Jedi's Weblog | Jedi.org - movabletype

S5 Publisher powered by MovableType

2004-11-02T00:57:49+08:00

Several days ago I build a new MovableType 2.661 site, "Jedi's S⁵", which functions making S⁵ slides show. I see a MT template example from Six Apart. However, my template-set seems to be much rich. Features:

Works well with MovableType 2.661 and above
Each category for one presentation
The very same slide-page can be shown on many presentations at the same time (I call this "Modularized Slides")

Modifying one slide effects all presentions related to it
Keep order from any two slides for presentions. (Although you may call this "bug" rather then "feature")

Assign different themes (styles) for different presentations
List all presentations in Main Index
Add Creative Commons License information/metadata

Here is my full notes about it.

]]> First I build a MT site, changing site configuration as below:

Core Setup (Please modify to present your own situration. You will fail in case you just copy what I wrote here)

Local Site Path:
```
/home/jedi/S5
```
Site URL:
```
http://Jedi.org/S5/
```
Local Archive Path:
```
/home/jedi/S5/slides
```
Archive URL:
```
http://Jedi.org/S5/slides/
```
Timezone:
```
UTC+8 (China coast, Taiwan)
```

Archiving (Modify this before Preference)

Archive Type: Select "By Category" only; unselect others
Archive File Template:
```
s5-<$MTCategoryID$>.html
```

Preference

General Settings

Number of days displayed:
```
999
```
Language for date display:
```
English
```
Order of entries displayed:
```
Descending
```
Default Text Formatting:
```
None
```
Default Post Status:
```
Publish
```

Archiving

Preferred Archive Type:
```
By Category
```
File extension for archive files:
```
html
```

Publicity / Remote Interfaces / TrackBack

Allow Pings on by default?
```
No
```
Email new TrackBack pings?
```
No
```
Turn on TrackBack auto-discovery?
```
Yes
```

Comment Configuration

Allow anonymous comments?
```
No
```
Allow Comments default:
```
None
```

After that, I start modifying templates. First I deleted these unused templates:

Index Templates

RSD
RSS 0.91 Index
RSS 1.0 Index
Archives Index

Archive-Related Templates

Individual Archive
Time-based Archive

There are some templates unused cannot be deleted. I cleared them for security issue:

Miscellaneous Templates

Comment Listing Template
Comment Preview Template
Comment Error Template
TrackBack Listing Template
Uploaded Image Popup Template

Now I can work with templates. I modified my Category Archive template to become this: (You can also download it as zipped plain text file, [Archive_Template]_Category.UTF-8.txt.zip )






<$MTArchiveTitle$> | <$MTBlogName$>










<$MTEntryKeywords$>/slides.css" type="text/css" media="projection" id="slideProj" />
<$MTEntryKeywords$>/opera.css" type="text/css" media="projection" id="operaFix" />
<$MTEntryKeywords$>/print.css" type="text/css" media="print" id="slidePrint" />

" />


<$MTInclude module="cc-rdf-slide"$>










<$MTCategoryDescription$>
<$MTCategoryLabel$>











<$MTArchiveTitle$>

<$MTEntryAuthor$>
<$MTEntryAuthorURL$>






<$MTEntryTitle$>
<$MTEntryBody$>

<$MTEntryMore$>

Please note that I wrote something about CC license in it. Please modify that in case you don't choose the same license with me. The template above calls a template module named "cc-rdf-slide" which including RDF data of CC license. Here you are: (You still can download this zipped plain text file, [Template_Module]_cc-rdf-slide.UTF-8.txt.zip)

Again, you should modify this template to use different license.

Now we still have to modify Main Index template. Otherwise we will get a error message during site rebuild! Here is what I have done: (Yes, you can download it as a zipped plain text file, [Index_Template]_Main_Index.UTF-8.txt.zip)












<$MTBlogName$>




" />
" />


<$MTInclude module="cc-rdf"$>



[ <$MTBlogName$> ]

<$MTBlogDescription$>







<$MTArchiveTitle$>













All content of this site without other notes are released under Creative Commons License.






" />


Back-end

Still, I make a CC license in this template. Feel free to modify it to present what you really want. This template also called a template module named "cc-rdf". Here you are: (Yes, again, you can download it as a zipped plain text file, [Template_Module]_cc-rdf.UTF-8.txt.zip)

Feel free to modify it.

In order to save time for further MT site to function this, I use the approach I mentioned before to make this file, default-templates.pl.zip. You should backup your original mt/lib/MT/default-templates.pl, unpack this zip file, and then put default-templates.pl into mt/lib/MT/ replacing the old one. After this step, all your new Blog will apply these templates as default. But you still have to config blog configuration manually.

We almost done! The last thing you should treat with is to upload files used by S⁵. Please get this ui.zip, unpack it, upload the whole ui folder into your Local Archive Path. You have done! Now let's see how it works.

