Recently in MovableType Category

I've been testing the Facebook Connect plugin for MovableType 4.23 for the past few days. It's in beta, so I expected to encounter some issues. However, it was so close to working 100% that I stubbornly tried to fix the bugs myself rather than wait for Sixapart to fix them. I thought I'd share what I learned and save you hours of troubleshooting yourself.

First, as an example go check out a post of mine demonstrating my Facebook profile picture automatically being inserted into the comments:
Related Entries with Images & Recent Assets Linked to Entries

Feel free to post a comment using the Sign In link. But you have to be signed into Facebook first to see the Sign In link. (more on that bug later)

Bug #1: Firefox works, but Internet Explorer doesn't work. The Facebook blue sign in button is missing under Sign In link & IE doesn't pull in Facebook profile pictures.

Movable Type bloggers ♥ related entries template recipes and I've come up with what I think is one of the best ones out here. Further, Movable Type bloggers using version MT 4+ with its built-in Asset Management have also been clamoring for the ability to display not just Recent Assets (images in this case) but Recent Assets hyperlinked to the actual Entry where the image was used. I've come up with such a method, so read on...

By default, Movable Type's Recent Assets widget simply links to the image location and not the context of where the image was used. Of course, an image asset can be used multiple times in multiple blog entries, so my template recipe limits it to the most recent entry. But this should be a perfectly acceptable compromise.

Let's start with my Recent Image Assets linked to entries (Part 1) recipe and then I'll discuss my Related Entries with Images recipe (Part 2).

Facebook Connect is appearing in more and more websites, including Techcrunch, SFGate, and more, allowing you to use your Facebook credentials to post comments on third-party websites. TechCrunch announced Facebook Connect support for their comments just a few days ago. Yesterday, perhaps in response to Google Friend Connect opening up their service to everyone, Facebook announced just yesterday that their Facebook Connect service was now open to everyone (previously invitation only). Any website can now pull personal data about visitors from Facebook and send back activity reports to their news feeds. All you need to do is fill out a self-service application. Then you need to integrate it with your website.

Curious if a plugin existed for Movable Type I googled for it, and found a post on Six Apart's website titled "Facebook Connects with Movable Type". Intrigued, I clicked through and saw this written by Anil Dash in July of this year, including a screenshot of it in action:

This is a call out to all bloggers out there - Rich Tehrani, my boss has extended an open invitation to bloggers interested in blogging for TMCnet.com, a leading communications/telecom site according to Alexa, Quantcast, and others.

Today, TMC launches its Blog Aid program to help people out of work stay in the public eye - in order to improve their hiring prospects in a tough economy. In the last few months, many good marketers, PR people, engineers and others who have been laid off. These potential Blog Aid bloggers have a good deal of quality commentary and information to share which could be very useful to the TMC community of online readers.

TMC is offering these new bloggers - especially those working in the communications and technology industries, a venue to voice their thoughts on the spaces where they have expertise so as to allow them access to the 2-3 million global visitors who come to TMCnet on a monthly basis.

So if you enjoy writing about communications, telecom, VoIP, wireless, unified communications, mobile, etc. and want a wide audience, go check out Rich's blog for more details.

p.s. The blogging platform is Movable Type 4.21.

Movable Type 4.0+ has several plugins that utilize Movable Type's extensible Open ID Login framework to give a customized login experience for AOL/AIM, Yahoo, Movable Type, WordPress, LiveJournal, or Vox users on Movable Type blogs. The logon requirements for AOL/AIM, Yahoo, Movable Type, WordPress, LiveJournal, and Vox all support OpenID which makes this possible.

On any blog entry you'll see the following text near the Comments form:

Sign in to comment using AOL/AIM, Yahoo, Movable Type, WordPress, LiveJournal, OpenID, or Vox. Or comment anonymously.

Once you click Sign In you'll see this cool new sign-in screen with multiple Open ID providers.


If I click on Yahoo! for instance, you'll see this screen:


Some of these plugins do have further requirements to get it to work.

