8 posts tagged “movable type”

My church has requested the creation of an online directory that is password protected. Our congregation has roughly 200 members. I would love to turn the online directory into more of a social networking thing for our congregation where members can post information about their lives (and I'm not sure what else, I would love to hear some more thinking on the possibilities). Our paper directory is divided by family with contact information and information about each individual family member (name, birthday, email, hobbies, etc.). The online directory would at least have to function as well as the paper directory.

Some of the (starting) questions that I'm getting stuck on are:

• Is this something that can be (should be) done with regular MT or should we look into Enterprise? (Is this something that should be done with MT at all?)
• What kind of budget should I ask for to do this?
• What are the possibilities for something like this?
• Is this too ambitious? I mean, we're only a congregation of 200 (on a good day). Is this just too much?
• I'm sure I'm missing thinking about something else, please chime in and let me know.

I know this is kind of weird to post this here on Vox, but I didn't see this posted anywhere else and it wasn't exactly obvious for me to figure out. So, I hope this helps someone else.

Ok, so you just upgraded your Movable Type blog to MT4. You were using pretty much default MT3.x templates (especially the comments code). You're happy with how you blog looks and aren't really interested in overhauling your templates, but you would really like to make use of the new MT4 commenting features. Here's how I did it:

Create a New Blog for parts*

• put it somewhere like yoursite.com/test/ -- do not build it over your old blog
• really, you don't even need to publish it and you can delete it later
• below when I tell you to "Create template X" you will go to this blog to copy that template

• Add the following line (modified with your info):
• CaptchaSourceImageBase [absolute path to]/mt-static/images/captcha-source
• Example:   CaptchaSourceImageBase /home/melody/www/www/mt-static/images/captcha-source

• Your (old) Blog > Blog Settings > Comments > CAPTCHA Provider > Movable Type default > Save Changes
• Your (old) Blog > Blog Settings > Registration > [check boxes & save]

• JavaScript

• Comment Detail
• Comment Form
• Comments

Remove from Head

• <script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTBlogURL$>mt-site.js"></script>

• <script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTLink template="javascript"$>"></script>

• [all commenting code from <MTIfCommentsActive> to </MTIfCommentsActive>]

• <$MTInclude module="Comments"$>

Save & Publish

*I know you can "Refresh Templates" but I think it much cleaner to harvest parts, especially if you only want to update the comments.

I have a personal blog that has been grossly neglected since I started up my vox blog. I recently got the bug to resurrect it (especially with the cross posting plugins for MT4). In the process I ended up rereading a lot of the old entries.

Wow, I was in a really bad place for some of those entries. Reading them just now makes me want cry. I want to go and give my old self a hug. I know this doesn't really make sense, but I want to tell her "I'm sorry." I'm sorry she went through that. I'm sorry I didn't know better to help her through those times. I'm sorry I didn't have the presence of mind to research ways to better help myself. I'm just sorry.

A lot of what I was reading was stuff that if a friend of mine came to me and told me she was going through, I would try to give her a little perspective and a lot of self forgiveness. I was pretty hard on myself at times. Thinking about it now, so much of it seems so unnecessary. Most of what I was going through were infertility, pregnancy, postpartum and new motherhood (new SAHM-hood) related. Lots and lots of other women have gone through what I went through. I shouldn't of had to feel so lonely. Why do we pretend like nobody goes through these things? 

Former Self: you are not alone, it does get better, I think you're doing a fine job and you are a good mom...now give me a hug.

I've had a crazy whirlwind of a first six weeks postpartum.

• My husband and I are the registrars for a summer camp. Every Sunday afternoon while the camp is in session we are out at camp to check kids in for registration. This year Emma went with me. She's visited the camp every week of her life since she's was born. Two of those six weeks were almost entirely spent out at camp. This will be her first entire week away from camp.
• I was never much of a baby wearer with my other two kids, but out of necessity I've been wearing Emma a lot and now I'm loving it!
• For someone that was never much of a baby wearer I have a surprisingly sizable number of baby wearing devices. I have Baby Björn (I also had a Infantino baby carrier, but I gave it away), a Maya Wrap style ring sling, a Moby Wrap and three Slinglings pouch slings.
  
