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Movable Type 5.0 Release Candidate 1

2009-11-06T20:36:11Z

Movable Type 5.0 RC1 is available today. Here are the highlights…

New Theme

Pico, a clean and simple theme (also available on TypePad and designed by Jim Ramsey) is now bundled with MT5.

Styles can also be bundled with a theme to easily offer different flavors of a theme. (Styles are a combination of a stylesheet and images to bundle with a theme.)

Documentation

MT5 documentation is beginning to appear online. We’re releasing them as they are available:

English: www.movabletype.org/documentation/mt5/
Japanese: www.movabletype.jp/documentation/mt5/

Some documents are still in a draft state. Please leave any comments on the individual docs if you have questions or comments.

Download

Warning! - This is beta software and is not recommended in any production environment.

Movable Type 5.0 Pro Betas (available in English and Japanese)

Check out the Pre-Release Software License Agreement for more details about using the software.

Please report bugs and submit feature requests you find.

Release Schedule

The release schedule has been updated, here’s the current plan:

MT5.0 RC2 - scheduled for November 18th.
MT5.0 - first week of December (November 26th in Japan) should all go according to plan.

Resolved Issues in MT5 RC1

Major Changes

Add a new theme “Pico”. (102886)
Bundle style repository with a theme. (102834)
Config directive SQLSetNames should be specified as SQLSetNames 0 in mt-config.cgi when upgrading from older versions with MySQL 5.x and UTF-8
Tip: When including templates inside a loop which is using multi-blog to aggregate content, blog_id should be specified with include tag to ensure proper template is included unless the template to include exists in each blog/site being aggregated.

Configuration Directive

GooglePingURL, BlogsPingURL and TechnoratiPingURL are now obsolute. (102913)
DefaultSiteURL and DefaultSiteRoot are obsoleted. (102867)
“Button” property of DefaultListPrefs is obsolete .(102899)

Cases from Beta 4

FastCGI: Save change of profile displays Internal Server Error (102752)
FastCGI: Internal server error when uploading a userpic (102728)

Backup & Restore

When Backup/Restore all or website, manifest file cannot start restore. (102960)
JavaScript error when uploading a manifest file from the Restore screen (102981)
Backup/Restore drop the Following/Follower data (102956)
CF: Backup/Restore customfields of Image object (102946)
Backup/Restore: Association of assets CF of Category is wrong (102942)
CF: Backup/Restore customfields of Blog/Website object (102938)
Assets named in Japanese have garbage file name when backup (102920)
[Restore] Website custom field is not restorable (102817)
Restoring set wrong userpic (103000)
manifest file : cannot upload (102982)
[restore] folder/category custom field is not restored (102964)
Website: Restored Facebook Commentes setting (102955)
Restored data can get wrong Multiblog settings (102939)

Upgrade

Index templates are not published after upgrade from MT 3.21 (102861)
Upgrade remove all system templates of the blog whose template set is not Classic Blog (102818)
Problems after upgrading a blog whose site/archive URL is ‘foo.com’ (102969)
Error when publishing templates after upgrading from 3.21 (102814)

Theme and Template

Professional Website template doesn’t display Comment and Trackbacks (102829)
Unable to display Professional Website template with Dynamic Publishing (102820)
Warning messages are always shown when applying a theme that contains a custom fields (102934)
No warning messages show up when theme cannot add a custom fields (102865)
Item customfield tag is escaped in community template (102811)
mt:WebsiteIfCommentsOpen doesn’t work in dynamic publishing (102987)
mt:Websites with exclude_websites doesn’t work (static/dynamic) (102986)
Template refresh doesn’t respect blog language. (102912)
View Published Template link doesn’t work when Output file include directory (102870)
IE: Comment Pagination doesn’t work (102911)
Comment Pagination doesn’t work on Community Blog template (102897)
Pagination of Main Index (102858)
Dynamic: Publish mt.js by dynamic generate error (102895)
Fixing issue on Ajax pagination. (102924)
mt:Include doesn’t work in some situations (102910)
mt:Blogs doesn’t work in dynamic publishing (102836)
Professional blog doesn’t work on dynamic (102831)
Professional Website: Comment form is blank on Comment Preview (102824)

Other

Unable to upload an asset to some kinds of servers (102881)
Permission link of Edit Profile goes to Permissions screen for sign-ined user (102931)
Create personal blog for user feature generate wrong Publishing Paths (102878)
IE8: Copy & Paste issues in the template editor (102871)
Javascript dies on System > Settings> General (102822)
Garbage Comments on Blog Stats (102959)
Website: Automatic Deletion of spam doesn’t work for website (102918)
Some database driver does not search ” (double quotation mark) in public mt-search (102868)
[import] When the text form is Markdown and Markdown + SmartyPants, the error is displayed (102851)
Unable to import file encoding by EUC (102850)
Import is slowly (102781)
Unable to create a blog in German (102846)
Comment Order setting on CMS is ignored expect Community Forum template (102816)
Blog name on user dasubhaord is double encorded (102801)
Thumbnail URL is a relative path (102780)

Known Issues in MT5.0

These will not be fixed on MT 5.0, under consideration for fixing in a future version. (If one of these is crucial to you, please add a note in the case.)

Pagination doesn’t work on original archive template (102859)
DefaultEntryPrefs config directive doesn’t work (102900)
Known issues of Template Editor (codemirror) (102988)
- Internet Explorer: copy and pasted code will be placed at the end of the line if code is pasted before the syntax highlight.
- Firefox: sometimes cursor remains on current line when pressing enter key.

“Won’t Fix” in MT5

IE6: Security alerts is displayed when modal dialog opens under SSL URL (102654)
Feeds.App Lite is garbled (102189)
FastCGI: Unable to Backup/Restore customfields and assets (102971)
FastCGI: Infinite loop? in mt-upgrade.cgi (102893)

Found a Bug?

