While entries make up the content of a weblog and templates control how these entries are displayed, it is the process of publishing that makes a weblog go. Movable Type refers to the process of publishing as rebuilding -- a reference to its static page generation roots. When a rebuild is performed, templates and your content are merged to publish a page that visitors can view in their browsers.

Choosing Between a Static or Dynamic Publishing Model

Movable Type provides the flexibility to choose between either static page generation or dynamic pages to optimize weblog performance on a per-template basis.

The static page publishing model provides a number of important advantages. Static pages are significantly more scalable and less resource intensive, once created. This model offers a great deal of flexibility when working with dynamic page generation technologies, allowing you to easily publish content to multiple or remote locations with standard sychronization tools. Until MT version 3.1, static page generation was the only publishing option in MT and remains the default even now.

The dynamic publishing model provides the advantage of immediacy. Rebuild times are significantly shorter and template changes are immediately reflected in the layout since pages are generated when requested. Disk space requirements are reduced since content pages are generated in memory rather than being read from the file system. The dynamic publishing engine is implemented on top of PHP and the Smarty Template Engine; and requires that you be using a SQL database (i.e. MySQL, SQLite or PostgreSQL) for your Movable Type installation.

With the flexibility to choose your publishing model, you can maintain the best balance of fast rebuilds and low server load to suit your needs. Which is best and most efficient depends on your individual situation.