Blog Author's name will appear as Orator
Blog Author's webpage URL (set at Your Profile) will appear as Orator's Company
Add a new Category before making slides for new presention

Category Label will appear as Presentation Title
Category Description will appear as Presentation Location And Date

Add each entry for one slide page

Entry Title will appear as Slide Title
Entry Body will appear as Slide Content
Extended Entry will appear as Handout while printing
Add entry in order. First entry for first slide, as so on
Entry which was published early will appear as slide preceding
You can assign multi category to one entry to make a slide page appears in many presentation
Modify Authored On time do change slides order (This only can be done after an entry is saved)
Power Edit Mode can help you changing slides order especially when you dealing with many presentation at the same time
You can mark any temporarily unused slide as Draft. Or unset its Category. There are some minimal difference between these two ways. But you can try

The Theme of a presentation is decided by the very last slide (entry) of particular presentation (category)

You can find it out easily via Filter in Edit screen
The One field to decide presentation theme is "Keywords"
Show this field from the "Customize the display of this page" link below entry edit screen
Keep it blank (do not even put a single space in it) to use default theme
Enter the name of theme to apply other themes
There are 4 themes apart from the default one:

blue
flower
i18n
pixel

That's it. Have fun!

Customize Movable Type's default templates

2003-11-18T22:19:01+08:00

If you desided to use Movable Type as a website publish platform for some group, community, or company, etc., you would like to apply the same templates to make all your site pages look and feel alike. Sure you can use the "link this template to a file" function in template editing screen. But then all templates in different weblog will be linked. Except this, you still have to setting this link manually. If yor are using "Template Module" to form your templates, this uncomfortable dream will become nightmare.

In such a situration, you must want to transfer your hard-working-templates into Movable Type's default template. With this default template, Movable Type will prepare all templates for you when you creating any new weblog. Then you only have to modify them to present the real situration. This is not only a dream. All you have to do, is editing this file with any plain-text editor:

where_your_MT_was_installed/lib/MT/default-templates.pl

This is not really hard. Even my kind of programming idiot can do. But never forget to backup before any modify. There is no guarantee.

]]> This file is quite simple in fact. It says:

[
{
          'text' => 'content of Main Index template',
          'outfile' => 'index.html',
          'rebuild_me' => '1',
          'type' => 'index',
          'name' => 'Main Index'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of RSD template',
          'outfile' => 'rsd.xml',
          'rebuild_me' => '1',
          'type' => 'index',
          'name' => 'RSD'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of RSS 2.0 template',
          'outfile' => 'index.xml',
          'rebuild_me' => '1',
          'type' => 'index',
          'name' => 'RSS 2.0'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Main Archive Index template',
          'outfile' => 'archives.html',
          'rebuild_me' => '1',
          'type' => 'index',
          'name' => 'Main Archive Index'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Comment Preview template',
          'type' => 'comment_preview',
          'name' => 'Comment Preview Template'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Comment Error template',
          'type' => 'comment_error',
          'name' => 'Comment Error Template'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Popup Uploaded Image template',
          'type' => 'popup_image',
          'name' => 'Popup Uploaded Image Template'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Comments Listing template',
          'type' => 'comments',
          'name' => 'Comments Listing Template'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of RSS 1.0 template',
          'outfile' => 'index.rdf',
          'rebuild_me' => '1',
          'type' => 'index',
          'name' => 'RSS 1.0'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Styles Sheet template',
          'outfile' => 'styles-site.css',
          'rebuild_me' => '1',
          'type' => 'index',
          'name' => 'Styles Sheet'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Date Based Archive template',
          'type' => 'archive',
          'name' => 'Date Based Archive'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Category Archive template',
          'type' => 'category',
          'name' => 'Category Archive'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of Individual Entry Archive template',
          'type' => 'individual',
          'name' => 'Individual Entry Archive'
        },

{
          'text' => 'content of TrackBack Pings Listing template',
          'rebuild_me' => '0',
          'type' => 'pings',
          'name' => 'TrackBack Pings Listing Template'
        },

{
          'text' => 'paz',
          'type' => 'custom',
          'name' => 'module'
        },

]

You will find that this is just a array reference of hash reference if you can understand Perl. Don't think about geek's Perl. Let's watch this file just with your instinct (the Force?):

This file begins with a "[", and ends with a "]". All templates are listed between them;
Each template begins with a "{", ends with a "}", and diverged by a ",";
All content in each template using the "'A' => 'B'" format, means we want to fill "B" in column "A".

