Better Listings Pages Throughout Movable Type 3.2

Except when you're writing or editing entries, much of the time spent in Movable Type is in managing the listings of entries, comments, TrackBacks, authors, or other items in the system. In past versions, listings could be inconsistent, with listings offering varying degrees of control, and the arrangement of information on some pages being frustrating. Worse, when the same type of information was listed in two different places, it wasn't always the same. For example, the comment listings page and the display of comments on an individual entry worked in completely different ways.

Every listing page improved

With Movable Type 3.2, we've made some massive improvements to the way that items in the system are listed, and early testers have told us it's not just an improvement over older versions, but it's one of the best listings interfaces they've seen on any web application. Simple status indicators commmunicate more about each item you're viewing, action buttons allow you to perform common tasks without having to click through to each item's detail page, and powerful filters let you view smart subsets of the information you're managing.

We've also made a consistent display for every list, with a selection checkbox at the front of the listing and common actions available as buttons for working with the selected items. And actions that you need to access infrequently are available on a drop-down menu next to the primary action buttons.

Each of these changes is a small addition on its own, but taken together, they make for a much more satisfying experience, and they streamline the workflow of any user who spends part of their day in Movable Type 3.2. (And, as a special note for plugin developers: If you've got a table listing in your plugin's user interface, this functionality is available to easily add in to your applications as well.)

Quick Selection in Item Lists

In addition to the powerful actions built into the system, there are some niceties that make managing items in the system a lot more pleasant.

Want to select an item? Just click on any empty area in that row; You don't have to hit the checkbox to highlight the item. Want to select a range of items? You don't have to manually check a series of boxes; You can just click on the first item and then shift-click on the last and the rows in between will be automatically selected. Check the box at the top of the column to select all, or to invert your selection if you already have some rows selected.

In all, managing the infinite number of comments, TrackBacks, entries, authors, and blogs which Movable Type supports is easier than ever with the new item listings features in Movable Type 3.2.

Customizing your display

Of course, we didn't stop there. While being able to easily manage bulk and single items is a timesaver, the listings might not always fit the way you work and think. For that reason, we've introduced the ability for each author to tailor each listing to their own liking.

Each listing allows you to customize the following options:

• Number of rows per listing
• Position of action bar (top, bottom, both)
• Relative or fully-qualified dates
• Compact or expanded view of entries, comments and TrackBacks

Shortcut keys throughout Movable Type

On top of the extensive new improvements to listing screens, we've added broad support for shortcut keys throughout Movable Type 3.2.

At any point, common shortcut keys to speed you through the most popular actions on a given page. Saving an entry from the Edit Entry screen is a simple Alt-S (Ctrl-S for Mac users). Alt-P lets you Preview, Alt-F lets you Find (or Search) from any page, and each listing screen features custom keys appropriate to its context. Once you're used to zipping through the application with shortcut keys, you'll never go back to mousing around. Here's a list of just some of the new shortcut keys available:

• Alt-D: Delete the currently selected entry, comment, TrackBack, category, author, or weblog.
• Alt-J: Send the current comment or TrackBack to the Junk Folder. (If Junk is selected, this recovers the selected item.)
• Alt-P: Preview the current entry, or publish selected comments or TrackBacks.
• Alt-R: Rebuild the selected entry or template.
• Alt-S: Save the current changes or edits to an entry, author, template, comment, TrackBack, or setting.
• Alt-F: Find items by Searching on any page.

[This is part six in a series called "Our 32 Favorite Features of Movable Type 3.2".]