To avoid duplication of efforts, search existing bugs (from the feedback page) before submitting a new bug.
Submit a bug in the Greyhound (MT5) Beta

Movable Type 5 Documentation

2009-11-04T01:30:40Z

Thanks for everyone’s input and suggestions to improve the documentation for MT5. Here’s a list of places to find updated and brand-new documentation:

MT5 Documentation Index - an index listing all pages which are tagged Updated for MT5, New in MT5, or Bug in MT5
Recently Updated Documentation

One highlight…. Creating themes for MT5 - this was requested by lots of people in the community and should get you started. Our goal is to create a few sample themes, and place them in a GitHub repository.

The documentation for MT5 is being initially created by the Japanese Movable Type team as they are leading development of MT5. We’re working with a translator to convert to English and then going through each document to clean it up, reformat it, test it, and add more examples. We’ve been notifying the Japanese team whenever we have significantly changed the document so that they can translate it back to Japanese.

Next up is the process of converting the documentation site itself to a more topic-based structure, rather than the current organization (by user-type).

We’re converting pages that list tags in Movable Type to index templates with loops to output pages: by folder, tag, etc. This will ensure that listings are always up-to-date.

As we make improvements and adjustments to the templates, pages and styles, please let us know if you have any requests or suggestions.

Next topic to tackle: Installation Guides

Movable Type 5 Beta 4

2009-10-21T22:38:02Z

Movable Type 5.0 Beta 4 has been released!

Included is the first website theme for the “Professional Website Theme” and many other bug fixes.

This beta is scheduled be the last beta before there are two release candidates. At this point we’re targeting for a late November launch of MT5. A more specific date will be available as MT5 code stabilizes.

Please report bugs found during your testing.

Download

Warning! - This is beta software and is not recommended in any production environment.

Movable Type 5.0 Pro Betas (available in English and Japanese)

Check out the Pre-Release Software License Agreement for more details about the software.

Resolved Issues in Beta 4

Major changes

“Professional Website Theme” is added as a new theme.(102154)
WebsiteLabel has changed to WebsiteName (102727)
Remove the definition of active users from app (102776)
Keep a compatibility of plugins (102731)
Create “MultiBlog Trigger” for “All blogs in this website” (102593)
MultiBlog Trigger also for “Pages” not only for “Entries” (102627)
UI: “Created, Published, Edited” date and time of the entry (102385)
DOC: FastCGI: Unable to access with XML-RPC (102513)

Note: Because default template sets and global templates have been updated, all template sets (including global templates) must be refreshed to get updates to core template sets.

Multi-byte

Garbage alert when recovering password (102658)
Garbage System Info (102649)
Item name is garbled when file name is multibyte (102733)
Setting Punctuation Replacement makes garbage entry for the first publish (102705)
[dynamic] Thumbnail isn’t created when file name is multibyte (102683)
A CustomFields values was garbled (102634)

FastCGI

FastCGI: Unable to complete import (102688)
Settings are cached in FastCGI (102662, 102516, 102446, 102271)
FogBugz 102318: FastCGI: Infinite redirect after installation (102318)

Other

Cannot save pages and entries sometimes on 5.0b1 (102281)
Unable to insert asset on Page/Entry body on FF3.0x (101829)
Category/Folder label is double encoded on Compose screen (102721)
Folder label is doble encorded on Manage Folders screen (102718)
Category label should be escaped but it should not be remove_html-ed on Manage Categories screen (102641)
Site root and archive root that start with ‘/’ are not shown properly (102615)
Archive URL is not restored when restoring a blog backup (102740, 102739)
[Restore] Multibyte file name thumbnail isn’t displayed (102734)
[Restore] Item URL looks odd (102725)
IE8: JavaScript error when updating an existing entry on Edit Entry screen (102713)
Perlis.dll doesn’t install MT 5 Beta 4 (102714)
Facebook Commenter setting generate error (102709)
Publishing a comment posted via Facebook authentication results in an error (102433)
Batch edit entries disappeared (102661)
to set Dynamic Publishing Options (FogBugz 102670)
Display file extension when creating / editing page (102581)
FB: Canceling on dialogue makes confuse entry body editor (102414)
Upload of first userpic in system via mt-cp.cgi causes error. (102337)
Error when creating a multiblog trigger (102795)
mt:Blogs tag doesn’t work in Search Result template (86204)

Known Issues in Beta 4

Unable to restore backup (FogBugz 102594)
FastCGI: Internal server error when uploading a userpic (102728)
FastCGI: Save change of profile displays Internal Server Error (102752)

Found a Bug?

To avoid duplication of efforts, search existing bugs (from the feedback page) before submitting a new bug.
Submit a bug in the Greyhound (MT5) Beta

Movable Type 5 Beta 3

2009-10-07T02:41:07Z

Movable Type 5.0 Beta 3 is ready! Beta 3 includes many improvements based on user feedback. While similar to the previous betas… Beta 3 feels very fresh and new due to the tightening of various user interface elements.

Beta 4 will be the last beta before there are two release candidates. At this point we’re targeting for a late November launch of MT5. A more specific date will be available as MT5 code stabilizes.

Please report bugs found during your testing.

Download

Warning! - This is beta software and is not recommended in any production environment.

Movable Type 5.0 Pro Betas (available in English and Japanese)

Check out the Pre-Release Software License Agreement for more details about the software.

