Movable Type Beta Weblog - The Movable Type Code repository

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The Movable Type Code repository

by Jay Allen

While we talk a lot about stability, security and blogging being safe to build your business on, there's another side to the story that we at Six Apart live every day but don't talk much about: Working on the bleeding-edge code from our development repository that contains all of the latest bug fixes, features and, subsequently, all of the latest bugs. It's certainly not for everyone but when you're running the latest code, you can just feel the excitement of progress as new features suddenly pop up from out of nowhere.

Over the course of the last few years, a number of you have told us (with great zeal, I might add) that you want to know more about that work between releases and perhaps to even have access to some interim daily builds. So we decided to do one better by introducing the new Movable Type code repository.

Instant code gratification

While this isn't exactly a feature of Movable Type 3.3, it is a new feature for Movable Type users. The repository at code.sixapart.com is an exact and real-time^[1] mirror of the codebase that we're working on every day meaning that you get to see our changes as we make them.

Using this, the casual observer would know that we just fixed bug #28976 which improved the error message displayed when you try to name a category the same as another with the same parent; or perhaps that we fixed that annoying bug in Beta-1 which caused the rebuilding popup to keep coming to the front.

Given the open nature of the repository, you can drop in any time to check up on the latest stuff or a fix for your particular issue or you can simply grab the RSS feed of the changes and have them delivered to your RSS reader of choice!

^[1] - Give or take thirty minutes

Check out our work!

That, in and of itself is pretty cool, because whether it's a fix for your pet bug or a new feature, you can know about it almost immediately. However, the real magic comes in your ability to actually grab and use the new code whenever you like. To do so requires both a Subversion client (some of which can be found here) and Unix-based utilites for building software like make.

Note to the non-techies: If either of the above requirements made your forehead wrinkle and registered a 0 on the Comprehension scale, I apologize. At this point, working like a Movable Type engineer requires a bit of willingness to be a geek. We'll be making this all easier in the future and for now you can go on happily with the knowledge that your RSS feed will tell you about each and every change we make to Movable Type.

Note to the techies: What follows below can be defined as "living life on the (digital) edge". Remember that this is untested code and should not be used to power a production site. As great as it is getting new features, you'll also be getting new bugs, so do be careful.

Checking out from Subversion

To check out a copy of the repository, point your Subversion client to the trunk of the repository. On Unix/Mac OS X command-line that would be:

svn co http://code.sixapart.com/svn/movabletype/trunk/ LOCAL_PATH

...where LOCAL_PATH is the local file path where you'd like the repository to live.

Building Movable Type

Since you're checking out our development code, you'll have to build it as we do in order to make it run as intended. To do that, issue the following commands from shell:

export BUILD_LANGUAGE=en_US
export BUILD_PACKAGE=MT
export BUILD_VERSION_ID=3.3svn-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`
make

After that, you will have the very latest, working development code which you can configure and run as normal.

Updating your working copy

Once you've got a working copy, you can update it at any time by running the following (again substituting LOCAL_PATH for the directory containing your local working repository):

cd LOCAL_PATH
svn up

You should always repeat the build step above after updating your repository just in case any of the files which are post-process were updated. Voila. Not too hard, right?

Because we think it's cool

Offering Subversion repository access is something we've wanted to do for a long time so we're terribly excited to be able to finally bring it to you. We hope that if nothing else, it gives you a great sense of how hard we're constantly working on the Movable Type team to bring you the best do-it-yourself blog publishing software in the world. And we'll do our best not to break the build. :-)

Posted on June 12, 2006 5:55 PM in Features

Comments

.....or perhaps that we fixed that annoying bug in Beta-1 which caused the rebuilding popup to keep coming to the front.

Jeezz! I thought that was a feature of 3.3. No more telling the authors that their missing popup rebuilding window is actually BEHIND their main MT editing window. I loved it! A basic MT flaw finally fixed. Get that bug in again, I tell ya :-)

Posted by: Ton012 | June 13, 2006 3:09 AM

Well, errr, it still is in. I was a bit to hasty with that. The ploppin's gone, the poppin's still there. Nice touch guys!

