problem

You want to change your system's authentication service to another TypeKey-enabled system.

Solution

Set the TypeKey configuration directives in mt.cfg and reset your authentication token.

Discussion

TypeKey the service and TypeKey the API.

Defaults. System wide directives. Their usage.

TBD. Awaiting finalization/debugging of "auto-token" system.

...

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Question

How do I change the information on my account, such as my email address or password?

Answer

Changes to your account information must be made in your TypeKey Profile. Log into your TypeKey account and make your changes there; then, the next time you log into Your Account, you must say YES to "Share your email address?" so that it will update your account with us.

You can change your email address, password, and public name, but your username cannot be changed.

Note that if you change your email address, you will need to confirm...

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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.

Back to top | Permalink | Comments (0)...

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Question

When anyone tries to sign in to post a comment on my site, they keep getting this message:

The site you're trying to comment on has not signed up for this feature. Please inform the site owner.

Answer

Make sure you have entered the correct URL in your TypeKey profile under Your Weblog Preferences on the Account Preferences page: • Use the domain URL that matches your CGIPath in mt-config.cgi1, rather than the blog URL.

If you have http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/ for CGIPath, then use http://www.example.com/ as the application URL in...

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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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Announcing MovaDir v2 This directory uses MT and Typekey technologies to create a pretty powerful directory script. This is how it is set out in MT: • Categories in the directory are categories in MT • Links listed in the directory are entries • Any reviews of the links are stored as comments • Use of Brad's Key/Values plugin to track who submitted the link (Typekey profile only!)

Signing in with Typekey really opens up the power of the directory, signing in allows you to • Submit links to the directory -- these go through an approval system • Suggest categories • Maintain a favourites/bookmarks list -- similar to the hotlist here, save your favourite links • Comment on links • Email listed sites to...

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