Major Improvements in Beta 3

Automatic website provisioning based upon blog domain names during upgrade from MT4.x and MT3.x 102466.
Allow sub-domain blogs under one single website 102466.
Selected tab is saved on “Websites and Blogs” widget on the user dashboard, so once the user clicks the “blogs” tab, this tab will be selected upon subsequent visits.(101689)
[Create New] shortcut button on Website/Blog dashboard.(102333)
Cleaner and simpler User Dashboard.(102338, 102331, 102429, 102339)
Improved menu and button placement on [Edit Entry/Page] screens.(102391)
Download a zipped theme file when user [Exports Theme].(102423)
Display “SSI” enable/disable status icon on template listing screens. (102416)
Display links to published pages when user searches templates.(102495)
Do not create any sample pages when user create a new website or blog. (102269)
Motion and Action Stream template-sets are unbundled from Pro pack. These should be re-arranged to themes or addons.(101938, 101939)

Theme and template related cases

Unable to rebuild Index Template(s) on Listing Templates screen. (102505)
Error when opening Revision History dialog from Edit Template screen (102496)
FB:MTEntryImageAsset doesn’t work (102448)
mt:AuthorUserpicURL doesn’t work in dynamic publishing (102405)
‘Cached’ icon is always shown on Template Listing screen even if module caching option is disabled (102535)
No warning messages when exporting a theme with the same name as an existing theme (102546)
Can not publish an archive templates. (102474)
Run Callback when applying the theme for blog/website (101307)
When having included template of other blogs, “create” link is displayed in the sidebar (83134)

Custom Fields related cases

Custom Fields default values are not displayed on dynamically published start-topic.html of Community Forum (102402)
Better Categories listing on Edit Custom Fields screen (102403)
[Customfields] Display option setting is not saved (102451)
Required custom field isn’t displayed (102434)
Custom field is not displayed on Edit Entry screen if it’s associated to category (102407)
Unable to save required asset customfields (102325)
CF: Base name shouldn’t be saved in Japanese or symbols (102556, 102555)
CF: Unable to be set “display” not required cf by default (102431)

Automatic website arrangement during upgrade

Create websites automatically during upgrade from MT4.x and MT3.x (102473, 102519, 102201)
Allow to specify a full site path in blog’s site root (102544)
Webpage trackback is broken in website (102590)

Search and Replace related cases

User search doesn’t work on the “Select a entry/page author” dialog (102566)
Unable to see the system-wide search & replace screen (102563)
User who has system-level manage template permission cannot search blogs from Search & Replace screen (102327)
Remove ‘Blog’ column from the blog-level Search & Replace screen for entry (102558)
Invalid request error when searching entries on the custom fields listing screen (102489)
Unable to search blog’s assets on the website-wide Search & Replace screen (102488)
Search doesn’t work with regex match option on Search & Replace screen (102455)

User, Permissions, Comments

Wrong user list on “Select a page author” dialog (102514)
‘Continue’ button doesn’t work on the dialog of the second page (102450)
Default Tag Delimiter setting is always set to ‘Comma’ on system user settings screen (102512)
Userpic is not displayed on the header. (102428)
Comments from trusted commenters are not immediately approved (102502)
Publishing a comment posted via Facebook authentication results in an error (102433)

Other Cases

Blog Dashboard sometimes generate error (102432)
Cannot send notification mail. (102477)
Website list: What should display on System Overview (102460)
FB: Text gets garbled in dynamic publishing with latin1 database (102480)
Dashboard error after abort restoring blogs. (101948)
Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 8 related fixes (102526, 102418, 102603, 102578, 102575, 102562, 102561, 102528, 102507, 102472, 102410)
FastCGI: After Create Blog, most of sidebar navigation menus are gone (102521)
FastCGI: Need to restart Apache to refresh System Theme Settings (102554)

Known Issues in Beta 3

To be fixed in beta 4.

Unable to restore backup (102594)
Site root and archive root that start with ‘/’ are not shown properly (102615)
Create “MultiBlog Trigger” for “All blogs in this website” (102593)
Cannot save pages and entries sometimes on 5.0b1 (102281)
[Design] Comment Pagination is only for Classic Template on slapshot (102223)
Cannot insert asset on Page/Entry body on FF3.0x (101829)

Found a Bug?

To avoid duplication of efforts, search existing bugs (from the feedback page) before submitting a new bug.
Submit a bug in the Greyhound (MT5) Beta

Movable Type 4.32 Bug-fix Release + Zemanta plugin

2009-09-29T21:22:28Z

Many of you are looking forward to using MT5 exclusively, but truthfully you may be content with MT4 or maybe you’re unable to upgrade because a plugin you rely upon may not yet be ported to MT5.

So until MT5 is solid and there is little demand for MT4, Six Apart will continue to release new versions of MT4.x as necessary to provide fixes for various security issues and bugs which are major pain points. Small features may be potentially included as well.

Download MTOS-4.32-en [zip] [tar.gz] [other languages]

MT4.32 fixes a handful of minor bugs which are detailed in the Movable Type 4.32 release notes.

One of the commits in MT4.32 was to bundle the Zemanta plugin. Zemanta has committed to supporting the development of Movable Type; what better partnership than that of a content management system and a service to recommend quality related-content?

While it may not be useful for every blogger, it can be very helpful in the case where you need an image, links to related articles, help with tags for an entry, etc to have a more compelling blog entry. Check out the Zemanta FAQ for more info on how Zemanta’s services may be useful for you or your bloggers. All support or technical questions regarding Zemanta or the Zemanta Plug-in for MovableType should be forwarded to support@zemanta.com.

Zemanta not for you? There are many ways to disable the Zemanta plugin additionally anyone with file-system access can remove the Zemanta plugin from the plugins directory within the MT install.

Also, you don’t need MT4.32 to use the Zemanta plugin, you can also download Zemanta from the plugin directory.

Hope the fixes in MT4.32 are useful. If there is a bug or patch that you want committed in a future version of MT4.x, please let us know.