Posted by: Ton012 | June 13, 2006 5:01 AM

Is GNU make mandatory to build?

Posted by: (o) | June 19, 2006 10:01 PM

While we ourselves use GNU make, other may very well work fine. A make utility it required to build Movable Type from the Subversion repository. If you have access to make on one system but not the one you wish to deploy MT on you can use make on the first server and then move the MT directory to the new server.

Also, if you don't have access to make, you can grab the latest nightly build located above on the left sidebar. While not up to the minute, it's certainly recent.

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 20, 2006 10:20 AM

Jay quick question re import/export (just installed fresh 3.3b3) ..exporting entries doesn't save tags (and it didn't in 3.3b2 either), so if you import the entries for a fresh installation, you lose all your tags.. is that a bug or something overlooked or just how it's supposed to be.. I note that importing entries that had categories will recreate those categories (which is great), so I wondered if tags should do the same.. cheers

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 22, 2006 11:07 PM

nice - tag cloud widget and WOOT! a feed widget - I've been using a bastardized version of CARP for ages - great to see this new feature.. altho once a feed is created I can't seem to delete or edit it.. guess I'll wait for the docs tho - the help link when in Main Menu > TestBlog > Templates > Feeds.App Lite goes to the same URL you're already on.. hmm best I file a bug..

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 22, 2006 11:31 PM

They do know about tags not being exported. I filed a bug thinking it must be such a beast. Was told that it is known and to export tags I'd need to make a db dump instead. No word whether or not we'll be able to export tags in the future though. There's also a thread in the 3.3 forum about it.

Posted by: Sara | June 22, 2006 11:51 PM

Ok kewl thanks Sara :) unfortunately I already filed a bug for it, but no worries. Filed a couple for the feeds.app widget issues as well (unable to delete created feed widgets or edit them once you've gone past a certain point, no link to weblog menu - only back to main installation menu, and the help link points to the same existing URL you're on.. heh)

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 23, 2006 12:01 AM

BAH.. just saw I can delete widgets and edit them in 'Template > Modules' ..silly me.

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 23, 2006 12:08 AM

Jay quick question re import/export (just installed fresh 3.3b3) ..exporting entries doesn't save tags (and it didn't in 3.3b2 either), so if you import the entries for a fresh installation, you lose all your tags.. is that a bug or something overlooked or just how it's supposed to be.. I note that importing entries that had categories will recreate those categories (which is great), so I wondered if tags should do the same.. cheers

The import/export functionality hasn't been altered since prior to Movable Type 3.0 and hence does not export a great deal of the new metadata introduced since then including authenticated commenter details, moderated comment/ping status, entry/category basenames and tags.

The reason that it has not been updated is because we have plans in the works to completely re-do import/export in a robust manner which will export not only all entry data but all blog data or any slice of blog data you wish to export (e.g. only templates). In other words, there's no reason to put lipstick on a pig.

Unfortunately, the effort is big enough that it did not make the cut for Movable Type 3.3. However, you will see the debut of the new import/export functionality in a future version,

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 23, 2006 1:54 AM

By the way, since this entry is about the Movable Type code repository, you may want to check out the beta test forums if you want to discuss this further or ask any other questions. :-)

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 23, 2006 1:57 AM

"In other words, there's no reason to put lipstick on a pig." lmfao :) ..yup, sorry, I read the forums after Sara suggesting it above.. guess I should look before I leap.

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 23, 2006 5:19 AM

Hi,

Thanks for putting this up! I usually end up running a slightly patched version (although you've fixed all the things I had patched in 3.3, yay!). Merging from your svn is much easier than doing all the vendor branches etc etc etc.

Posted by: Ask Bjørn Hansen | June 26, 2006 12:22 AM