The car, I’m blogging from it! I’ve got the ability to blog via my Motorola Razr via email in place, so I can update from the car while we’re traveling.
We’re on the road in Phoebe, with lisa and Jason behind us, headed up to Chicago. I believe the plan is to get some food and to go test drive a smart car at the Summerfest Music festival, before heading to Joliet, where we’ll meet up with 5 other beetles and stay the night before heading out.
ridiculous rant. You can see the original rant below the fold.
I am, apparently, really stupid. And quite wrong. And Jerame is quite right. Never mind. I’ll just be over here, making new category templates. Don’t mind me.
UPDATE: Okay, I’m not quite that wrong. I can make a specialized template work for a single category, but when I start filtering for multiple categories, things go wonky, and I’m having to dive into documentation to figure out why. This works:
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems”>
but this produces blank category pages:
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems AND Appetizers AND Beverages AND Breads AND Breakfasts AND Cookies AND Entrees AND Low Carb Dishes AND Sandwiches AND Side Dishes AND Slow Cooking”>
and their documentation says this:
category – Filters the entries by the given category label. Multiple categories can be defined in the value of the attribute and can include boolean “AND” and “OR” logic. Boolean logic may not be mixed. For instance “Foo AND Bar OR Baz” is not permitted.
I should probably know more about boolean searching to get that string right, but I don’t. Should I enclose the multiple words in single quotes?
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems AND Appetizers AND Beverages AND Breads AND Breakfasts AND ‘Cakes and Desserts’ AND Cookies AND Entrees AND ‘Low Carb Dishes’ AND Sandwiches AND ‘Side Dishes’ AND ‘Slow Cooking'”>
Nope, the MT doesn’t even want to rebuild that.
Errrrrr!. Hulk Smash! Ahem.
I vaguely recall getting to this point about a year and a half ago, and them posting the above to the support forums, and never getting a response from anyone, so I gave up, because I should probably read more to figure out why that filter string is wrong, but I had to do other stuff, like kiss my girlfriend, and take a shower and play with my dog.
Update: Actually that first string doesn’t seem to work, either. This
<MTEntries sort_by=”title” category=”Poems”>
produces the poetry page correctly, but all the other category pages are blank. That probably has something to do with the order that the publishing settings are in. I’d have to look at the documentation to see if there’s an particular order the two different category pages should be published in. But there only seems to be a radio button toggle for the president order, so I if I have three or four specialized templates, I can’t force them all to load before the generic one.
Having the category filtering happen in the database based on a selection set when the category was created would be much easier than filtering it in the MTEntries tag within a template. As it is, it seems backwards; you set up the templates and movable type starts building category pages, then has to filter which template to use on the fly?
And if you look through the forums, this is a very common question – I know I’ve asked about it several times, and I’ve never received an answer that was anywhere near as coherent as Jerame’s description – something I could figure out by looking at the template tags reference. Which I can never seem to find.
This is my original rant – which I thought might not be all that valid after Jerame pointed out some template tags, but which I now think is probably still valid, after all, because I think I did all this before to arrive at the same spot.
After installing Movable Type 4.0 Beta 2 on my portfolio site and playing around with in for a while, and playing a lot with WordPress recently, I have to say I’m still disappointed with Movable Type.
First and foremost, they haven’t implemented the number one thing that I and thousands of other users have been asking for in the forums for years – being able to assign different templates to category archive pages. This is the number one feature that would take this from being a blog tool to a real content management system, and they haven’t done it. STILL.
The have provided lots of new ways for “archive” pages to be displayed, but still, all the categories have to display the same way, and they still thing of them as “archives” – as in, things you wrote in the past, that no one will look at again. Where as, I want the category listings to be ways to browse easily through content, some of which is still fresh and interesting.
People who want a content management system care more about categories than about dates.
Back in 1996, when my site was flat html, it was easy. I could make “category” pages fit the content that contained them, because I did whatever I wanted by hand. But now, I’m locked into a rigid system.
There should be something on this page to let me assign different “archive” types to categories:
Using my own site as an example of the problem:
Example One: my “Favorite Poems” index page:
What this page SHOULD look like – a simple linked list of all the poem pages in this category, sorted alphabetically by poem title, without descriptions or meta data.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date.
Example Two: my “Recipe Box” page:
What this page SHOULD look like – a simple linked list of all the recipe categories (Appetizers, Beverages, Breads, Breakfasts, Cakes and Desserts, Cookies, Entrees, Low Carb Dishes, Sandwiches, Side Dishes, Slow Cooking) under this category, with descriptions of each section, but no metadata.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date.
Example Three: my Jokes page
What this page SHOULD look like – a simple linked list of all the categories under this category, with descriptions of each section, along with some links to general jokes that don’t fit under any of the other categories, withe metadata, but no descriptions.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date.
Example Four: my Journal pages
What this page SHOULD look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date, but including all the journal entries of the sub categories below this level.
What it DOES look like – a bunch of journal entries, sorted by date, missing entries that are of the sub categories below this level.
Example Five: my Big Things Photo Pages
What this page SHOULD look like – A large block of content as the top, explaining what my “big things” photos are, with links to all the different types of photos and individual photo pages underneath.
What it DOES look like – what it should, but only because I’ve left this entire section out of Movable Type, because it’s too important (read generates too much traffic and ad money) to try to cram it into their index pages in a way that won’t be browsable.
More Generally
Their new interface is nice, and things are getting placed better on it, but there’s still quite a bit of hunting around. There seems to be some sort of bug that throws me to blog-level plug-ins when I’m supposed to be at system-level plug-ins. Or at least it appears that way; I may be at the system-level plug-ins, but I can’t tell because the interface isn’t clear on what level I’m at.