~~MT5 Beta 3 should be available tomorrow.~~

Update: Sorry, Beta 3 release has been moved to October 7th.

Movable Type 5 Beta 2

2009-09-17T17:37:45Z

Movable Type 5.0 Beta 2 is now available…

Download

Warning! - This is beta software and is not recommended in any production environment.

Movable Type 5.0 Pro Betas (available in English and Japanese)

Check out the Pre-Release Software License Agreement for more details about the software.

Beta 3

Beta 3 is now under development and will be primarily focused on various UI improvements.

Read on for Known Issues in Beta 2 and Resolved Issues in Beta 2.

Known Issues in Beta 2

To be fixed in Beta 3

Cannot save pages and entries sometimes on 5.0b1 (FogBugz 102281)
[Design] Comment Pagination is only for Classic Template on slapshot (FogBugz 102223)
Better Categories listing on Edit Ccustom Fields screen (FogBugz 102403)
Custom Fields default values are not displayed on dynamically published start-topic.html of Community Forum (FogBugz 102402)
Cannot insert asset on Page/Entry body on FF3.0x (FogBugz 101829)

Please refer to FogBugz: Greyhound Beta 3 for all registered cases

Resolved Issues in Beta 2

Major Cases

Site Path and URL on generic website has been set uncorrectly during version up from MT4 (FogBugz 102210 : Fixed)
When revision history is off, Template preview button is not displayed (FogBugz 102379 : Fixed)
Unable to edit template (FogBugz 102376 : Fixed)
[Forum / Theme] body tag looks odd (FogBugz 102294 : Fixed)
Unable to delete actions on the Action Streams screen (FogBugz 102234 : Fixed)
Display CF’s name exactly on Display Option (FogBugz 102197 : Fixed)
Move to another website/blog by "Select another website/blog…" sometimes generate error (FogBugz 102193 : Fixed)
Wrong message when add addressbook (FogBugz 102185 : Fixed)
Website search doesn’t work in the website listing dialog (FogBugz 102174 : Fixed)
"Create personal blog for user" shouldn’t checkable when Personal Blog Location isn’t set (FogBugz 102173 : Fixed)
Export Theme : Missing theme options = folder (FogBugz 102156 : Fixed)
Restore: ‘View Activity Log’ doesn’t take you to Activity Log screen (FogBugz 102142 : Fixed)
Cannot back up on windows (FogBugz 102140 : Fixed)
Import screen is displayed on Website wide (FogBugz 102138 : Fixed)
Unable to create a page in a website via XML-RPC using Windows Live Writer (FogBugz 102132 : Fixed)
Other Profile: Unable to update ‘Google News’ (FogBugz 102128 : Fixed)
Tag search result use the template of first value of IncludeBlogs (FogBugz 102123 : Fixed)
Display error message when nonexistent blog_id is specified in URL (FogBugz 102104 : Fixed)
Validate form inputs when saving a new theme (FogBugz 102098 : Fixed)
Page archive display comment paginate links even if the page have no comment (FogBugz 102095 : Fixed)
[Customfields] About the system object and the type of order of the row (FogBugz 102085 : Fixed)
Custom Field: On published blog, CFs ignore "required" thingy (FogBugz 102060 : Fixed)
Sidebar menu sometimes doesn’t work under fastcgi (FogBugz 101911 : Fixed)
Add “recommended” to MySQL on mt-config.cgi-original and during installation (FogBugz 101783 : Fixed)
Improve the error message on the community settings screen? (FogBugz 101657 : Fixed)
Theme can include pre-resized thmubnail image. (FogBugz 101097 : Fixed)
Revision History: Record ‘Custom Fields’ change (FogBugz 101408 : Fixed)
FB: Archive Templates ignore sort by customfield (FogBugz 102259 : Fixed)
mt:Entries with sortby=”title” sortorder=”ascend” lastn / offset / tag / limit doesn’t work (FogBugz 102057 : Fixed)
FB: MTInclude global=”0|1” doesn’t work fine when use both on a template (FogBugz 102016 : Fixed)
Auto-Save should be cleared once page is saved (FogBugz 53790 : Fixed)

Cases from Beta 1

~~Some administration screens are not displayed properly on Internet Explorer 6 and 7.~~(See below : fixed)
~~Cannot Include folders in Theme~~ (FogBugz 102156 : fixed)
~~Error message is displayed when you hit Enter key to create a new category and tag.~~ (fixed)
~~Backup and Restore are not fully functional.~~( FogBugz 102141, FogBugz 102140 : fixed )
~~Error occurs when you post page with Windows Live Writer.~~(FogBugz 102132 : fixed)
~~Required field validation is not working on the comment and user custom fields.~~ (FogBugz 102060 : fixed)
~~Side menu is cached on FastCGI environment~~ (FogBugz 101911 : fixed )
IE6 related cases in FogBugz 102227, 102221, 102214, 102192, 102184, 102354, 102352, 102348, 102345, 102319, 102286, 102267, 102261, 102260, 102257, 102251, 102229, 102216, 102183, 101749, 101749

Please refer FogBugz: Movable Type: Greyhound Beta 2 for complete list.

Movable Type 5 Beta

2009-09-03T01:23:11Z

Are you ready for this? We’re really stoked.

Today begins a 2-month period of beta releases and official quality assurance testing.

Though we still have loose ends to tie up, we wanted to get the code so that people could begin to use it and provide feedback. We plan to release a new beta version every two weeks until the app is stable. Once stable, we’ll be creating release candidates. And we’re hoping to offer a stable build in mid November.

For those who are dying to download it now…

Download

Warning! - This is beta software and is not recommended in any production environment.

Movable Type 5.0 Pro Betas (available in English and Japanese)

We also have a Pre-Release Software License Agreement if you’re interested.

