Movable Type question: What sort of MT Maintenance/additions are best - MT 2.6x?
August 21, 2004 12:07 PM Subscribe
Movable Type question: What sort of MT Maintenance/additions are best - MT 2.6x? (more inside)
Ok, so I'm running a MT blog. 2.6x.
First, it's the only one I run - is it worth it to move over to 3?
Second, what sort of regular maintenance should I be doing?
Third, what plugin's are essential. I'm using the MT blacklist one. But do you depend on anything specific?
Ok, so I'm running a MT blog. 2.6x.
First, it's the only one I run - is it worth it to move over to 3?
Second, what sort of regular maintenance should I be doing?
Third, what plugin's are essential. I'm using the MT blacklist one. But do you depend on anything specific?
The MT Plugin Directory is a great source for most plugins; they have links to the developers' sites and the Movable Type forums discussing the plugins (most of the ones in my list are available there). I use these on several sites, all running MT 2.661.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:32 PM on August 21, 2004
- Amputator for encoding ampersands
- IfEmpty for conditional content
- KeyValues for extending Movable Type's data fields
- Markdown for easy text formatting
- MTStripControlCharacters to convert Windows-1252 characters into Unicode numeric entities
- Paginate
- RelativeURL to shorten URLs (I use this on a site that has multiple domain names pointing to the same content)
- SmartyPants for typographically correct punctuation
- SQL for making SQL queries in MT templates
- Switch to add switch/case functionality
- Plugin Manager to managing plugins. A little buggy depending on the server setup.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:32 PM on August 21, 2004
The blacklist is super easy to install, and highly reccomended. Also paginate, smarty pants, and ifempty, as suggested above.
posted by rhapsodie at 2:06 PM on August 21, 2004
posted by rhapsodie at 2:06 PM on August 21, 2004
MT-Blacklist is all you need to install, and really only if you are getting enough comment spam to bother you. The current version 3 is the "developer" release which you really don't need in my opinion. 2.6 is a fine version to use and allows you more features (more blogs, more authors) than 3.0 does. Just keep what you got and don't worry about it.
pwb.
posted by pwb503 at 10:34 PM on August 21, 2004
pwb.
posted by pwb503 at 10:34 PM on August 21, 2004
First, it's the only one I run - is it worth it to move over to 3?
Oh GOD No.
Not unless you want your whole MT experience to change totally.
It's just NOT very good.
I am even thinking of DOWNgrading because this new one is so messed up.
As to MT-Blacklist: Yes. a Breeze to install.
Essential maintenance: Export and save your entries because: If your server goes down and has to restore, they CAN lose entries. Also, if you are using the Berkeley Database instead of MySQL, at some point, you will most likely run into an issue.
I personally don't find too many of the plugins overly useful for MY site, but it's just plain old writing.
I do use this one: Supplimental Category Tags plugin
If I wanted "smileys" or password protection or some other feature, then yeah, I would use others, but if you don't, then they're unnecessary.
However, I will admit, that in the past (before sucky MT3) I used to cruise the plugins boards and I got a lot of cool new ideas of stuff to add to my site by reading in there, so there is much good to be said about plugins.
snark Hey, what about a plugin to make MT3 behave more like MT 2.66? Now THAT would be something! /snark
Seriously though, I cannot tell you how let down I was by MT3 - and I paid for the business license, so I am even more let down.
Geez. I could go on and on about all the issues that exist, and also the fact that the only "fix" for most are some tweaks but a totally unrelated guy, but I am sure you could google that.
So, here's a link to something I wrote shortly after install of MT on another site (I am "Guest" because I left the group): MT Woes
and on my own site: Very snarky and bitchy
I am so not a fan at all.
Oh and to top all that, people who purchase it get invited to beta-test the newest version. Oh yay! *grrrrr*
posted by erratic frog at 1:07 AM on August 22, 2004
Oh GOD No.
Not unless you want your whole MT experience to change totally.
It's just NOT very good.
I am even thinking of DOWNgrading because this new one is so messed up.
As to MT-Blacklist: Yes. a Breeze to install.
Essential maintenance: Export and save your entries because: If your server goes down and has to restore, they CAN lose entries. Also, if you are using the Berkeley Database instead of MySQL, at some point, you will most likely run into an issue.
I personally don't find too many of the plugins overly useful for MY site, but it's just plain old writing.
I do use this one: Supplimental Category Tags plugin
If I wanted "smileys" or password protection or some other feature, then yeah, I would use others, but if you don't, then they're unnecessary.
However, I will admit, that in the past (before sucky MT3) I used to cruise the plugins boards and I got a lot of cool new ideas of stuff to add to my site by reading in there, so there is much good to be said about plugins.
snark Hey, what about a plugin to make MT3 behave more like MT 2.66? Now THAT would be something! /snark
Seriously though, I cannot tell you how let down I was by MT3 - and I paid for the business license, so I am even more let down.
