Introduction

During the past two years I've deployed numerous MovableType (or often simply just "MT") installations, including at least a dozen of my own. Many were blogs, but interestingly enough, many are not. In the course of moving from the "blog" model to the "business content management" model, I've developed several techniques that make "MT" do things outside of its blog roots. I've solved problems my clients brought to me, made managing websites based on MovableType easier, made MovableType sites more search-engine friendly and made moving a MovableType weblog from one server to another a more transparent operation.

In other words, I've been making MovableType dance to my tune.

At the urging of colleagues, I'm pleased to offer this collection of tips, tools, tricks and techniques I've both developed and used. All are real... in most cases I'll point you at specific websites that implement the tips so you can see what they do and how they look.

My goal isn't to necessarily have you implement my tips verbatim, although you are most certainly welcome to do so. I'm sure you face different problems, different requirements, or have different needs than I do. What I really want you to do is to use these tips as examples of what can be done and then build on them. Based on these tips you'll be able to tweak them, stretch them, or hack them all to pieces to solve the issues you could face.

Assumptions & Promises

I do want to be clear that this isn't about learning MovableType. I assume throughout that you have at least a basic familiarity with MT, have an installation already set up with which you can experiment or to which you want to make changes.

This is about MovableType, the content management system (CMS) from SixApart Ltd.. All of my examples, and all of my instructions will relate to, and use, MovableType, typically version 3.2, the version current as of this writing. That being said, many of the concepts I'll discuss here may transcend MT specifics and might well apply to other CMSs, but I'm not making any promises.

Speaking of promises, I actually can't make any. While I've done what I can to make sure that the information here is an accurate representation of what works for me, legally I can't actually guarantee that the information herein is absolutely accurate or appropriate for your purposes, whatever they might be. I can't guarantee results. I can't be held responsible for what you do with these instructions, even if the result is that you lose all your data and perhaps that of your clients. Practice safe computing and backup. Backup early and often so that when (not if) something goes wrong, you can recover. We're talking about computers here ... something always goes wrong.

All that being said, I believe that the information I'm presenting is exceptionally valuable and useful. Implemented properly, the tips will help you make a more functional and easier to manage MT-based site. I promise that if you are unsatisfied with this material, I will refund your money. Period.

I'm always interested in your feedback. If you have a comment on this book, I'd love to hear about it. Email me directly:

MovableType is a powerful publishing platform. I hope you'll enjoy finding out how you, too, can make it dance to your own tune.

Posted February 4, 2006