Features

What’s the big deal with Movable Type (MT)? Why are so many people moving their weblogs to MT? What is it like? Should I use it?

There’s no question that weblogs are getting more popular as are the applications that manage them. The applications can be used to create static sites.

In the old days (like way back in 2000), most weblogs used Blogger or just plain ol’ Web design programming. Today, we have numerous apps from which to choose and many of them low-cost or free. One entry into the weblog phenomenon is Movable Type, which has grabbed a large number of fans in a short time.

Weblog Features

Before we delve into the intricacies of MT, let’s look at the some of the features available in weblog apps:

• Comments - Gives readers the opportunity to respond to a weblog entry.
• PermaLink - Gives entry its own permanent link for later re-reading or referencing.
• Archive - Saving older entries in an organized manner for re-reading or referencing.
• Calendar - Click the calendar to see entries for the selected date.
• Remote (bookmarklet) posting - Enable webloggers to post to weblog without going into the app.
• Other authors - Ability to invite others to post into a team weblog.
• Multiple weblogs - Add and manage multiple weblogs within one app without signing for additional accounts.
• Templates - Gives a variety of design choices to webloggers who don’t wish to design their own.
• Hosted server - Ability to manage a weblog on a hosted server tied in with the app.
• Own server - Ability to run a weblog from your own local harddrive and/or web server.
• Editing - Includes variety of features such as spellchecking, bold, italic, and adding URLs.
• Categories - Associate entries with a category or multiple categories.

This is not even a complete list of all the features available. MT has all of these features available except for the hosted server since it allows you to install it on your own server. If you don’t have one, there are many Web sites that offer free hosting with ads.

In conjunction to notifying weblogs.com, MT has its own list of updated weblogs. This helps new weblogs gain publicity in multiple locations.

MT also has an email notification system. If you want to offer email notification to your fans, they supply the email and get automatically added to the notification list for the specific weblog. Usually notification comes to an emailbox, but this one goes straight to MT’s application.

There are occasions when I want to write an entry, but not release it. MT gives you the ability to HOLD, RELEASE, or date an entry. This can be helpful to multiple authored weblogs. It makes it possible for the team to create its own process for going live with a new entry.

Installing MT and a Little Handholding

The instructions are clearly written that following them ensures a successful install. Those who are familiar with CGI (common gateway interface), CHMOD (changing permissions), and FTP (file transfer protocol) find the steps easy to implement. Plus, the interface’s simplicity eases the learning curve.

Anyone who has not used FTP may find the installation challenging, but if they’re willing to learn, they can seek help from the Movable Type support forums. Ben and Mena Trott, the developers behind MT, are amazingly responsive to the numerous questions posted on the boards. Plus, many users help each other.

I attempted to install MT on a free server account since that has better CGI support and I didn’t want to make a bigger mess of the meryl.net backend. After following the instructions, I tested it and got an error message, not a 404, 500 or anything of the sort. I went back and re-read the instructions and began to kick myself for overlooking an important element: the requirements . The free server is using PERL 5.003, not the required PERL 5.004 (Lesson #1: make sure you have the required tools before proceeding).

I went to my host provider to find out if they had a valid version of PERL as well as the two required modules. Searching the support database, I found PERL 5.003 in the loaded modules list and became more discouraged. With nothing to lose, I dropped a line to tech support to ask them and forgot about MT for the rest of the afternoon.

Tech support responded indicating the server has PERL 5.6 loaded! Yahoo! That motivated me to try again. Repeat – follow instructions, verify one of the two required modules is not loaded on the server. No problem… downloaded, unzipped, and uploaded the file to the server without fail. Proceeding with the rest of the instructions, everything went perfecto!

Too clean. I feared my troubles were waiting for me when I imported existing entries from the previous weblog. I saved the rest of the work for another day.

Frightening Part for Long-time Bloggers

The scariest part of the whole process is importing entries from another weblog application into MT. MT provides separate instructions for importing from other applications. As an extra precaution, I copied my current template and saved it on my computer as well as copying the archives and other data files.

To make it scarier, I used the <p class="title"> on recent entries to make the title of the entries stick out so readers could immediately know what it is about. MT gives you an option of letting it know whether or not you have titles in your entries. The answer is, obviously, "yes and no." I swallowed hard and hit "Import."

All 300 entries import into MT flawlessly. Whew. Do dance of joy.

Thinking the worst was over, I hit REBUILD and ran into a roadblock, hard. 500 - Internal Server Error. After researching the MT forum and talking with Christine, we figured out that the imported entries were too big for my server to handle. She came up with a workaround and ta-da! Everything was in. I copied my old templates into MT and everything worked like a charm. I tweaked a few things here and there as I got more familiar with MT entry screen, editing menu, and other screens and features.

Image Pop-Ups

A feature I’ve never seen in any other weblog is the image pop-up template. At first, it was tough to figure out how to use it because I FTP images to my server. The image pop-up feature didn’t show up until I used MT to upload an image for me, then it would either give me the HTML code to put in the entry or create a new entry with the code itself.

It also helps you embed an image within an entry, so when people read the entry, they will see the image right there. The popup provides a link on text that has to be clicked to view the image. Click image pop-up template to see how the popup works.

The code makes a link to the image so it pops up in a box with the dimensions of the picture instead of linking to an image and having huge whitespace all around it that when you close it, you’re also closing the weblog site, but the whitespace example opens a new box since I added markup to make it happen.

“Why Did You Move?”

Several people have asked me why I switched. That’s easy:

• manage the stuff on my own server rather than a less reliable shared server
• responsive and interactive tech support and community forum
• rich and useful features
• stays updated with latest advances in weblog applications
• strong supporting documentation
• ability to syndicate
• bookmarklets for posting to MT from any Web site and it’ll add the web site’s link
• remote sign-in and posting without requiring another PC to be up and running
• ability to use it as a static site (articles) and as a weblog.

Ben Trott and Mena Trott have put together a powerful, user-friendly application while being responsive in the tech support forums.

Does this mean I think MT is the best? You’ll have to put up with a gray area answer. I don’t think any single application is the best for weblogging and personal Web publishing (this and most weblog applications are not Content Management Systems, but that’s another story).

It’s all about the features you want and need. I think the beginners will be overwhelmed with this application unless they’re patient enough to rely on the forums for help and learn the FTP process and dealing with CGI files. Intermediate and advanced users can take off with this application and take it places.