Geez. I could go on and on about all the issues that exist, and also the fact that the only "fix" for most are some tweaks but a totally unrelated guy, but I am sure you could google that.
So, here's a link to something I wrote shortly after install of MT on another site (I am "Guest" because I left the group): MT Woes
and on my own site: Very snarky and bitchy
I am so not a fan at all.
Oh and to top all that, people who purchase it get invited to beta-test the newest version. Oh yay! *grrrrr*
posted by erratic frog at 1:07 AM on August 22, 2004
I'm on 2.661, and I consider the odds of my writing my own replacement higher than my odds of moving to MT 3.0. And I'm not all that likely to write my own.
MT-Blacklist is easy to install, and essential.
Regular maintenance would be exporting entries and backing them up, and keeping your blacklist up to date. Nothing else is really necessary.
For me, the other killer plugin is Textile 2. So much nicer than doing all my HTML by hand.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 1:49 AM on August 22, 2004
MT-Blacklist is easy to install, and essential.
Regular maintenance would be exporting entries and backing them up, and keeping your blacklist up to date. Nothing else is really necessary.
For me, the other killer plugin is Textile 2. So much nicer than doing all my HTML by hand.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 1:49 AM on August 22, 2004
MT-Blacklist, written by one of our own, is a godsend. I'm using MT-Blacklist 1.6.5 with my MT 2.661 installation. I haven't used MT 3 yet, but will probably try once 3.1 is out. The versions of MT-Blacklist that I've tried have been far easier to install than MT itself, so you should have no problem if you were able to do that. Note that the MT-Blacklist 2.0 is being polished up for release with MT 3.1 (it's only compatible with MT 3).
posted by Songdog at 8:21 PM on August 22, 2004
posted by Songdog at 8:21 PM on August 22, 2004
erratic, you do know MT3 is a developer release right now? For non-experts, we do recommend 2.661 until 3.1 is out at hte end of this month.
Zed, not to go off-topic, but i'm curious why you are so dead-set against MT3?
filmgeek, to answer your original question, i think any of the plugins mentioned are great, and the ones that won our recent MT plugin contest are pretty fantastic and worth checking out.
posted by anildash at 12:27 AM on August 24, 2004
Zed, not to go off-topic, but i'm curious why you are so dead-set against MT3?
filmgeek, to answer your original question, i think any of the plugins mentioned are great, and the ones that won our recent MT plugin contest are pretty fantastic and worth checking out.
posted by anildash at 12:27 AM on August 24, 2004
anil: You do know that when I had to purchase MT the *only choice* I got was 3.0D. (June 26th or thereabouts)
Also, just because it's for developers (which, BTW I *am* just not of MT) doesn't mean it should suck.
Right?
I just think that's sort of a poor excuse and telling me that "it's a developer edition" changes nothing.
I've been using MT since it's FIRST release and I know how it works.
I've also helped others extensively in the forum under my various user names over the years as well.
So, believe me when I tell you that I know MT and how it works. Furthermore, just because I don't think it's worth my time to develop plugins for MT, does not mean that I don't know what I am talking about. It is broken, OK? It's a well-documented fact, it's not just me. Google and see for yourself.
"Developer edition" should not mean: Sucks and is full of bugs and has broken code everywhere, including the interface. However, as far as MT is concerned, and I am sorry to say this, because I *want* to like MT, it means exactly that.
It's broken. Fix it, then we'll talk.
Look, I am sorry that I feel this way about it, I actually don't want to. I want to be all cheery and MT ROCKS! and stuff, but right now, I just can't because it doesn't.
I sure hope it gets better and I am willing to wait and try again later because I like MT that much.
I am just not a fan of 3 so far.
posted by erratic frog at 12:43 AM on August 26, 2004
Also, just because it's for developers (which, BTW I *am* just not of MT) doesn't mean it should suck.
Right?
I just think that's sort of a poor excuse and telling me that "it's a developer edition" changes nothing.
I've been using MT since it's FIRST release and I know how it works.
I've also helped others extensively in the forum under my various user names over the years as well.
So, believe me when I tell you that I know MT and how it works. Furthermore, just because I don't think it's worth my time to develop plugins for MT, does not mean that I don't know what I am talking about. It is broken, OK? It's a well-documented fact, it's not just me. Google and see for yourself.
"Developer edition" should not mean: Sucks and is full of bugs and has broken code everywhere, including the interface. However, as far as MT is concerned, and I am sorry to say this, because I *want* to like MT, it means exactly that.
It's broken. Fix it, then we'll talk.
Look, I am sorry that I feel this way about it, I actually don't want to. I want to be all cheery and MT ROCKS! and stuff, but right now, I just can't because it doesn't.
I sure hope it gets better and I am willing to wait and try again later because I like MT that much.
I am just not a fan of 3 so far.
posted by erratic frog at 12:43 AM on August 26, 2004
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by answergrape at 12:36 PM on August 21, 2004