• Introduction
• Posting a New Entry
• Customizing the Edit Entry Screen
• Displaying Entries
• Making posts quickly from your browser
• Pre-Dating a Post
• Posting to the Future
• Filtering the Entries List
• Making bulk modifications
• Deleting entries
• Uploading a File

All roads in weblogging lead to posting entries, for without posted entries there is no weblog. It should come as no surprise that the Entries Listing and New/Edit Entry screens are where most users will find themselves when working with Movable Type.

In these screens a user can view what entries are in a weblog, filter them based on certain criteria, make new posts and edit existing ones.

Entries Listing

The Entries Listing screen displays either all the entries for the weblog or just the entries made by you. What gets displayed depends on whether or not you have been granted Edit All Posts access.

1 Weblog Toolbar

2 Power-Editing Mode. A link that opens the Power-Editing tool in a pop-up window.

3 Create New Entry. A link to the New Entry screen. Does the same thing as the New Entry button in Weblog Toolbar.

4 Listing Filter. Controls for filtering the list of entries based on status, author or category.

5 Rebuild Button. Rebuilds the checked entries.

6 Delete Button. Permanently deletes the checked entries from the system.

7 Actions Pulldown Menu. A list of additional actions that can be performed on the checked entries.

8 Display Options. Controls for customizing the display of entries.

New/Edit Entry

This screen will vary slightly depending on whether you are creating an entry for the first time or editing an existing one. This screen can also be customized using the "Customize the display of this page" link at the button of the screen.

1 Entry Navigation. Next and previous entry links along with a link back to the Entries Listing screen.

2 View Entry. Shortcut link to the published entry output.

3 Top Button Bar. Preview, Save and Delete Entry buttons.

4 Primary Category Pulldown Menu. A control for selecting which category to use as the primary. Includes a Add New Category shortcut option.

5 Multiple Categories Control. This link displays a control with all categories that can be used to associate multiple categories to the entry.

5.5 Entry-Editing Shortcuts. Basic HTML authoring tools. Internet Explorer on Windows and FireFox browsers only.

6 Status Pulldown Menu. Denotes the Entry's status as either Unpublished, Published or Scheduled.

7 Editable Authored On Timestamp. A control for modifying the entry's date and time.

8 Allow Comments. Enables the acceptance of comments on the entry.

8.5 Allow TrackBacks. Enables the acceptance of TrackBack pings on the entry.

9 Text Formatting Pulldown Menu. Selects the text formatting engine to apply to the entry body and extended entry content when publishing.

9.5 Basename. A textual identifier that can be used as a filename. The system will automatically generate this string when an entry is first saved to the system. It is recommended that you do not alter this value once it has been assigned unless you know what you are doing.

10 URLs to Ping. A list of TrackBack target URLs that will be pinged. This can be filled out by the author or through the system's TrackBack auto-discovery mechanism.

11 Bottom Button Bar. Preview, Save and Delete Entry buttons.

11.5 Actions Pulldown Menu. Selects additional actions that are available to be performed on the entry.

12 Customize Display Link. Opens a pop-up window where many display options for this screen can be set.

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Problem

You want to post a new entry.

Solution

Click the New Post button in the Weblog Toolbar or use a Quickpost bookmarklet.

Discussion

Since entries are what weblogs are all about, it should come as no surprise that there are a number of ways to create them in Movable Type.

The two most likely ones are either to use the New Post button in the Weblog Toolbar or use a Quickpost bookmarklet that MT can help you create. See "Making posts quickly from your browser" for more on Quickposts.

When creating a new entry, you will have the chance to set the following fields:

• Title

  The title of your entry does not necessarily have to appear on your weblog, but is required for sorting and display purposes by Movable Type itself.

• Primary Category

  You can choose a primary post category for categorization or archiving purposes. Movable Type supports entries assigned to multiple categories, but one category must be designated as the primary category for each entry.

• Assign Multiple Categories

  The Assign Multiple Categories link opens a control for managing the secondary categories to which your entry is assigned. See

• Entry Body
• Extended Entry

  Collectively these two fields make up the body of your entry. Splitting up your entry gives you more flexibility and control over how it is displayed.

• Excerpt

  You can enter an excerpt from your entry, or use this field to provide a summary of the content therein. If you do not provide an excerpt, it will be automatically generated. MT will select the first 20 words from your entry, followed by an ellipsis.

• Keywords

  The Keywords field can hold whatever type of metadata or keywords you choose. It is searched when a user performs a public search on your site, so you can use it to tag entries with words that may not normally appear in the entry body.