About Movable Type 5.0

For those who aren’t distracted with downloading and installing… here’s a little history:

Development of MT4.3 and 4.31 were led by the Services team in the US and was primarily focused on app performance, resolving pain points common on large installations, making some of their most popular plugins part of the core product, and a major documentation update. (MT 4.31 is the current stable build supported by Six Apart.)

About the same time that 4.3 development started in the US, our Japanese team began a 6-month major undertaking to overhaul the app interface and add many other features that have been requested worldwide. The result is such a dramatic progression which will be released as Movable Type 5.

Movable Type 5 focused on three major feature areas:

Websites
CMS
Themes
other significant features

Below is a summary of each. More detailed documentation will be created as we near official release.

Websites

With MT3 and MT4 it was possible to hack a blog to act as a “Page Blog” but this relationship is not built into the UI.

Using blogs to create a website in MT4 requird that one blog be dedicated to being the “page blog” and used for aggregation of content from the other blogs. It looked something like this:

A website in MT5 contains the blogs:

Here’s a diagram of how the Professional Template MT5 looks when mapped to website and blogs in MT5:

So in summary, website features:

new “website” object
blogs are associated to websites
pages can be added to websites
rebuild website separately from the contained blogs.
app UI has the ability to move blogs between websites

Just for a little more clarity, here’s a diagram of the main object relationships in MT5:

CMS

User Dashboard

A starting place for users to quickly jump to any blogs and websites they have the ability to manage.

Revision History

Revision history for entries, pages, and templates. Revisions contain all data related to the entry/page/template including custom fields values.

Custom Fields Update

Custom Fields extended to five more object types in addition to Entry, Page, Category, Folder, and User:
- Website
- Blog
- Comment
- Template
- Asset
Custom Fields by Category/Folder allows custom fields to be mapped to a category/folder such that they are only displayed on the Edit Entry/Page screen when the entry/page is placed in the respective category/folder. For example, if a text-area custom field for “Ingredients” is associated to the category “Recipes”, the “Ingredients” field will only display when the entry is placed in the “Recipes” folder.
Export/Import Custom Field Data - when exporting entries, all custom fields data will also be exported. When importing, custom field data will be imported if the importing blog has the same custom fields as the exported blog. (The Themes feature can help to export/import these custom fields between blogs or websites)

Themes

Apply a theme with a single click and then rebuild the blog/website to apply changes to published website.
Themes contain: templates, style-sheets, static files (images), widgets, categories, folders, and custom fields
Themes for websites and blogs.
Install themes just like plugins
Export theme from current blog and optionally include all or a subset of the custom fields, static files, categories, and templates currently associated with the website or blog.

Other Significant Features

Deprecation of the custom JS libraries and adoption of jQuery for the MT app user interface.
Extend-able administration screens with jQuery and structured HTML
New permissions and default roles
all strings are now UTF-8 encoded
create and distribute your own design themes

There are probably a few I’ve missed in this summary, but I’ll update this entry with any I’ve missed as I become aware of them.

Found a Bug?

To avoid duplication of efforts, search existing bugs (from the feedback page) before submitting a new bug.
Submit a bug in the Greyhound (MT5) Beta

Want a feature?

See the process on the Feedback & Support page.

Beta Forums

We have created a MT5 Beta Forum for topics related to the beta.

Source Code

If you want to check out the source code for the MTOS portion of MT5—code-named Greyhound—use the following Subversion command:

svn checkout http://code.sixapart.com/svn/movabletype/branches/greyhound

The changes for 4.3 (slapshot) and 4.31 (hanson) have been merged into the greyhound branch.

Release Notes

Movable Type 5.0 System Requirements
- MySQL 5.0 or higher
- Perl 5.8.1 or higher
- Requires PHP5.x for dynamic publishing
On MT 5.0 All blogs will be created under the website object. If you version-up from MT4, a “Generic website” is created and all blogs will be placed there.
MT 5.0 uses YAML::Syck to validate plugin YAML files. If you have YAML error, you can switch to YAML:Tiny by adding config directive below on mt-config.cgi. YAMLModule YAML::Tiny
New Role “Website Administrator” is added. It has a privileges to manage website with blogs under it.
New privilege “Manage Website with Blogs” is added that permit user to manage a website with all the blogs under it
New privilege,”Manage Website” and “Manage Theme” are added
Some privilege names are modified. Manage Blog (MT4: Blog Administrator), Change Settings (MT4: Change Blog Setting), Publish Site (MT4: Publish Blog)
Role “Designer” is modified to add “Manage Themes” privilege.
You need the “Create Blogs” system permission and also “Website Administrator” privilege to create a new blog in a website.
When you move blogs between websites, you need to copy uploaded assets to the new path manually. It is also recommended not to delete files in the old path to avoid broken links.
Select “Theme” instead of cloning existing blog as a personal Blog option in New User Default settings.
Template editor is replaced by CodeMirror that works well on major browsers. Syntax highlight switch is removed.
You need to specify “Image”, “Video”, “Audio” or “Asset” to add custom fields for each type.
System-wide custom fields are not included in Import / Export
Template revision history contains only contains Template options “Output File” and “Publishing”, “Link to File” and “Publishing” is not included.
Tiff and BMP files are not supported on Dynamic publishing MT:Assset

Known Issues for MT5 Beta 1

These issues will be fixed in future beta.

Some administration screens are not displayed properly on Internet Explorer 6 and 7.
Some of the bundled themes are not fully functional.
Error message is displayed when you hit Enter key to create a new category and tag.
Backup and Restore are not fully functional.
Error occurs when you post page with Windows Live Writer.
Required field validation is not working on the comment and user custom fields.
Cannot insert asset when editing entries with Firefox 3.0
Side menu is cached on FastCGI environment

Big thanks to all the awesome work done by Six Apart developers in Japan and the US working on this release.