The Yahoo! plugin requirements:

• Movable Type 4.2
• Crypt::SSLeay Perl Module

The AOL/AIM plugn requirements:

• Movable Type version 4.0 or above.
• Digest::SHA1 Perl module. Run mt-check.cgi for information on how to obtain it.

The others probably use the same components.

Additionally, there is a flaw in the onload javascript command with Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) when used with MyBlogLog, a cool javascript-based widget that shows your recent readers/visitors to your blog, lets you view web stats, and with the right plugin you can get avatars in your comments.

Whenever I have the MyBlogLog widget enabled, it conflicts with Movable Type's " body onload" command. i.e. my blog has this in the HTML code:
<body id="mt-blog" class="mt-entry-archive layout-wtt" onload="mtEntryOnLoad()">

For some reason MyBlogLog overrides or conflicts with Movable Type's onload command. Technically, it's an Internet Explorer 7 bug and not MyBlogLog's fault. Still, MyBlogLog is used on a lot of Movable Type blogs and they should offer an alternative method. I should point out that FireFox and Opera can see the "Sign in" message just fine. So it's only IE7. I think IE6 and earlier work but haven't tested it.

In theory I can change Movable Type's default mt.js javascript file to use an alternate event, but I really would rather not mess with the MT 4.2 default templates too much. Opens up a whole can of worms. So I've disabled MyBlogLog until I can figure out how to fix the problem.

Well, enjoy the new login features. I haven't tested all of them yet (WordPress & Yahoo in particular) so feel free to post a comment to test this.

And if you're also running MT4 and are interested in enabling comments from AOL/AIM, Yahoo, Movable Type, WordPress, LiveJournal, OpenID, or Vox users, go download the following MT 4 plugins:

• Yahoo! Login via OpenID
• Wordpress Login via OpenID
• AIM OpenID Login 1.0 for Movable Type

Well, after several weeks of planning, I finally upgraded our blog server to Movable Type 4.2, Six Apart's latest and greatest MT blogging platform. Technically, it's Movable Type 4.2RC1 (release candidate 1) and still considered a beta, but close enough, I say. I was tired of waiting for MT 4.2 to launch. TMC was using MT 3.33 for the longest time and I really wanted many of the MT 4.0+ features including custom fields, asset management, performance improvements, and some better CMS management.

Everything in the upgrade went fairly smoothly. The biggest help were several MT-Hacks.com plugins developed by MT guru Mark Carey. My favorite of which is TemplateInheritance, a plugin that lets me configure one "master blog" with customized templates and then have all the other templates inherit their templates from this master blog. You can remove inheritance for specific templates, such as a blog roll template that each blogger wants to customize. Overall, this plugin saved me a ton of time. If you use Movable Type for multiple blogs, go buy this plugin and tell Mark I sent you his way.

Other useful plugins I installed include:
Pagination
TemplateExporter
TemplateInstaller
FastSearch
CacheBlock
VisitorStats
Media Manager
MT-Notifier

And a few other miscellaneous plugins. I'm going over to the Movable Type plugin repository now to check out some other cool plugins. I'm debating installing the FCKEditor plugin, which I did try in my pre-production tests. It works great, but the upload function replaces the built-in MT 4.2 asset management. Maybe if I can hack the FCKEditor plugin to work with the asset management tool I'll install it.

Of course, the bloggers are used to FCKEditor on MT 3.33, so they're used to the feature-richness of this rich text editor, including smiley faces, spell check, and tons of customizable buttons. So if the bloggers revolt against the built-in MT 4.2 rich text editor I may have to install it.

Well, some odds and ends to clean up on the blogs, but let me know how you like it. Also, you'll noticed I added a widget that displays recent blog entries from "Around TMCnet Blogs". Hope you like the new look!

