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

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Question

How much does Movable Type cost?

Answer

You can refer to our pricing page to find the cost for the license which is appropriate for your use. There is also a Movable Type license that is available for free for personal, non-commercial use by anyone who does not want technical support and who meets the usage limitations for authors and weblogs.

Purchase of any license of Movable Type is backed by a 30 day money-back guarantee.

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Question

I'm getting messages about syntax errors in one or more files.

Answer

Syntax errors are an indication that there was a problem uploading the specified file to your server: either it was not uploaded in ASCII mode, or the file was truncated during transfer.

Upload the file(s) again, making sure to specifically choose an ASCII or plain text transfer mode; and verify that the file size on the server after the upload matches the original file size.

...

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Question

When installing Movable Type, I get an error message that says Can't find default template list; where is 'default-templates.pl'?

Answer

First, make sure that a folder named lib exists in the same folder where you installed Movable Type, and that there are several folders and files inside of it. Then, make sure that the specific file lib/MT/default-templates.pl was uploaded there, and in ASCII mode.

The files are also case sensitive, so make sure it is lib/MT/default-templates.pl, not lib/mt/default-templates.pl, or Lib/Mt/Default-templa...

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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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Some days ago, a new version of MTLookup was released. Please read Second version of MTLookup released for the announcement. I will describe the new features in several posts, which will be published here in the Movable Type Weblog.

Today, I want to tell you about several small improvements.

Website Selection

With the first version of MTLookup, either all or a single website was searched. Today, there are more than 20 websites and you can select any combination of websites as the target of your query.

The websites can be selected one by one with the help of checkboxes. As the websites are grouped, you can also select one of three groups thus selecting several websites at the...

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Question

When trying to install Movable Type on GoDaddy, I get a 500 error.

Answer

The 'sbox' software which GoDaddy uses on their servers rewrites the current working directory for all CGI scripts to its own directory. Because of this, Movable Type can't find its own library modules.

To get around this, you will need to edit the first line of all of the *.cgi scripts to look like this: #!/usr/bin/perl -w -I/path/to/mt_dir/lib

where /path/to/mt_dir/lib is the full path to the lib folder in your Movable Type installation directory....

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Question

When running an upgrade script, I see the message You do not seem to be running the MySQL version. Exiting....

Answer

Note: The information in this article applies only to versions below 3.2.

Certain upgrade scripts only need to be run if you are using the MySQL version of Movable Type. If you see this message, and you are not using MySQL for your database, it is safe to disregard the warning and continue to the next upgrade script.

If you are using MySQL, make sure you've not inadvertently overwritten your original mt.cfg file when updating the Movable Type files on your server. If so, you may need to recreate this file with the correct settings for MySQL....

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Question

When clicking any of the archive links on my site, I get a 404 error.

Answer

Versions 3.2 or Higher

If you're using Advanced Archive Publishing on the Settings > Publishing screen, make sure that the settings you've designated for Archive URL and Archive Root correspond correctly to the same location on the server.

Versions Prior to 3.2

This usually means your Local Archive Path in Weblog Configuration > Core Set-up does not correspond to the same location on your server as the Local Archive URL, so you should check your settings...

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Question

Movable Type does not allow duplicate category names, even if the two categories are under different parent categories. Can this restriction be avoided?

Answer

There is a way, which makes Movable Type see all your category names being unique. And at the same time, if the user sees the categories, there may be duplicates.

Please read FAQ: Sorting the Categories and avoid alphabetical Sequence, where another question is answered but also solves this problem.

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...

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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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Question

I have installed Movable Type and MySQL. When trying to use Movable Type, the following error message will be shown.

Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client

Answer

The message results from MySQL having changed an important detail with its latest release. With version v4.1, MySQL changed the way users are authenticated. Obviously, passwords are stored differently in this version than in previous versions. You can read more about this problem and how to solve it in Migrating to MySQL.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this...

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Question

When I click on my comment and TrackBack links, they take me to an archive page, but there is no comment posting or TrackBack information on that page.

Answer

The Individual Entry Archive template is the one which contains the comment and TrackBack information; if your Preferred Archive Type in Settings > Publishing1 is not set to Individual, then the links won't point to that page.

So you should either: • Change your Preferred Archive Type to Individual.

• Use the archive_type attribute on the permalink tag: <MTEntryPermalink...

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Question

I want to exclude a category from the list of entries on my index page. How do I do that?

Answer

If you only have a few categories, you can specify the ones you want to appear by using the category attribute: <MTEntries category="Apples OR Bananas OR Peaches">

That would exclude any entries in a category called Oranges.

If you have several categories, listing them all with an OR could be tedious. In that case, you should consider using the ExcludeCategories plugin.

...

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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

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Question

How do I apply a new style from the Style Library?

Answer

Note: Styles from the Style Library are only compatible with the new 3.2 Default Templates.

Applying the Style Manually

• Download the zip file for the style of your choice from the Style Library and unzip it to your local computer. All of the files should be organized into a single folder named after the style and prefixed with theme-. For example, after unzipping the file for the Beckett style, the folder would be named theme-beckett.

• Open your FTP program and navigate to your mt-static...

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Question

I installed Movable Type and did some tests. Anything works fine. Now, what should I do for styling the generated pages according my need?

Answer

Movable Type uses templates and contents for generating the HTML pages. The templates are made up of HTML and markup. The HTML is left untouched by the generation process. However, the markup is processed. It defines the structure of the final pages. It allows flow control - such as "loop over all entries" - and it is used for accessing the database (such as "insert the entry's title here").

So for styling the website, the templates have to be modified.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

...

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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

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Question

I have unchecked the option to Enable Unregistered Comment Moderation. Despite this, I still have to approve every comment before it shows up.

Answer

Are you running an older version of MT Blacklist? If so, it needs to be uninstalled. You should upgrade to the version of the plugin which is compatible with 3.x if you wish to continue using its features.

For more information on the newest version, see MT Blacklist - A Movable Type Anti-spam Plugin.

...

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I am currently working on a new version of MTLookup, offering lots of new features. In a previous article, I wrote that it will probably be released in August. That schedule is still valid.

One improvement will be an extended database. More websites will be indexed, more articles will be included. For this, I recently described how to get indexed by MTLookup.

There are two ways for making your articles be included in MTLookup.

Two choices

The component, which is resposible for collecting articles, is the MTLookupBot. It reads your website and saves the needed data in the database.

The work, which is done by the MTLookupBot, is very similar to many other well-known bots - such...

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