Well that’s all for now.

Looking forward to knowing what you think about MT5.

Enjoy.

MT 4.3: Faster Performance, Powerful Search, More Page Views

2009-07-29T21:08:40Z

Today marks the official release of Movable Type 4.3. While we've been previewing the features over the last week, below is a hit list of the biggest features. If you're looking to download MT Pro, click here.

Smarter Search and Pagination

We've added several new ways to drill down your search (author, category and date), which lays the groundwork for the ability to paginate your index and archives. With a static first page and dynamic additional pages, your site gets the added page views with faster publish times. Additionally, we've added the ability to paginate comments, which will dramatically improve publish times on prolific comment threads.
Entry Asset Manager

MT's smarter than ever with the way it handles assets like photos, which means it's much easier to make slideshows and editing entries that use assets is even faster, with more control over your code. Read more »
Summary Object Framework

This is our first step in dramatically improving performance for our largest MT installations. This framework allows MT's core codebase and plugins to store arbitrary summary information in the database, replacing expensive calculation queries with fast primary-key lookups against summary tables. The framework includes a flexible mechanism for invalidating summary objects when the objects on which they depend are modified, and a queued worker class for asynchronously regenerating invalidated summaries. We'll be providing extensive documentation for developers to start implementing this feature in their installations within the week.
Improved Documentation

We've tested, rewrote, reformatted, consolidated, and provided basic and advanced tested examples for over 80 docs pages. We've also made it easier for community members to contribute back with a style guide and a list of pages that need attention. Read more »
Smarter Blog Cloning

Use any of your existing sites as a prototype for new ones by cloning just a blog's layout and design with a few clicks (which is especially awesome for blog networks). Read more »
In-App Performance & Developer Features

For those with thousands of entries, users or blogs, searching inside the app is much faster. Additionally, we've exposed some developer tools (e.g., Debug Mode & Performance Logging) in the settings for faster access.

For a list of all the additions in the release, please take a look at the complete release notes.

Download it Now!

You can download MTOS 4.3 now by clicking directly on these links:

Thank you, MT Community

We want to thank you all for helping to make this release possible. Your help during the beta and the patches you have provided for this release are invaluable. We can't wait to hear your feedback on 4.3 and see all of the fantastic sites you've created.

Features of 4.3: Smarter Blog Cloning

2009-07-29T01:15:52Z

Up until the general release of MT 4.3, we are publishing details on the features of 4.3. Today we'll focus on blog cloning.

For quite some time, blog cloning has been built into Movable Type. It was created to help add a new blog without having to recreate templates, categories or anything else. The problem was that most often there was never the need to clone everything in a blog.

Movable Type 4.3 has added some new features to the cloning process:

Ability to omit specific content from the cloning process.

The following content can be omitted:
- Entries/Pages
- Categories/Folders
- Comments
- Trackbacks
It may seem like a minor addition, but it can save precious time while developing a site.
Ability to specify critical blog settings for the new blog before cloning to prevent accidentally overwriting existing content.

The following fields may be set before cloning:
- blog name
- path
- URL

Several more checks (e.g., a confirmation page, better defaults) have been added to make this process rock solid.

Personally, it has already made testing and setting up a few new installations much easier and faster. I hope this feature will scratch an itch for many of the Movable Type consultants out there.

Features of 4.3: Entry Pagination

2009-07-24T17:38:11Z

Up until the general release of MT 4.3 (beta info here), we are publishing details on the features of 4.3. Today we're looking at entry pagination.

1,000 Entries

One of the categories on my blog is now up to nearly 1,000 entries and it has become difficult to display them. Movable Type offers the ability to split up the category content by date (e.g., Category-Monthly archives), but that would still require me to publish all of the content statically. I could use dynamic publishing, but then I would lose the speed of a statically published page on the front-end.

Situations like these, and a long-standing pubilc request, is why we're now introducing a dynamic way to paginate your index and archive templates using MT-Search. With this solution, you're able to publish the first 10 or 20 (or whatever you'd like) entries statically and paginate through the remainder dynamically. What's even better is that it only requires a few changes to your index or archive template to generate the content for MT-Search.

Getting Pagination on Your Blog

We've put together a guide to paginating with static templates that provides details on the new querystring parameters and sample template code. It's based on the classic template set included in MTOS, but could certainly be used as an example for other template sets. If you see any issues or improvements we can make, please leave comments here or on that page!

Bonus Feature!

In addition to allowing for entry pagination, you can now limit your searches by author, category or date. For example, if I was going to search my blog for 'sneaker', the URL would look like this:

http://mydomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=sneaker

If I wanted it to limit it to only entries in 2007, I'd use this:

http://mydomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=sneaker&archive_type=Yearly&year=2007

If I only wanted to look in the category 'Design', which has an ID of 40, I'd use this:

http://mydomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=sneaker&category=40

And if I wanted to limit to an author with the ID of 2, I'd use this:

http://mydomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=sneaker&author=2

The one caveat here is that, unlike entry pagination, you'll need to use the search template for these. See the entry pagination guide for more details.

Features of 4.3: Entry Asset Manager

2009-07-23T00:25:03Z

On Monday, Beau posted about our effort to update the docs for MT 4.3. Today I'm coming to you with information on one of our new features — the entry asset manager.

An Easier Way

Up until now, the only way to associate an image with an entry was to place it in the entry body. Upon save, Movable Type would write that association to the database. In order to do this, there a form tag was placed around the image (that was stripped out when you published), which was confusing to many. In 4.3, we decided to make this relationship clearer and easier to manage.

