Alternative MovableType interface?

July 11, 2006 3:38 PM

Are there any alternative interfaces - web or desktop-based - for MovableType? I'm a Macintosh user.

The MT interface really cramps my style and body: the font sizes are all like 6px and ridiculous; the standard textarea input is locked to a small area and defies any ability to drop in sensible HTML and spell-check and so forth (and also uses like -2px font size), and well, it's just clunky. Is there anything cool out there that I have missed that will allow you to maintain your MT site w/o venturing into that user interface?

posted by xmutex to technology (12 comments total)

Mars Edit

Ecto
posted by voidcontext at 3:49 PM on July 11, 2006

MarsEdit

Ecto

I use Ecto; I get the impression it's a little more complicated than MarsEdit, which I'm sure is a good program, but I've been using it since before it was called Ecto.
posted by adamrice at 3:51 PM on July 11, 2006

D'oh!
posted by adamrice at 3:51 PM on July 11, 2006

Adam, close, so close...

Of the two I use Mars Edit, but I only because I got it along with NetNewsWire when they were bundled. Haven't given Ecto much of a chance.
posted by voidcontext at 3:54 PM on July 11, 2006

You could also try a Movable Type plugin like EnhancedEntryEditing to modify the interface.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:14 PM on July 11, 2006

The new version (3.3 is technically in beta, but is complete, if you want to grab it from the beta site) fixes the tiny font problem. It also lets you resize the text area and remembers the setting.

You can also customize the posting screen itself using Alternate UI Templates, which are discussed here and I wrote some docs about here. Even if you just want to modify the CSS, you can remake MT's UI pretty extensively, as evidenced by the Pimp My CMS tag on Flickr.
posted by anildash at 4:22 PM on July 11, 2006

Oh, and if you want to get really far out, you can do that too. Check out all the screenshots for some ideas.
posted by anildash at 4:24 PM on July 11, 2006

anil: those are cool tips; any screenshots of MT 3.3?

Ecto looks pretty awesome too.
posted by xmutex at 4:27 PM on July 11, 2006

Ecto is pretty good. Make sure to keep your serial number handy though. I lost mine when I got a new computer, and my requests for them to resend it through their reseller or whatever have resulted in a resounding silence.

I still recommend it though.
posted by ejoey at 6:35 PM on July 11, 2006

weblogger.el and Carbon Emacs, all the way.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 7:17 PM on July 11, 2006

There's also the Flock Browser which is based on Firefox (I think) and has a bunch of built-in features for photo uploading, feed reading, and blogging with Movable Type, Blogger, etc etc.
posted by bcwinters at 6:42 AM on July 12, 2006

I sixth (or whatever number we're at) ecto -- it rules, bigtime.
posted by delfuego at 8:45 AM on July 13, 2006