Movable Type: RFI

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Looks to be a super-terrific Blogger-esque website tool, EXCEPT you actually install it on your website, thereby freeing yourself from the whims of Blogger's servers. Information (& downloads) are right over here.

― David Raposa, Friday, 8 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm thinking of using it, if only because my desire to muck around w/ SQL books and other such things is supplanted by my desire to, say, clean behind my fridge, clean inside my fridge, pass gas, play Spin the Bottle with starving hyenas, eat raw liver, etc.

― David Raposa, Friday, 8 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've only just installed it, like a couple days ago. Lots of heavy lifting involved.

― Benjamin, Friday, 8 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

Reviving because I finally got MT installed and talking to my MySQL database finally. Now to figure out how to import all my old Radio Userland stuff over.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 22:00 (twenty-two years ago)

What You'll Need:

A six-pack, about 6 hrs. of free time, and lots & lots of patience.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 22:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Sweet. Good luck. I've no experience with Radio, but they seem to have a helpful user base from which to draw knowledge.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Yah... It's entirely possible that I might just ace the whole Radio import thing. I rendered out the site as static HTML and I might just leave it that way. Haven't decided yet, though my immediate task now is to patch up the awful looking default MT templates.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I got irritated at Radio because of the yearly $39.95 charge. I thought that you only needed to keep feeding them cash if you were using Userland's hosting service, but apparently not.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I wish I had enough je-ne-sais-quoi to monkey w/ the stylesheets, because the MT templates don't inspire me one damn bit.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Discovery of the moment. Set MT to use an external file for it's main stylesheet. Edit file to heart's content in the editor of your choice (using BBEdit here) and upload back to your web server. MUCH easier than dealing with trying to edit it via the MT forms.

Also, don't forget "view source" whenever you run across a web site you like. "Great artists steal" and all that...

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 00:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Less than 24 hours and I already like MT better than Radio.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 00:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Speaking of BBEdit, I finally got around to downloading a demo of 7.0. Are the other programs they're offering at present worthy?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 01:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Is there any way to spy on folks' stylesheets, tho, Chris? If there is, SHARE!

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 01:11 (twenty-two years ago)

David, find out what the stylesheet URL is and hit it. You should be prompted to download it unless your machine opens it by default with some editor. Either way, you can definitely spy on a stylesheet.

― martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 01:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Look in the header of the source of the page you want to steal from. The stylesheet URL will be there... usually "style.css." Then paste that address into your browser window, and it'll give you the option to save it.

Steal wisely, now.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 01:30 (twenty-two years ago)

David -

I'll use my site as an example. Load up weblog.quartzcity.net in the browser of your choice and then view the source.

Look for a tag that says something like link rel="stylesheet". There will be a file or URL named something like filename.css.

On my page it's href="http://weblog.quartzcity.net/ckb-blogstyle.css", but often it'll be a relative link e.g. ckb-blogstyle.css. Either way, load it as a URL in your browser: http://weblog.quartzcity.net/ckb-blogstyle.css

Presto changeo... The stylesheet.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 02:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I just installed MT on my server. I did it all by my lonesome. The last time I installed it, on a different server, I got frustrated after three days of working on it and gave up and paid them to do it for me. Not so this time. Took about one hour to get it all set up, if you don't count beer breaks. It's been tweaked ever so slightly since last year, and a couple niggling little problems have been smoothed over. And! Now there's a built-in search engine. I didn't have that before.

Three things I learned: download the full library, no matter what all features your server offers. Before you go messing with the perl address at the top of the script pages, try installing it without touching it. The line at the top of the scripts looks nothing like what the instructions tell you it will look like, but just leave it alone. Nine times out of ten, it will work. And most importantly, follow the directions extremely literally. If it says add such-and-such line of script, that does not mean to replace another line. Just add it. That's all. Do not second guess the directions on anything.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Aw, thanks, guys. I thought I tried shenanigans like that before (to no avail), but I'll definitely give it a shot. All I have to do now is make Dreamweaver open the CSS file like it's formatted & not one big ol' blobbo text.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 15:20 (twenty-two years ago)

It doesn't do that automatically? Curious... Mine did.

And Dreamweaver... *drool*. What a Godsend.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

I ran across this incredibly useful page which breaks down MT's CSS and HTML template configurations.

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

That's great, thanks dude.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 23:36 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

I just installed MT on my server all by myself! It only took me an hour or so, I think. Yeah, the documentation is a little dense (it took me forever to remember shell commands since I hadn't worked with them in years and they don't so much tell you what a shell is or how to get to one) but I sorted through it. That link looks great, Chris, thanks. I'm only slightly functional in CSS so this will do a lot to help.

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 12 October 2003 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Congratulations!

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 12 October 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

Does anyone know if it's possible to have a category be the default category for new entires? (This is for MT 2.661.) I want most entries to be of a certain category and it's annoying to have to remember to set it each time.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 07:18 (twenty years ago)

six months pass...

New version 3.2 is now available:

http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/news/2005/08/movable_type_3_2.html

― James Mitchell (James Mitchell), Thursday, 25 August 2005 20:28 (twenty years ago)

eleven months pass...

I take back everything I said about Movable Type. I'm switching to WordPress

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, it's shit, isn't it? The only thing I don't like about WP is the layout. I'm not *smrat* enough to change it... BUt the rest is just great.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 16:27 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, those were the days. Nowadays, when I blog, I use WordPress. WordPress: because MT is balls.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

I've been elbow-deep in MT's blog templates, so modifying WP's templates isn't that big of a deal, but it's still a hassle to make something that deviates in the slightest from WP's pre-fab styles. But at least it works.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

I hatehatehate those pre-fab styles of WP. I blame that for my lack of writing. :-( I really hate the way it looks. :-((((((

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

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