As you can see to your right, every image associated with this entry is listed in a new sidebar widget on the edit entry page. Hovering over the image shows you a thumbnail. Clicking on 'Add New' in the widget only adds the image to the list, not the entry body. This means you can now use the mt:EntryAssets tag to access assets without inserting them into the entry body.

Of course, you can still add images to the entry body, but now they won't have that ugly form tag. Not only is this easier for beginners, but it has the side effect of greatly improved performance of the rich text editor (RTE) in modern browsers. Resizing and moving photos inside the RTE is now a breeze in browsers like Firefox.

So What Can I Do With It? Slideshows!

Oftentimes you want to create a slideshow inside of an entry, but that would mean pasting all of the code in the entry body. Template experts could handle it, but it was nearly impossible to explain this process to a client. Now a writer just needs to write their post, select the photos they want to use in the asset manager, and click save. They do the writing, and the developer does the developing.

After the jump, I've provided some Javascript that will create a very simple slideshow. It's not using any new tags, but it's an example of how you can cleanly separate code and content.

]]> Slideshow Code

This code is not polished (nor is it meant to be), but it illustrates the functionality clearly. For production, you'd make a true Javascript function for all of this — or, even better, build it in about 1/4 of the number of lines using jQuery — and provide some CSS styles.

To start, just above your entry body, place the following line of html:

Then, anywhere below that, add the following block of Javascript. It will create an array of your entry assets, then build out the HTML elements using the DOM. Finally, there is a function that will make the previous and next links load a new image in the img tag (and loop to the front or back, when necessary).

If you'd like to try this out, you'll need to download the latest beta or wait until the general release. Feel free to post your own versions of slideshow code in the comments! It's always great to see examples of how people are using the features of Movable Type.

Documentation Update

2009-07-20T18:33:53Z

This week we’ll be previewing some of the new features of Movable Type 4.3 (try the Movable Type 4.3 beta). I’ll start the week off with a post on the my progress updating and improving the Movable Type documentation and Matt Jacobs, MT product manager, will be posting about other features of MT 4.3 later in the week.

Intro

In product documentation, the manual is the product. If a feature isn’t defined, it doesn’t exist as far as the user can tell. If a feature is described badly, the user will perceive the product to be a bad product. Thus, do not skimp on the documentation. Randal L. Schwartz, Perl author

Documentation should be an integral part of the development of a new feature. It should start as a Specifications document, then be used for Quality Assurance testing of the feature, and then published publicly as the Official Documentation for the feature.

Describing how a feature works provides new insight into how it could be coded better, reveals bugs, or gives inspiration to new features.

Documentation is even important to the developers who wrote it as sometimes they have totally forgotten their strategy at the time, or perhaps their experience since writing the code has provided them new insights.

Good documentation will reduce the amount of questions that are asked of our developers and provide them with more time code in peace.

MT Docs History

One of the biggest complaints we hear from Movable Type users is lack of documentation. Those who have looked under the hood know that it’s powerful, but for the majority of users documentation is where they turn when they want to find answers.

In the past, valiant efforts have been made to improve the docs, but they’ve always been halted by higher priority tasks or due to the loss of resources. Many of docs have suffered from lack of completeness or worse inaccuracy. With no official documentation guidelines or style guide to follow and documentation often being the least fun part of programming, the docs were often limited to very limited description of functionality.

Since MT4 was released, whenever possible, I’ve taken the time to add clarity and/or examples to the docs during and between various projects… and I even wrote up a POD Doc formatting guide for internal use.

We’ve always stressed the production of documentation, but true progress in bringing this work public has been hindered due to the complication of formatting docs in POD, requiring them to be checked into in the Movable Type code and then later synced to movabletype.org. Since docs were often updated directly on movabletype.org and not in the code, keeping these two separate locations manually synced was not a scalable nor desirable solution.

Movable Type 4.3 Release

So with the docs being a part-time pet project, I was happy to see that “documentation” was a feature listed for the MT 4.3 release. When I was asked me to take on the docs as my ongoing project, I was stoked!

Upon initial survey, I found that the docs was composed of 1452 total pages. Sheesh… where to begin?

Knowing that this wouldn’t be my only project and that there was a chance my priorities could change, I figured that it was important to establish a framework and style guide such that when developers have time, they can follow this guide to quickly create complete, accurate, and consistent documentation, formatted to fit in seamlessly with the rest of the documentation… thus providing a continued increase in quality over time.

Knowing that some of the 1452 pages would take 10 minutes, others would take a few days, and that I would find there were features for which docs didn’t exist, I figured I would start updating the docs with reported bugs, docs with little or no content, and those which were most visited based upon Google Analytics results.

Starting with the the 812 pages of docs for tags, modifiers, config directives, and appendices would give me a good sense of what a style guide should look like and would provide valuable insight when shifting focus to the 640 pages of guides, release notes, etc.

Current Status

So far I have:

tested, rewrote, reformatted, consolidated, and provided basic and advanced tested examples for 76 docs pages over the course of the last month when this project began. Highlights:
produced a documentation style guide
written a plugin to provide the ability to link to headings within the docs (HeadingLinks plugin)
updated various movabletype.org templates and styles to provide more context and links to define relationships between various features.
created various utility templates to list most recently updated docs, docs with little or no content, and docs which need review from some Perl experts, etc.
added a way for admins to note when a comment’s content has been incorporated into the main doc.

Future Plan

Once docs related to Movable Type Markup Language (template tags, tag modifiers, config directives) and other appendices are more complete overall, work will shift to developing guides to assist in the use and learning of Movable Type’s features. While writing guides, related docs will be updated as necessary to support the guides.

