NAME

mt26 - Guide to the New Features in Movable Type 2.6

SYNOPSIS

This document describes the new features in Movable Type 2.6, and the steps for upgrading users to take advantage of these features.

FEATURES

Text Formatting

The new Text Formatting options expand the possibilities for formatting your entries. In older versions of Movable Type, the only option available was the Convert Line Breaks checkbox, which you could set either off or on. If on, paragraphs were wrapped in <p> tags, and line breaks were converted to <br /> tags.

In Movable Type 2.6, you can now select from a variety of Text Formatting options. Plugin developers can add their own Text Formatting plugins. You can choose a different Text Formatting tool for each entry that you post, if you want. In addition, Text Formatting will be applied when you click ``Preview'' to get a preview of your entry.

To use Text Formatting plugins, you'll need to set up your plugins directory, if you haven't already. Instructions on doing so are in the manual. If you're a new Movable Type user, your distribution will come with a plugins directory.

Brad Choate has written a Text Formatting plugin to implement the functionality in Dean Allen's Textile tool. The Textile plugin is available now at http://www.bradchoate.com/past/mttextile.php.

Creative Commons Licenses

You can now select a Creative Commons License to apply to your weblog. The appropriate metadata will be added to your weblog pages and your RSS files.

If you are upgrading, follow the steps below to add the Creative Commons tags to your templates. If you are using the default templates and would rather just upgrade those to the new version, you can copy and paste the templates from http://www.movabletype.org/default_templates.shtml.

Add metadata to your Main Index template.
Edit your Main Index template, and add the following markup to the <head> section:
```
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<$MTCCLicenseRDF$>
</MTBlogIfCCLicense>
```

Add license statement to your Main Index template.
Also in your Main Index template, add the following markup somewhere in the body. You can add this wherever you want the license statement to show up.

<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<div class="syndicate">
<a href="<$MTBlogCCLicenseURL$>"><img alt="Creative Commons License" border="0" src="<$MTBlogCCLicenseImage$>" /></a><br />
<MT_TRANS phrase="This weblog is licensed under a"> <a href="<$MTBlogCCLicenseURL$>">Creative Commons License</a>.
</div>
</MTBlogIfCCLicense>

Add metadata to your RSS 1.0 template.
Copy the RSS 1.0 template from http://www.movabletype.org/default_templates.shtml#rss_10_index, and replace the RSS 1.0 template in the system.
Or, if you know what you're doing, add the following namespace to the template:
```
xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
```
And add the following markup to the <channel> element:
```
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<cc:license rdf:resource="<$MTBlogCCLicenseURL$>" />
</MTBlogIfCCLicense>
```
Add metadata to your Individual Archive template.
Edit your Individual Archive template, and add the following markup to the <head> section:
```
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<$MTCCLicenseRDF$>
</MTBlogIfCCLicense>
```

Add new category...

On the New and Edit Entry screens, you can now add a new category without having to go to the Category screen. Select Add new category... from the Primary Category pulldown menu, then type in the new category name. The category will be added to the database and selected automatically.

Sanitize

Version 2.6 integrates Brad Choate's Sanitize plugin, adding an mt.cfg setting for a global default, and a per-blog setting to override that default. Sanitize is also turned on autoatically for the following tags:

<$MTCommentAuthor$>
<$MTCommentEmail$>
<$MTCommentURL$>
<$MTCommentBody$>
<$MTPingTitle$>
<$MTPingURL$>
<$MTPingBlogName$>
<$MTPingExcerpt$>

In other words, if you are upgrading and you want to make use of Sanitize (and you should, because it will make your site more secure), you don't need to alter your templates. More information about Sanitize is available here.

`<MTLink>` Tag

The <MTLink> tag can be used to easily generate links to index templates or entries (by entry ID).

More information about the <MTLink> tag is available here.

Closing Comments

The Allow Comments checkbox has been turned into a three-item selection menu: Open, None, or Closed. Open and None are the same options that you had in previous versions of Movable Type. Closed allows you to leave up old comments but turn off new comments by removing the comment form from the page. If you have an old entry where you want to leave the comments up, for example, but don't want to allow new ones, this can be useful.

To set it up, surround the comment posting form in your template with <MTEntryIfCommentsOpen> tags. For example:

<MTEntryIfCommentsOpen>
<form method="post" ...>
...
</form>
</MTEntryIfCommentsOpen>

RSD Support

Movable Type's default templates now include an RSD file. RSD stands for Really Simple Discoverability; more information is available at http://archipelago.phrasewise.com/rsd. It provides metadata that allows XML-RPC clients to auto-discover the information needed to post to your weblog (the XML-RPC endpoint and your blog ID).

If you are upgrading:

Create the RSD template.
Copy the RSD template body from http://www.movabletype.org/default_templates.shtml#rsd, then create a new Index Template in your weblog, and paste in the RSD template body.
Add the reference to the RSD template.
Edit your Main Index template, and add the following to the <head> section:
```
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="<$MTBlogURL$>rsd.xml" />
```

Uploading via XML-RPC

Movable Type now supports the metaWeblog.newMediaObject XML-RPC method for uploading files to your server. This allows you to use a desktop client like Kung-Log to upload a file.

PostgreSQL and SQLite Database Drivers

In addition to MySQL, Movable Type 2.6 now supports PostgreSQL and SQLite databases as backends for Movable Type.

Miscellaneous Notes

In this new version, encode_xml now wraps values in CDATA if the value contains any markup or non-numeric entities. This could cause invalid RSS if you were using both CDATA and encode_xml together in your RSS templates. If you were, you should just use encode_xml instead, because it will now do the right thing.

Movable Type 2.6 Guide