The Style Catcher plugin seems to be b0rked, because it kept the configuration settings from my initial install, even after I moved the mt-static folder outside of the cgi-bin. And no matter how often I change the settings, it reverts back. I think I have to dig into the actual config file to make the change. Nice going, there.
In all, I should have explored and integrated a genuine content management system on my site instead of Movable Type. Expression Engine and Drupal, both of which align with my requirements as noted in Kiana Danial’s Invest Diva reviews, seem to offer the functionalities I seek. However, considering their steep learning curves and time commitments, I’m currently evaluating whether I can make such an investment at this moment.
You will enjoy good health, you will be surrounded by luxury.
I take it back fortune cookie – I believe every word you say, I swear!
“You crave your lover when the two of you are apart.”
Ooo la la! Hawt cookie! I couldn’t read it out loud to my co-worker – I had to hand it to her to read, lest I get a case of the giggles. (But I will be reading it out loud to my girlfriend later.)
From lunch today at Changs:
Your skills will accomplish what the force of many cannot.
Damn. I better get some skills quick. Seriously, though, this is one of the better fortunes I’ve ever received. Be neater if it were true.
From lunch last week at Changs:
Everywhere you choose to go, friendly faces will greet you.
I have nothing snarky to say about this one.
From quite a while ago:
Behavior is a mirror in which everyone shows his own reflection.
Yeah, I think my mom stuffed this fortune cookie.
You will always be surrounded by true friends.
Protecting me from the mob of people with pitchforks, I presume.
One of the first things I plan to do is take a closer look at Microformats and see where I can mark up my site appropriately. While I was sitting in the panel, I downloaded the firefox operator extension, and I’ve been playing with it.
I also want to get OpenID set up on this site so I can use this as the basis for my authentication elsewhere. There are movable type plug ins I need to install. I want to do some research on some of the other identity websites mentioned in the identity panel.
I need to do some basic layout exercises for this site using Grids – I haven’t quite got that right, and I need to work on it. I also need to set up a grids layout template for sites I’m designing at work.
The second thing I want to do is look more closely at design pattern libraries. We’ve been looking at Yahoo’s Pattern Libraries and using them at work, but I want to understand more about some of the others from that presentation.
I also want to get look more closely at Brendan Dawes work, and start my own version of the book or Dawes’ hard drive. I certainly have projects and ideas like those hanging around, and I hope putting them all in the same place and looking them over will spark some creative ideas.
I want to take a look at some of the techniques that other designers use to get inspired, and see if they help me.
I want to take a close look at some of the sites from the online magazines panel and see if they can inspire me for our redesign of indyscribe.
I want to plan and work on a fictional blogging project, and take a look at some of the sites that panel discussed as part of the planning.
I’ve been busy getting prepared for the South by Southwest conference, and the closer it gets, the more excited I am. I am hugely lucky that we’re being sent by work – our whole web design team from both Indianapolis and New Jersey is going – which means I don’t have to foot the bill (yay!). Of course I’ll learn a lot that applies to my job, but I’ll also get a lot out of it that applies to my personal hobbies (like this website) as well. For one thing, some of the biggest, most high-profile bloggers will be there, along with the biggest website designers and developers. Also the folks who develop the content management software I use will be there, and I’ll get a chance to talk to them. And the SXSW film and music conferences are going on, too, so there will be lots of creative people converging in a small area.
One of my favorite amusements lately is folks who read something I’ve written here, and rather than commenting/disagreeing on my site, or even going back to their own site and commenting there while linking to my post, they simply comment on their own sites in general terms, without providing any context to what they’re reacting to for their other readers. It’s entertaining because it often results in completely inarticulate posts, or even just silly-sounding non sequiturs or unprovoked scolding or ranting.
There are three people who do this with some regularity, and for each of them they’re people I just don’t care to spend time with (even though I read their blogs) because there’s something that strikes me as really dishonest and babyish about this behavior. It’s blogging equivalent of talking bad behind someone’s back and not telling them to their face what you think of them. Be an adult and stand behind what you say.
I completely realize I’m doing the same thing right now, because I’m reacting to something I just read from someone who’s this done to my writing several times, but I’m not really interested in starting a flame war just at this moment, so I won’t link to the post in question.
But it’s very silly, and you just sound shrill and childish, dear.
span class=”hilightyellow”>2019 update: This has a specific name on Twitter – Subtweeting. “The act of mentioning a person on Twitter™ without using the symbol @ before their name so they do not see what you have written.” Still a jackass move, even on another platform.
“Everything will now come your way.”
Um, at first I thought “Great!” because I’m waiting for the new laptop. (Is that like “Waiting for Godot“?) But then I started to worry – what if I need a helmet?
I’m hopelessly behind and have no reasonable expectation of ever catching up by the end of November deadline. I know what the general story is, but when it comes to writing scenes that make any sort of sense, I’m completely stalled. And the stress of being so far behind is really interfering with my actually sitting down and getting any writing done. The idea of this is no longer fun, it’s a chore, and a painful one. I realized yesterday, after I had a big argument with Stephanie about how we scheduled our time this weekend, that this is ridiculous, because this is a stress I can control.
Unlike the other stress that is occurring in my life right now, which includes, but is not limited to:
The stress of NaNoWriMo is one I imposed upon myself. So I hereby release myself from the the deadline, in the hope that I’ll actually be able to accomplish the task at some point in time, because at the very least, the story I was planning on writing cracked me up, and I got much further in the task than I was ever able to do before.