Currently many of the guides are grouped by user type, but there is a desire to convert the structure to a more topic-based set of guides. (This way to learn about using “assets”, it won’t first require guessing if the desired information would be categorized under Author, Designer, Administrator, or Developer docs… rather you’d find a guide called “Using Assets” which would contain everything related to assets.)

An outline of how the guides section will be architected hasn’t been defined, but some have been suggested.

You Can Help!

Create/update a page using the style guide to help keep the docs consistent and complete.
Submit the docs via any of the following methods:
- Submit a case in bugs.movabletype.org. Just a Title and description are necessary, the link is pre-configured to place the case in the Docs area for triage.
- Leave a comment on the page of the doc with the notes
- Edit the docs directly if you’re a community member who has been granted access to the docs install. (Leave a comment—as a native MT user—on this post if you’d like to apply for an account.)

Feel free to start anywhere in the docs. I’ve created outlines in the style guide for documenting tags, modifiers, and config directives.

Because I’m not a Perl expert (yet!) there are some docs which I’ve edited, but was unable to complete. I have tagged them with a private tag and created a couple index templates to list them. Most of the pages are stubbed out with questions placed in html comments. (Once docs are updated, the respective private tag should be removed):

@need_review - Potentially complete, but should be reviewed by a Perl expert.
@need_backend_help - Need help authoring from a Perl expert.

If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to email me: Beau at Six Apart

Some thanks… to Su, Elise, Jesse Jay, and Byrne and other community members for proofing, testing, providing feedback, submitting documentation bugs, and tweeting about the updates and activity; Matt Jacobs for some templating suggestions; to Brad Choate and Mark Paschal for providing insight into the Perl logic and guidance in creating the HeadingLinks plugin; and thanks to David Jacobs for making time for this project.

The Beta for Movable Type 4.3 is Now Open

2009-07-10T03:26:53Z

Earlier this evening we made available the first pre-release version of Movable Type 4.3. For more information about this release, we've created an MT 4.3 beta page. There, you can find release notes, known issues, the download link and information on how to submit bugs and get involved in this release. Here's what you should know:

This release has most of 4.3's new features, including comment pagination and a new entry asset manager.
The first release is an alpha (MTOS-4.3a1) and we'll have 2 more releases during the beta period. The final release will be in 3 weeks.
While this release has been stable in our testing, remember this is alpha software and is not intended for use in a production environment.
Last, but absolutely not least, we have overhauled the reference documentation for this release. Beau is going to post soon with more details about this, but we've already updated nearly 100 pages. He'll also provide information about how you can get involved in improving the docs.

Please download the alpha today and take it for a spin. We rely on input and contributions from community members to make these releases shine and hope you'll have a hand in MT 4.3. You can join our MTOS-dev mailing list to get involved in the conversation today.

Looking ahead to MT5

2009-07-08T04:51:54Z

We are happy to announce that MT5 is coming and invite you to participate.

But first, here's some information on what's in store for Movable Type 4. Later this month, on July 29th, we'll be releasing Movable Type 4.3. This release contains comment pagination, a variety of bug fixes and some significant performance and scalability improvements that make it the most robust release ever on MT. Tomorrow, we'll make available our first pre-release build of 4.3. It will be an alpha, which means we're still finishing up a few features and the software is absolutely not production ready. So why release it? We want all of you to give it a whirl and try out what we've been working on. As we approach the launch date, we'll continue with several beta releases to fix any bugs found by you and our development team. I'll have another post up tomorrow with links to the build and information on submitting bugs.

In the meantime, work has begun on MT5. We have started the requirements process and early development work on MT5 with particular focus on better content management and ease of use. As we gear up towards the first Movable Type Pro 5.0 beta release in the coming months we invite you to get involved. The best way is to use MT forums, send us feedback directly, or get active on our ProNet email list and tell us what you'd like to see.

We are very excited about MT5 and look forward to your input!

Meet Melody

2009-06-23T15:00:31Z

When Mena and I started working on Movable Type almost 8 years ago, one of the most delightful surprises in the project was how a passionate and creative community sprung up around the platform almost immediately. They even seemed to like the default name “Melody Nelson” we gave to the sample user that came with the application.¹

Just a year and a half after the happy news of Movable Type’s release under the GPL license, Melody makes another appearance as we mark an exciting milestone for the community. Today, a number of long-time Movable Type community leaders, including some who supported MT right from that first release 8 years ago, are announcing Melody. In short, Melody is a project to catalyze the core community of developers who want to evolve the open source core of Movable Type.

Where our official Six Apart releases of Movable Type focus on great professional support, rock-solid stability, backwards compatibility, and broad platform support as core principles, we see the Melody community focusing on the equally-valuable ideas of bleeding-edge community-driven ideas, rapid iteration, and integration with the code of other open source projects.

It’s great news for the entire Movable Type community, as this new project uses the same themes, the same templates, the same plugins and the same publishing engine as Movable Type. And since it shares the GPL license with MT, it’s even a great way for these new developments to work their way back into the official versions of Movable Type itself.

The truth is, some of the greatest innovations in MT’s history have come from developers that make their own distributions of Movable Type, bundled with their own plugins or templates. Our own Six Apart Services team has done that in the past when it was the independent company Apperceptive, and continues the tradition today by releasing much of its best work as a series of Open Source plugins. (You can follow Six Apart on Github to keep up with the latest.) Maybe some of that code will find its way into the Melody project in the future as well, completing the circle.

I can’t wait to see what the independent community members who are the driving force behind Melody bring to the greater MT community in the future. While there aren’t regular downloads for end-users yet, there’s some promising first bits of code for developers to look at, and we’ll watching the project closely. Six Apart is also proud to have our own Anil Dash join the board of the Open Melody Software Group, to play our part in helping contribute to this new effort from our community.

¹ A reference to Serge Gainsbourg’s album “Histoire de Melody Nelson”.