StyleCatcher Updated

We're glad to announce an update to the StyleCatcher plugin announced last week. StyleCatcher 1.01 fixes a number of little bugs, offers some helpful documentation in the README file about how to get started, and introduces a cool new feature: The Greasemonkey Style Installer.

StyleCatcher is designed to be able to retrieve styles from any style repository that follows a few simple conventions we've defined, and we'll be publishing documentation for how you can host your own style repository. But to get started, you can test this new functionality with our own Movable Type style library.

Our goal was to make switching styles as automatic as possible. So, if you're using Movable Type and StyleCatcher on the Firefox browser with the Greasemonkey extension, you can now install an automatically-configured script that will let you add a style to your site from any repository. The link to install the script is right at the bottom of the new StyleCatcher screen in your Movable Type installation. Once you've installed the script, your browser will show a "Throw this style to StyleCatcher" option that lets you go right from the library to your own blog's available styles.

We've also heard loud and clear the requests for three-column layouts for your blog. We'll be providing those as soon as possible, but in the interim, you can use Arvind Satyanarayan's excellent Style Generator to make your own, and the stylesheets generated are completely compatible with the default Vicksburg stylesheet provided with Movable Type 3.2.

Note: To use StyleCatcher's styles with your blog, you'll need to be using the default templates for your individual entry archives, main index, and any category or date-based archives which you wish to apply the styles to. These styles are implemented by default in new installations of Movable Type 3.2, or in blogs created after the installation of Movable Type version 3.2.

If you've upgraded from an older version or have customized your templates, you can restore your templates to the default version by using the Backup and Refresh Templates plugin that is included with Movable Type 3.2.

To refresh your templates to the default, go to the Templates listing for your blog, select the template(s) you wish to refresh, and choose "Refresh Templates" from the actions menu on the templates listing. Click "Go", and your existing template will be backed up and renamed, and a new default template will be created.