New Template Management Screens

Movable Type has always supported the easy publishing of as many output templates as you need, with flexible archiving styles and the ability to choose between dynamic or static publishing. But in the past, the sheer number of items listed could be overwhelming, and it wasn't always obvious which types of templates you were managing.

Naturally, we set out to make templates as intuitive as possible in Movable Type 3.2. First, there's a straightforward set of tabs that arrange your templates based on their type. And each of the template listings supports the full advanced listing functionality built into the platform. Plus, the ability to extend the available actions with plugins means it's easy to do things like create a plugin which restores your templates to their default state.

The new display gives you a lot more information about the settings for each of your templates, as well. You can tell at a glance whether a template is being published dynamically, whether the template's content is linke to a file in your filesystem, and whether or not the template should be updated when you publish your index files.

In all, the new power lets you tap into this powerful and flexible templating system a lot more easily than was possible in the past.

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