• Post Status

  An entry can have a status of "Unpublished," "Published" or "Scheduled". Entries with a status set to "Unpublished" are stored in your database, but are not published to your weblog. Entries marked "Published" are displayed in your weblog. "Scheduled" status means a post is completed, but should not be published until a specific point in time. See "Posting to the Future".

• Authored On

  Movable Type allows you to pre-date or post-date your entries by modifying the authored on date and time for an entry. If you change this value, you must use the form YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.

• Allow Comments

  Allow Comments is a checkbox that enables readers to post comments for that entry.

• Text Formatting

  Specifies the text formatting to apply to the Entry Body and Extended Entry fields' content.

  Text formatting provides an easier means of authoring content in MT's browser-based interface for users who are not HTML savvy. These engines handle the conversion of structured text notation into HTML markup.

  Movable Type ships with a text formatting engine called Convert Line Breaks. The "Convert Line Breaks" option encloses your paragraphs in <p> and </p> tags, and converts line breaks to <br> tags.

  Others engines can be added using the Movable Type API or from third-party developers. If you do not want any text formatting applied select "None."

• Allow TrackBacks

  Specifies whether you would like to enable this entry to accept TrackBack pings.

• Outbound TrackBack URLs

  A list of TrackBack URLs that you would like to ping for this entry.

You can use the Preview button to preview your entry before posting or click Save to create/modify the entry in the database.

Upon saving an entry that is marked with a status of Published, your archives for that entry, along with all of your indexes, are automatically rebuilt. Thus you do not need to manually rebuild (publish) your files after posting a new entry or editing an existing one.

Entry-Editing Shortcuts

If you are using Movable Type on Internet Explorer for Windows, or Firefox, you can make use of a few keyboard shortcuts to automatically insert HTML formatting tags while editing entries. To use these shortcuts, select the text you wish to format in your entry, then press the appropriate keyboard shortcut combination:

• Bold - Ctrl-Shift-b
• Italic - Ctrl-Shift-i
• Underline - Ctrl-Shift-u
• Hyperlink - Ctrl-Shift-a

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Problem

You want to customize your view of the New/Edit Entry screen.

Solution

Click the "Customize the display of this page" link on the New/Edit Entry screen.

Discussion

Movable Type allows you to customize the New Entry and Edit Entry screens. This customization is on a per-author, per-weblog basis. In other words, as an author, you can have different screen layouts for each weblog that you post to, and when you customize the screens, your customizations will be seen by you only; your preferences will not be seen by other authors in the system.

The system lets you choose between two predefined layouts (Basic and Advanced) or create a custom layout, where you choose the fields you would like displayed.

• Basic

  As the name implies, Basic is the simplest possible layout and a good choice for users who aren't ready for some of the more sophisticated entry options available. It displays editable fields for Title and Entry Body along with a pulldown menu for the Post Status and an Authored On date that cannot be edited.

• Advanced

  Advanced is the default layout for all authors and displays the most commonly used fields and controls for working with entries. These include Title, Entry Body, Extended Body, Excerpt, an editable Authored On timestamp and pulldown menus for Primary Category, Post Status, Comments and Text Formatting.

• Custom

  The Custom layout allows you to choose exactly which fields you would like to display on the New/Edit Entry screen. Simply check off the ones you want. (Title is required and therefore always displayed.)

In addition to configuring the fields that you would like displayed, you can also control the position of the button bar containing the Save, Preview, and Delete buttons. The button bar can be displayed either at the top of the page (above the entry-editing fields), at the bottom (below the entry-editing fields), or both.

Click Save when you are finished.

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Problem

You need to display entry data in your published pages.

Solutions

Use the template tags that are prefixed with MTEntry.

Discussion

Entry tags can be used to display the contents of an entry and its related information. These tags can be used in MTArchiveList or MTEntries tag contexts. Entry tags may also be used anywhere in a Individual Archive template.

Here are some of the more common Entry tags used in templates:

• MTEntries

  MTEntries is the most powerful and adaptive template tag in Movable Type. It is a container tag representing a list of entries from your weblog. The actual list of posts can be configured using the optional attributes to this tag. The default behavior is set according to the Entries to Display and Entry Order controls in the General Settings. These settings can be overridden with the use of these optional attributes.

  • lastn="N"

    Display the last N posts to this weblog, where N is an integer greater than 0.

  • offset="M"

    When used with lastn, starts M entries from the most recent, then displays the N most recent posts. For example, if you use the following tag:

     <MTEntries lastn="5" offset="5">
     ...
     </MTEntries>
     

    this will display entries 6-10 (inclusive).