Now things go better. You can find this out if you keep working harder:

Possible column
Label	Meanings	Note
text	Template Body	You can paste whole template, including line-break
outfile	Output file	Please enter the whole filename
rebuild_me	Rebuild this template when rebuilding Index templates	`1` means yes, while `0` means no
type	Type of template	Please see below
name	Template Name	Please enter the name of this template

We don't finish yet. You have to figure out what "type of template" is available. More then this, each type of template required different set of other columns. Maybe you have to use the Source or use the Force. Never worry about this. I've already digested for you:

Type of template
Type	Name	Columns can be used
Index templates	index	outfile, rebuild_me, name
Date Based Archive templates	archive	N/A
Category Archive templates	category	N/A
Indinidual Entry Archive templates	individual	N/A
Comments Listing Template	comments	N/A
Comment Preview Template	comment_preview	N/A
Comment Error Template	comment_error	N/A
TrackBack Pings Listing Template	pings	N/A
Popup Uploaded Image Template	popup_image	N/A
Template Modules	custom	N/A

Hey, don't be such hurry. Please note that if there is any "'" in your "Template Body," you have to add a extra "\" in front of it turning it into "\'". Otherwise you will get a "Can't find default template listing; where is default-templates.pl?" error message.

Well, that's all. You can now play in your own, or wait me packing my own templates into a single default-templates.pl in days.

Movable Type 2.64.2

2003-11-12T23:23:20+08:00

I have applied mhsin's patch and made a new Movable Type Windows installer. This build enabled Chinese date format in Movable Type. It's not perfect, though, but still works. So use it on your own risk! I have also put two Perl modules back, and corrcet some typo in my document-translation. There are some template mistakes made by Six Apart which may cause default template mis-translate are also been fixed. All these updates are available on http://mtbook.net.

]]> I have updated files followed below: mt-2.64.2.exe, zh_tw_pm_20031112.zip, zh_cn_pm_20031112.zip, MTBookCD_20031112.iso, MT-2.64-full-lib.new.tar.gz, mt.diff, and mt.no-htmlarea.diff. For who is using Windows, I suggest you backuping data, uninstalling old version of Movable Type, and then installing this new build of mt-2.64.2.exe. All data should be leave still. For who is using UN*X, please download thost you need.

New Movable Type Installer was announced

2003-09-15T04:49:38+08:00

There is an new Movable Type 2.64 installer for Windows. This so called 2.64.1 installer in fact uses official v2.64 of Movable Type, merged with htmlArea WYSIWYG HTML editor, and patch for all known bugs. An uninstall interface is also provided.

You can download this file from URL these two location:

For who are using UN*X system, please get http://p4.elixus.org/depot/MT/diff/htmlarea30b-mt.tgz and extract to directory where you installed Movable Type, and patch it's code with http://p4.elixus.org/depot/MT/diff/mt.diff.

Using WYSIWYG htmlArea HTML editor with Movable Type

2003-09-14T04:47:27+08:00

Things become easier with htmlArea. Now you don't have to remember all HTML tags to post with Movable Type.

]]> interactivetools' htmlArea can make any textarea become WYSIWYG HTML editor. It also support Mozilla browser from version 3.0. Here is my simple instruction for installing htmlArea into Movable Type:

Get htmlarea30b-mt.tgz. This copy of htmlArea have been modified to match Movable Type by me. I also finished Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese localization. Please unpack this archive and put those files into where you'd installed your Movable Type. For UN*X user, you can unpack this archive with tar xzf htmlarea30b-mt.tgz; all newer archive programs like WinRAR or WinZip on Windows should be able to handle this archive, too.
File updated: Now we default use TextMode rather then WYSIWYG; Font Name/Size pulldown menus are canceled.
If you want to use spell-check function, you'd install Aspell. It's quite easy with FreeBSD, those user just do this:
```
cd /usr/ports/textproc/aspell/
sudo make clean install
```
Windows user can get a Windows Installer from http://aspell.net/win32/.
After installing Aspell, you'd install Text::Aspell Perl module. One easy way is installing via CPANPLUS:
```
CPAN Terminal> i Text::Aspell
```
Finally, don't forget to modify spell-check-logic.cgi file attribution:
```
chmod 755 mt/plugins/SpellChecker/spell-check-logic.cgi
```

Now you should be happy with htmlArea. The language using by htmlArea will be the same with you setting on Movable Type publication interface.

Using Movable Type integrate two weblogs and Kwiki system

2003-08-31T20:01:13+08:00

I have two weblogs now, for content in http://jedi.org/blog/ will be written in Chinese while http://jedi.org/weblog/ in English. Both weblogs are managed via Movable Type. Under the same domain, I installed a Kwiki system as my own Wiki: http://jedi.org/kwiki/. These three have user interfaces look and feel alike. This design can make user/reader feel more comfortable when playing cross them. (Screensnap: http://jedi.org/blog/, http://jedi.org/weblog/, and http://jedi.org/kwiki/.)

What have I done?

First, I've modified Kwiki's templates to make them have the same element structure as Movable Type's default templates. Then I can just apply one CSS template on three and get familiar look.

Here is another tip. It's hard for me to ssh to my server and modify Kwiki's configuration file / template files. I'm using Movable Type to manage my Kwiki's files. How can this happen? There is a function called "Link this template to a file" in Movable Type's template system which can sync content in database with in specific file. Once I modified some "template modules" with Movable Type's interface, it will update the files associated with them. Here is another screensnap to help you get this idea: Kwiki's tempaltes were listed in Movable Type's Template Modules listing, and how to make them associated with files used by Kwiki.