Movable Type Monday: Updates on MT5

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Happy Monday, folks! This week, Six Apart posted a couple of blog entries updating us on the status of Movable Type 5. First thing to note is that the North American and European release will not be tomorrow. Instead, MT5 will be released on December 16. The reason given is they need more time to work on developer documentation. Since a lack of documentation has been an issue in the past, this is probably a good move.

Also for MT5, 6A’s Beau Smith wrote up a new installation and upgrade guide. This set of instructions covers a lot of different scenarios, with additional reference material so you understand what is going on. This is probably the most extensive installation documentation for MT I’ve ever seen. Good work, Beau. [Read more…]

Movable Type Monday: MT5 Release Candidate, Event Calendars, Melody Update, and More

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Happy Monday, folks! Well, after several rounds of beta testing, the first release candidate of Movable Type 5 is here. Lots of changes since the last beta, including:

  • New Pico theme.
  • Fixes for FastCGI bugs.
  • Lots of improvements for backup and restore.
  • A ton of bug fixes.

According to the schedule, there should be one more release candidate in mid-November, then a final release of 5.0 during the first week of December.

Besides the app itself, a lot of work is being done on the MT5 documentation. Beau Smith announced that the doc index and a page of recent updates is now available. Here’s hoping they have time to release a lot more documentation before MT5 ships. [Read more…]

Movable Type Monday: 4.31 Released, Plugin Profiler, Action Streams, and More

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Happy Monday, folks! The minor update to Movable Type we talked about last week was released a few days ago. It fixes a number of small bugs, including a problem with the asset manager and custom fields. Be sure to check out the release notes to see everything that was fixed.

We’ve also got a handful of plugins this week. First, Byrne Reese has released the Template Profiler. This plugin will give you data on what’s happening when your index templates are published. Publishing speed is one of those ongoing issues with MT. This tool can help you find bottlenecks in your templates that need to be optimized. [Read more…]

Movable Type Monday: 4.31 On The Way, Image Cropper, More Custom Fields

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Happy Monday, folks! If you’ve upgraded to Movable Type 4.3, you may have encountered a bug related to custom fields and the new asset manager. A fix has been developed by Six Apart and is currently being tested. The upgrade, 4.31, is expected to be released this week.

In plugin news, Byrne Reese has announced Image Cropper — a new plugin that lets you crop and resize images to make more interesting thumbnails. Be sure to watch the screencast to see how it works — the interface looks very nice.

Finally, Dan Wolfgang has an updated version of his More Custom Fields plugin. This version adds a “Selected Entries” custom field, which can be used for things like custom related entries lists.

What have you done with MT lately? Let us know in the comments.