    This attribute is only recognized when used with lastn; otherwise it is ignored.

  • category="category_name"

    Display all posts from the category labeled category name. Depending on the weblog, this could be a long list of entries. Use lastn or other attributes to further limit the list.

    If you wish to pull entries from several categories, or to restrict entries to those that are assigned to several categories, category_name can include boolean "AND" and "OR" logic. This logic is limited though. You can only include one or the other, so you cannot say "Foo AND Bar OR Baz." You can only say "Foo AND Bar AND ..." or "Foo OR Bar OR ..."

    If you wished to list all entries assigned to both Foo and Bar you could use:

     <MTEntries category="Foo AND Bar">
     ...
     </MTEntries>
     

  • author="author_name"

    Display all posts by the author author_name. Note that this could be a long list of entries, and you may want to use lastn and other attributes to limit the display to a certain number.

  • days="N"

    Display all posts less than N days old.

    The days attribute can only be used by itself. If it is used with any other attribute it will be ignored.

  • recently_commented_on="N"

    Display the N most recently commented-on entries. Each entry will appear in the list only once no matter how many comments each has. So if a comment is posted to Entry A, then a comment to Entry B, then another to Entry A, there will be two entries displayed: Entry A, then Entry B.

  • sort_order="ascend|descend"

    Specifies the sort order for this particular MTEntries tag. This can be used to override the Default Entry Display Settings sort order. Valid values are "ascend" and "descend."

    In this context, "ascend" and "descend" do not relate only to chronological order. This attribute can be used with sort_by attribute to sort other fields alphabetically.

    The default value is "descend."

  • sort_by="field name"

    Sort by a field other than the Authored On Date of the entry. Valid values are "title," "status," "modified_on," "author_id," or "excerpt."

    The most common use of this attribute might be to alphabetize your entries rather than display them chronologically. Suppose you want tp display a list of posts alphabetically according to title. You would use this markup:

     <MTEntries sort_by="title" sort_order="ascend">
     ...
     </MTEntries>

  You can apply these combined attributes to entry filter lists in numerous ways. For example, you could supply both lastn and category attributes to MTEntries. This does just what you would expect: it displays the last N entries in a particular category. If you wished to filter that further using author name, you could add the author attribute.

   <MTEntries category="Fun" author="Me" lastn="10">
   ...
   </MTEntries>

  This template markup would display the last 10 entries by author "Me" in the category "Fun."

• MTEntryTitle

  The title of the entry.

• MTEntryPermalink

  The absolute URL pointing to the archive page containing the entry. If Individual Entry archives are not in use, an anchor with the entry's ID will be appended.

• MTEntryExcerpt

  The excerpt of the entry. If one was not defined the first 20 words of the body will be used followed by an ellipsis.

• MTEntryBody

  The content of the entry body with any text formatting applied.

• MTEntryMore

  The contents of the extended entry with any text formatting applied.

• MTEntryDate

  The published-on timestamp of the entry. Optional format and language attributes can be applied. See Appendix C for more on date formatting options.

For an exhaustive list of Entry tags refer to "Entries" in Appendix A.

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Problem

You want to be able to make posts quickly from your browser.

Solution

Set up a QuickPost bookmarklet using the link on the Main Menu.

Discussion

A bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program that can be stored as a URL within a bookmark in most popular web browsers, or within hyperlinks on a web page.

Setting up a QuickPost bookmarklet to post to Movable Type allows you to perform one-click posting and publishing without ever using the Movable Type CMS interface.

Movable Type's QuickPost utility allows you to customize the layout and fields on your QuickPost page. For example, you might want the ability to add excerpts through the QuickPost window. By default, a QuickPost window will always have: a pulldown menu for the weblog to post to, a pulldown menu to select the Post Status (Draft or Publish) of the new entry, a text entry box for the title of the entry, and a text entry box for the entry body.

Click the "Set up a QuickPost Bookmarklet" link under the System Shortcuts found on the Main Menu. Select which fields you would like to see displayed in your QuickPost bookmarklet and click create. Movable Type will generate a small JavaScript link that you can "install" by placing it in your browser's Bookmarks or Favorites toolbar.

After installing QuickPost, you can post from anywhere on the web. When viewing a page that you want to post about, click the "QuickPost" bookmark to open a popup window with a special Movable Type editing window. From that window you can select a weblog, enter your post, and publish.