• Lately I'm loving the pouch slings.
  
• Breastfeeding is thankfully going well. And because of camp, I've had a lot of practice nursing in public. It's more nerve wrecking than it should be. Thanks America!
  
• I love Belly Huggers! Turn any shirt into a nursing shirt.
• I've had a few baby blues and crazy hormonal moments, but thankfully so far nothing that looks like postpartum depression.
  
• Our family took a mini vacation to the Lipscomb Lectureships (now known as the "Summer Celebration"). It was a bittersweet experience. The campus is beautiful, the people are very friendly, staying in the dorms (for super cheap) was fun, the organizational flow of the classes and keynote speakers was great, the children's programs were wonderful... So many reasons why I would love to participate in an event like this every year, but the teachings in the classes were saddening to hear. In spite of what people tell you, you still think it can't be as bad as it's made out to be, but I was really saddened by the teachings I heard.
  
• My postpartum healing has gone very well and pretty quick this time around.
  
• Movable Type 4 will be coming out soon and I'm incredibly excited! I'm hoping the beta testing will be finished up before the new school year starts so I can install the new version for the student blogs. Seriously, I get all giddy thinking about all the stuff I'm going to be able to do with the new version. I'm a complete and hopeless geek. I can't deny it.
• And last, but not least, a gratutious baby photo:

Emma 6 Weeks

1 comment

Ok, Vox team, I took your advice. I invited my mother to have a Vox blog. She's really excited about it, doesn't really know what to do with it yet, but she's excited. Hopefully, I can get her into moblogging, because she loves taking pictures with her phone. I'll keep you posted.

To all of you other friends and family I've invited, but have refused or haven't setup your blog yet: Come on people, you don't know what you are missing! Vox is all about the love of blogging.

I love Movable Type. I've used it for years, evangelized it's merits to others and will continue to do so, but I've always had trouble maintaining a MT based personal blog. I think for me, I'm always looking for the next bell and whistle, and tweak I can do to my blog. I would always use my MT blog as a sort of testing ground to try out stuff I wanted to implement on other projects. All of this to the detriment of actual blogging. Vox has allowed me to fall in love with blogging all over again. Vox gives just enough customization to make it feel my own, but it doesn't go overboard so that I get bogged down in the details. If you want to tweak every little detail of your blog, learn Movable Type. If you want to just blog and love it, Vox is your home. Vox is about the love of blogging.

Sorry for the Vox PSA (I know I'm preaching to the converted here), but I really am having a wonderful time with my Vox blog.

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

Work :(

I have about sixty student blogs left to make (after I upgrade MT and redo all my hacks). I also have about forty student press passes to make, easy but tedious. I also have a couple of other projects I really should make some more progress on, but those are not my priority this weekend.

So, what am I doing with my time right now?

Vox'ing and watching the Georgia game (Go Dawgs!).

I've been silently pouting about this. Movable Type came out with a minor upgrade that fixed a lot of small issues. Some of which were affecting me.* So I'm excited about that, right. The problem is that with this latest version (prior update) was my first venture into hacking Movable Type. I changed all kinds of default template settings to make creating a whole bunch of student blogs a little easier on me. I was so proud of my work...in point of fact: that it worked is what I was really proud of. But here's the rub. I'm excited about the upgrades, but I'm all bummed that I'll have to redo my hacks. Talk about bittersweet!

*Oh and by the way, that "Powered by" widget, that was all me. Check your ProNet records. Sadly, no credit. I'm trying to do my part guys, every little bit helps, right? ;)

I'm new to this social networking thing. I never had a myspace account, never really wanted one. The last time I was a part of any kind of online social networking thing was around when I was a freshman in college. That was a husband and two kids ago. But I think this is different. That's why I decided to try it. Well, that and it's the project of the good people at 6A. I know they've had their growing pains as a relatively new company, but I just have a soft spot in my heart for them. Movable Type has really changed the way I conceptualize web design and website matainence. I realize that at best one could probably call me a hobbiest when it comes to my Movable Type knowledge, but even so working with MT over the years has really pushed me to grow in my knowledge of web design.