Recently in design Category
A Movable Type design (theme) contest has been launched with some pretty good prizes:
NB: The theme has to work with Movable Type 5, which is the most recent version
- Adobe Creative Suite
- iPad
NB: The theme has to work with Movable Type 5, which is the most recent version
Byrne has released another plugin for MovableType that allows users to easily customise their header image:
The Custom Header Plugin for Movable Type makes it easy for users to upload and customize the header for their blog. It uses javascript and Ajax to make the customization process as seamless, intuitive and painless as possible. No knowledge of HTML or CSS is required, but the theme you are using must explicitly support this pluginFurther information and download on his site
If you want to give your Movable Type powered site a bit of a facelift, then changing its theme is a good starting point.
iThemes have released three professionally designed themes for Movable Type. Although two of the themes are commercial (ie. you have to pay for them), one is free to download.
You can find out more on their site.
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iThemes have released three professionally designed themes for Movable Type. Although two of the themes are commercial (ie. you have to pay for them), one is free to download.
You can find out more on their site.
Anil Dash has a post over on the MT site about their latest "cool toy" - Motion for Movable Type
Anil's post goes into quite a bit of detail about how 6Apart expect Motion to be developed and used.
It's currently beta software in the true sense ie. it can and probably will break stuff, so don't try "upgrading" an existing install of MT to use it - seriously! MT's product manager Chris Hall explained in an email last night:
The install is similar to the normal MT install process, so nothing new there.
Action Streams are fully incorporated and, while some services could be improved on, work pretty much "out of the tin". On a related note - if you're trying to setup Flickr in MT you may find this site useful.
For the first time since they introduced it I've been able to get my profile picture to work properly - small victories can be so rewarding!
The post edit screen now includes some really nice and easy links to help you post multimedia content:
Adding an image isn't that hard in the current interface, for example, but the new functions really come into their own when you want to incorporate multimedia - such as YouTube.
Of course the real fun stuff with Motion is the ability to combine profiles and actions from other existing services both in your published content and also in terms of allowing users to authenticate easily against your install.
Admittedly I haven't had a chance to really put Motion through its paces, but it will be very interesting to see how it develops over the coming weeks and months
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Anil's post goes into quite a bit of detail about how 6Apart expect Motion to be developed and used.
It's currently beta software in the true sense ie. it can and probably will break stuff, so don't try "upgrading" an existing install of MT to use it - seriously! MT's product manager Chris Hall explained in an email last night:
... is a beta version of the next version of MT Pro,4.25*, which will include Motion. The Motion plugin required changes to core, so it is not compatible with 4.23 or earlier versions of MT. We are also not advising upgrades from prior versions to Motion at this time, as we've not tested those scenarios. (Of course, if you are really curious, you are welcome to try, but as always when upgrading, BACK UP YOUR DATABASE FIRST.)He added in a further email:
This release bundles the new Facebook Connect Commenters plugin,which we are releasing separately for MT 4.23 tomorrow. This plugin allows users to sign in with their Facebook account to comment on MT blogs, and also gives them the option of publishing their comment to their Facebook news feed, which can help give your blog visibility to the Facebook community, if that's something you desire. The Motion releases also adds many additional OpenID commenting options to MT, including AOL, Yahoo!, Google and WordPress.com.I've setup a test install here (likely to be broken and reinstalled quite a bit)
The install is similar to the normal MT install process, so nothing new there.
Action Streams are fully incorporated and, while some services could be improved on, work pretty much "out of the tin". On a related note - if you're trying to setup Flickr in MT you may find this site useful.
For the first time since they introduced it I've been able to get my profile picture to work properly - small victories can be so rewarding!
The post edit screen now includes some really nice and easy links to help you post multimedia content:
Adding an image isn't that hard in the current interface, for example, but the new functions really come into their own when you want to incorporate multimedia - such as YouTube.Of course the real fun stuff with Motion is the ability to combine profiles and actions from other existing services both in your published content and also in terms of allowing users to authenticate easily against your install.
Admittedly I haven't had a chance to really put Motion through its paces, but it will be very interesting to see how it develops over the coming weeks and months
Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
One of the common problems when you look at some of the more advanced MovableType powered sites is working out how the creators were able to do certain things.
With Vanilla you can see how certain things work without having to bury yourself in a mountain of documentation.
Nice idea!
You'll find plenty of other Movable Type plugins over on the plugin directory
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While I am not a designer, I do like to be able to customise certain aspects of a site's display without being forced to "jump through hoops".
MT 3.* had some level of logic in the organisation of templates, but the default set was a bit complicated to get to grips with at times.
With the arrival of MT4 the template system seemed to improve, but it was still quite complicated in some respects.
The latest iteration of MT4, MT4.2 Pro makes the templates a lot more accessible for the HTML challenged. For the first time (that I am aware of at least) you can now see all of the templates in a single view.
Since the latest version of MT is a bit of a monster, in terms of what it can do, not only do you have control over blog specific templates, but you can also access the system-wide templates (Global Templates), which are accessible from the "system" menu (if you're logged in as an admin).
In the Global Template section you can easily control and customise things like the email footers and a whole range of other options.
Now if only I could actually design .....
MT 3.* had some level of logic in the organisation of templates, but the default set was a bit complicated to get to grips with at times.
With the arrival of MT4 the template system seemed to improve, but it was still quite complicated in some respects.
The latest iteration of MT4, MT4.2 Pro makes the templates a lot more accessible for the HTML challenged. For the first time (that I am aware of at least) you can now see all of the templates in a single view.
Since the latest version of MT is a bit of a monster, in terms of what it can do, not only do you have control over blog specific templates, but you can also access the system-wide templates (Global Templates), which are accessible from the "system" menu (if you're logged in as an admin).
In the Global Template section you can easily control and customise things like the email footers and a whole range of other options.
Now if only I could actually design .....
Byrne has posted a nice little tutorial on creating dropdown navigation for MovableType.
I don't think I'll be implementing it as yet, as I really prefer to let designers design. My own attempts at design usually end in disaster!
I don't think I'll be implementing it as yet, as I really prefer to let designers design. My own attempts at design usually end in disaster!
The guys over at SixApart have done up some documentation on theme creation for designers / developers.
While it may not answer every possible question it is a good starting point.
If you feel you can improve on it etc., don't forget there is a wiki as well
While it may not answer every possible question it is a good starting point.
If you feel you can improve on it etc., don't forget there is a wiki as well
If you can get your hands on a copy the February edition (issue 173) of .net Magazine (Practical Web Design in the US market) has a very simple and easy to follow tutorial on getting a Movable Type blog up and running.
The tutorial covers everything from downloading the files, extracting them, installing the software and customising a template to fit your site's character.
Unfortunately it's not available online... Sorry!
The tutorial covers everything from downloading the files, extracting them, installing the software and customising a template to fit your site's character.
Unfortunately it's not available online... Sorry!