Setting up QuickPost as a Windows Right-Click Menu Option

If you are running Internet Explorer on Windows, you can install a QuickPost option into the context-sensitive right-click menu. Click on the "Add QuickPost to Windows right-click" menu link that was also generated while creating the QuickPost bookmarklet. Accept the browser prompt to "Open the File." You will then need to quit your browser and restart it before you are able to see the QuickPost link in the right-click menu.

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Problem

You want to post an entry with a publishing date in the past.

Solution

Change the entry's Authored On timestamp to any earlier date.

Discussion

Pre-dating an entry simply means changing the entry's Authored On timestamp to any earlier date. The new timestamp must be entered in the same standard date/time format MT is using for the current timestamp.

Depending on the New/Edit Entry display options, an editable Authored On field may not be displayed. Use the "Customize the display of this page" link to make this control visible. (See "Customizing the Edit Entry Screen".)

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Problem

You want to make an entry now and have it be published some time in the future.

Solution

Set the entry's Post Status to "Scheduled".

Discussion

Posting to the future is a useful feature for keeping a weblog active while you are offline. The feature allows you to create a post and have it be published at a future point in time.

While in the entry editing screen, set the Entry Status drop down to "Scheduled" and set the Authored On timestamp to the approximate time you want the entry to be published.

This feature requires the setup and periodic execution of an included script (tools/run-periodic-tasks) that checks to see if entries marked "Scheduled" have reached the current time. Typically a task such as this will be handled by a system tool such as cron. Without this facility scheduled posting will not work.

See Setting Up Scheduled Post Services for more information on setting up tools/run-periodic-tasks on your system.

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Problem

You want to see a select list of entries.

Solution

Use the Filter and Quick Filter controls found just below the tabs on the Entries Listing screen.

Discussion

A filter is a dynamic control used to limit an on-screen list based on user-defined criteria. The filter controls can be displayed by clicking the link labeled "Filter" which can be found directly under the screen tabs. You can filter by status, category and author, or return to viewing all.

To the right of this is a quick filter link that provides one-click access, allowing you to display only draft posts or view all.

Display Options is a collection of controls housed in a dynamic pop-up display. These controls are made visible by clicking the "Show Display Options" link found at the bottom of any listing screen.

Display options include: number of rows, choices of compact and expanded view modes, action button bar placement, and date display control. Click the Save button to apply the changes or Cancel to close the control without saving.

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Problem

You need to quickly modify a number of entries in bulk.

Solution

Use the Entry Power-Editing tool.

Discussion

Sometimes you need to make changes in batch to your entries. Perhaps you wish to reorganize your category assignments or re-assign imported entries to another author. The Power-Editing tool in Movable Type was created for situations like these.

Select the weblog containing the entries you'd like to edit, go to the Entries Listing screen, and click the "Open power-editing mode" link.

The controls on the power-editing screen are similar to those on the Entries Listing screen. You can filter the list of entries that you are viewing by category, status, or author, and you can page through the entries using the Older and Newer links.

The titles, categories, authored-on dates, authors, and status fields of all the listed entries may be edited in this screen. After making the desired changes, save your entries by clicking Save.

See "Using Advanced Search and Replace Functions" to learn about advanced options for performing bulk modifications to weblog entries.

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Problem

You need to delete one or more entries

Solution

Use the Delete Entry button on the Edit Entry screen. For multiple entries, use the Delete action button on the Entries Listing screen.

Discussion

Delete entries with care, as the content will be permanently removed from the system. You can unpublish an entry and hide it from view by switching its status to "Draft."

Click the Delete Entry button on the button bar of the Edit Entry Screen. To remove multiple entries at once, check off multiple entries on the Entries Listing screen and then click the Delete button at the bottom.

MT will not delete any Individual Entry Archive pages that may have been generated in previous rebuild operations. In order to completely delete the entry you will also need to manually delete these pages from your server after rebuilding.

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Problem

You want to upload a file such as an image or PDF and perhaps create an entry for it.

Solution

Click the Upload File button in the Weblog Toolbar.

Discussion

Movable Type offers an interface for uploading files onto your web server for use on your site. You can upload files to your Local Site Path or any directory beneath it.

To upload a file click the Upload File button in the Weblog Toolbar. Choose the file you wish to upload from your system and decide where you'd like to upload it. For example, if you are uploading an image, and you typically keep all of your images in an images directory under your Local Site Path, enter "images" into the text box. After choosing the destination for the uploaded file click the Upload button.

If a file with the same name already exists in the destination directory you will be asked if the file should be overwritten. If you choose No, the file you uploaded will be not be stored, allowing you to rename it locally and upload again.

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