Zemanta notified me to tell me that Zemanta's Firefox plugin now works with Movable Type. Woohoo! They said, "Just wanted to drop a quick note that we released a new version of Zemanta today that adds support for MT 4.1. Only through extension for now, but plugin will follow in a few weeks." I was a little peeved that their initial launch included Wordpress and not MT so I actually posted a thread to their forums asking when Zemanta would be available for Movable Type. They promised me support for MT was coming and indeed it has!

What Zemanta does is simply monitor the text in your blog draft and then go out on the web (connecting to Zemanta's web servers) to find relevant/related images, articles, and tags. I guess you could call Zemanta a blogger's "cheat sheet" for quickly finding relevant articles, images and tags. Until now, Zemanta only worked on Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, Typepad.com, and self-hosted Wordpresses from version 2.0 onwards. But as of today, Movable Type 4.1+ is supported. Speaking of Movable Type, the latest version of Movable Type v4.15 was expected to be released 2 days ago (May 19th), but was delayed until May 28th. Bummer. Can't wait to upgrade, since MT 4.15 has some cool new features and performance enhancements. But I digress...

Below is a screenshot of me testing it on Movable Type 4.1 while pretending to blog about Michael Jordan. Click for full-image where you will see the Zemanta Firefox plugin seamlessly integrating into the Movable Type interface. From the Gallery I was able to hover my mouse over an image to see a description, copyright info, source, etc. and then simply click on the image to have it inserted into my blog post. Same thing with related articles and related tags. As to whether I'll actually use Zemanta on a regular basis remains to be seen. I prefer uploading my own images to the blog server rather than "hot linking" to outside images. But I'm going to try it for awhile and see how it goes.

I've been testing Movable Type 4.15 beta1 for a few weeks now with plans to migrate from Movable Type 3.33 to 4.15 when the product finally launches. According to the Movable Type roadmap wiki, the final non-beta version will launch in 6 days. Well, technically it says "Target Release Date: May 19ish" so they're leaving some wiggle room. Regardless, I'm pretty excited about the pending launch. There are essentially three version of Movable Type as so eloquently explained by master Movable Type plugin developer Mark Carey from MT-Hacks.com.

In general, all MT versions include the same identical core, MTOS (Movable Type Open Source) . "Packs" are effectively plugins that add-on to the core. So we have:

1) MTOS = MTOS (Movable Type Open Source)
2) "Commercial" = MTOS + Professional Pack (Custom Fields, etc.)
3) "Enterprise" = MTOS + Pro Pack + Enterprise Pack

I was testing MT Commercial 4.15 Beta1 which allows me to add custom fields. I found several bugs in beta1, including a couple that required me to hand edit some Perl code to get MT4.15beta1 to successfully upgrade my MT3.33 database. Unlike the MTOS "nightlies", which have regular updates, the Commercial version has been stuck on beta1 for quite some time. However, I just happened to be viewing the Movable Type website's file directories and looking at the MTOS nightlies when I decided to click "Parent Directory" to go up one level. I then clicked on the betas directory and saw a listing of all the available betas. Then I saw a file called MT-4.15b2-en.zip that was obviously the beta2 version I had been waiting for!

Looks like they have an English and Japanese version available, as seen here with both beta1 and beta2 files listed:

MT-4.15b1-en.tar.gz         24-Apr-2008 10:29 4.3M
MT-4.15b1-en.zip             24-Apr-2008 10:30 5.3M
MT-4.15b1-ja.tar.gz         24-Apr-2008 10:31 4.0M
MT-4.15b1-ja.zip              24-Apr-2008 10:32 5.0M
MT-4.15b2-en.tar.gz      12-May-2008 21:12 4.4M
MT-4.15b2-en.zip           12-May-2008 21:13 5.4M
MT-4.15b2-ja.tar.gz         12-May-2008 21:14 4.0M
MT-4.15b2-ja.zip             12-May-2008 21:14 5.0M

I didn't see any news about MT 4.15beta2 launching. So I googled it and still didn't see much. I checked Movable Type's wiki and blog and no announcement there either. According to the filename dates above, they did just upload them yesterday, so perhaps they haven't gotten around to announcing it. Of course, it looks like they're launching the final code in 6 days anyway.

