MT4 templates with prefix notation

2007-08-30T05:03:12Z

In Movable Type 4 a new kind of template tags has been introduced, using prefixes or namespaces. For instance can now be written as or . 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.

]]> Exporter and Installer plugins, all templates can easily be exported and imported in other blogs, saving me - and other people interested in using them - the hassle of editing all templates by hand.

Feel free to download the zip file with the adjusted templates. If you wish to use them with the Template Installer plugin, unzip the files to your computer and ftp the whole directory to your /plugins/TemplateInstaller/template_sets directory. Then, go to your Blog templates, click on Install Templates and select 'Default templates with prefix notation' to install them. Backups of your default templates will be created automatically.
If for some reason you don't want to install the Template Installer, you can also open the files in a text editor and copy and paste the contents to your templates by hand.

Update: this template set is now included with Marks Template Installer plugin.

Rediscovering Movable Type

2007-08-20T19:39:12Z

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. ]]>
I intend to keep track of issues I encounter that may be of use to others, in this blog. For the moment, I plan to do so in English, but since it is not my native language, I may switch back to Dutch if expressing myself in English turns out to be too much of a hassle.

Emtee blog

MT4 templates with prefix notation

Rediscovering Movable Type