In Movable Type 4 a new kind of template tags has been introduced, using prefixes or namespaces. For instance <MTEntryTitle> can now be written as <mt:EntryTitle> or <mt:entrytitle>. The default templates included with MT4 do however still use a lot of the old style tags.
As the handy drop down list for inserting tags and the online Template Tag Reference both use the prefix notation, and I like the new style, I decided to use them throughout all my templates. As no plugin is available yet to change the default templates automatically, I used an external editor for the job, which turned out to be pretty easy.
Continue reading MT4 templates with prefix notation.
Judging by the files on my computer, I started using Movable Type in 2003, at the time version 2.64 was in use. I have since made the switch to nearly all newer versions that were published and started making a living of creating sites in MT.
With the release of MT4, which has a completely new interface and template set, I find myself challenged to start reading and writing with MT all over again. So far, the first thing I used to do, when I created a new site, was to replace most native templates with my own, custom made templates. They developed over the years and differ quite a lot from the regular templates. First of all, because they don't include all the different levels of div's that especially MT3 produced, secondly, because I make extensive use of php includes for all templates, thus reducing the need to rebuild entries as much as possible. For instance, navigation, headers, footers, stylesheets and most of the sidebars, are built as includable files, so the newest versions are always displayed system wide, both in archives and in entries. In fact, most authors of the sites I create don't even have access to the rebuild option. They can republish individual entries of course, thus invoking a rebuild of some of the index and archive templates, but blog or system wide rebuilds are basically reserved for administrators, to be used only in case of larger layout changes.
With the release of MT4, which has a completely new interface and template set, I find myself challenged to start reading and writing with MT all over again. So far, the first thing I used to do, when I created a new site, was to replace most native templates with my own, custom made templates. They developed over the years and differ quite a lot from the regular templates. First of all, because they don't include all the different levels of div's that especially MT3 produced, secondly, because I make extensive use of php includes for all templates, thus reducing the need to rebuild entries as much as possible. For instance, navigation, headers, footers, stylesheets and most of the sidebars, are built as includable files, so the newest versions are always displayed system wide, both in archives and in entries. In fact, most authors of the sites I create don't even have access to the rebuild option. They can republish individual entries of course, thus invoking a rebuild of some of the index and archive templates, but blog or system wide rebuilds are basically reserved for administrators, to be used only in case of larger layout changes.
Continue reading Rediscovering Movable Type.