Actually, they do list the download link to Beta 2 here, but this page mentions all the betas and doesn't point to this as being 'big' news. Usually MT will make an announcement somewhere. Anyway, the page says, "Professional Pack Betas: Beta 2 - corresponds to MTOS beta 5b". So it looks like Beta 2 finally has "parity" with MTOS beta 5b, which has been ahead of the commercial version for some time. It does indeed appear that Six Apart is close to launching the final code since the code bases are so close now.

Well, migrating to MT4.15 should be fun and with some cool new features.

So I get Six Apart's Movable Type newsletter which talks about how they want the Movable Type community to help make Movable Type faster. After all, Movable Type is open source now, so what better opportunity than to ask the community for help making Movable Type faster, right? Interested, I decide to click through and lo & behold their Movabletype.org website is down. Oh, the irony! No doubt Wordpress fans will seize upon this shortly to add to the Movable Type vs. Wordpress war.

Below is a snippet from the newsletter, which is interesting for MT fans, including myself. I'm just hoping the outage doesn't last long since I'd like to grab a copy of the code to try out.

MT: Faster and More Fiery!

Okay, so we're not setting Movable Type on fire. But the important news is, the Movable Type team is on fire, working to soup up your site with a bunch of new powers from performance enhancements to some exclusive new location-based features. Here's a peek at what's on tap, as well as a chance to show your support for MT.

FASTER!

We’re always on the lookout for ways to make the Movable Type platform better. And first among those improvements is pure performance. From publishing pages to leaving comments to managing your blog, there's no part of working with MT that wouldn't be better if it were a little more zippy.

So we've got the entire MT team -- all over the world -- focused 100% on making MT faster. And, even if you're not a coder, you can help out in the effort -- we've made an experimental version of MT that's got a performance monitoring system, the equivalent of hooking an athlete up to a bunch of medical sensors. The anonymous data that this custom version of Movable Type collects can be sent back to the team, so they can see exactly where improvements need to be made.

Want to find out how to get the code, how to share your data with the team, and what else we're doing about making MT zippy? Check out our post on the Movable Type Community blog.

A Movable Type Exclusive: Yahoo! Fire Eagle

From his first days working on Movable Type 1.0, our co-founder and CTO Ben Trott has always been interested in connecting the platform to cool web services, especially ones having to do with location. (Or, as geeks call it, geodata.)

So naturally, when our friends at Yahoo! launched their new service called Fire Eagle, which is all about connecting together applications that can use or provide location data, we knew exactly what Ben would be hacking on. As a result, Movable Type is the first and only blogging platform in the world to have an advanced plugin for connecting your blog to this exciting new service, provided directly from the person who first coded on the platform itself.

Best of all, this innovative new capability connects to the last exciting new feature we released for the platform, Movable Type's Action Streams. Action Streams collect all of your activities from the different web services you use around the web, and let you publish them easily on your site under your full control. And now every time your Fire Eagle location changes, you can share it with whomever you choose using the power of Action Streams.

To find out more about the Fire Eagle plugin for Movable Type, you can read about it from Ben Trott himself, get started by grabbing the free plugin for your Movable Type install, and make it even more powerful by combining it with the free Action Streams plugin. We can't wait to see what the creative minds in the Movable Type community do with all of these new capabilities.

I've had the ability to offer email subscriptions to my blog posts for a few years now. I took it out of my blog templates since I figured most people use RSS these days. However, I've come to the conclusion that some not everyone is a fan of RSS, and do visit my site directly. And so, I have added the email subscribe capability back in. If you want to sign-up, just add your email address in the top right-hand corner. It's a double-opt in, so you will get an email asking you to confirm.

Kudos to the MT-Notifier plugin which adds this capability! I can also enable subscriptions to categories, but I don't want to get crazy.

Now when I create a new post you'll be instantly notified.

Enjoy!