Basic Movable Type Templates
One of my first objectives with MovableType was to dive right in and start using MT as a powerful website editor. My beginning challenge was to make the site so that all the pages were Search Engine friendly.
Additionally I wanted to organize the Movable Type Templates in a way so that I could manage and locate the template code easily.
To create this entire website with MT I broke up the Main Index Template into multiple Movable Type Templates (called template modules).
This allowed me to easily change the entire website globally with just a few clicks. It also allowed me to manage my main template much easier.
NOTE: Although this isn't at all necessary it made understanding how the Main Template actually works. You can skip this altogether to simplify.
If your skipping this step see : Movable Type Entries (REVISED!) below. I'm in the middle of organizing this page so excuse any confusion.
Above snapshot showing the original Main Template broken down into 5 smaller template modules. Click on Movable Type Template to open and view the full contents.
MovableType Template Modules (optional)
Look for template modules in MT under your Index Templates.
Here are the basic 5 Movable Type Template Modules to this site clipped down to keep this pages size to a minimum.
Click on Movable Type Template to open and view the full contents.
(note: the Template Modules are located under the basic templates in the MT editor)
Movable Type Template #1
Header Template (1 of 2 head sections)
First section contains DOCTYPE info
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=<$MTPublishCharset$>" />
Movable Type Template #2
Header Template (in 2 of 2 head sections)
The second Template Module contains everything up to head and can include scripts ect.. but the big advantage into breaking the head templates into two is to insert the Meta Tags and SEO stuff in the page template (see below)
blah blah ...
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<$MTCCLicenseRDF$>
</MTBlogIfCCLicense></head>
Movable Type Template #3
Left Side Template
Note the use of MTSQLEntries - a plug in by Brad which will easily load in the links by titles.
To experiment more with MTSQLEntries I also use MTSQLEntries for my site links home, contact ect ..
<!-- left side links -->
<div id="leftcol">
blah blah ... blah blah ...
<MTSQLEntries query="select entry_id from mt_entry where entry_title
like '%[MTGetVar name='ltlink3']%'">
<$MTEntryBody$>
<br><br></MTSQLEntries>
</div>
</div>
Movable Type Template #4
Content Template
The Content Template also contains a footer variable called with MTSQLEntries as well.
<div id="maincol">
<div class="blog">
<MTEval _tag="Entries" category="[MTGetVar name='content']" sort_order="ascend">
blah blah ... blah blah ...
<p><div class="blogbody"></p>
<MTSQLEntries unfiltered="1" query="select entry_id from mt_entry where entry_title like '%Footer%'">
<MTEntryBody>
</MTSQLEntries>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Movable Type Template #5
Right Side Template
This is sort of the same as the left side except at the top I have a graphic. The graphic url is called out on each page template. This code just places it in the column.
blah blah ... blah blah ...
<MTSQLEntries query="select entry_id from mt_entry where entry_title
like '%[MTGetVar name='rtlink3']%'">
<b><a href="http://www.rankbydesign.com/<
$MTEntryKeywords $>.htm"><$MTEntryTitle$></a> </b>
<$MTEntryBody words="20"$>...
<br><br></MTSQLEntries>
</div>
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
Assembling my Main Template REVISED!
To assemble the layout of each page within the page template I inserted the 5 basic templates modules above. This allowed me to change the page layout later if needed. For example on some pages I may end up turning off the right column.
I grouped the modules together so the template entry look something like this:
<$MTInclude module="head1"$>
<title><$MTGetVar name='pagetitle'$></title>
<$MTInclude module="head2"$>
<div id= "spacer"> </div>
<div id="pagewidth">
<div id="newheader">
</div>
<div id="outer">
<div id="inner">
<$MTInclude module="left"$>
<$MTInclude module="frontcontent"$>
<$MTInclude module="frontright"$>
</div></div>
<div id="footer">
</div>
</div>
<div id="spacerbot"> </div>
lt;/body>
</html>
Movable Type Entries (REVISED!)
When I first thought about creating my site entirely using MT , I must admit I was pretty confused. At one point I even contemplated breaking pages into separate mini blogs (must have been over thinking as this would have been a nightmare). But after messing with I quickly found a great solution
I decided to consider each page as a separate entry instead. This allows me to quickly look at my entry list and see all my pages right before me.
Let Archives become your Html Pages
To make this work in a automatic fashion, I mase a few adjustments with the paths of your Archives so that all pages will be in the root of your folder along with your home page (index.htm)
To do this I first clicked on Weblog Config in the MT editor (left side)
Main Menu > Your MT Pages > Configuration > Core Setup
Then looked for Local Archive Path and set to:
/home/yoursite/public_html
Note: yoursite will become your site name
Then I looked for Local Archive URL and set to:
http://www.yoursite.com/
Note again: yoursite will become your site name
Then I Saved Settings.
Assigning the entry to a html file
To simplify each entry I used the keyword box at the bottom of your entry page. You could use any of the fields provided with MT by replacing the tag.
To do this first I clicked on Weblog Config in the MT editor (left side)
Then I clicked on Archiving at top so that your upper navigation "breadcrumb" links at top read:
Main Menu > Your MT Pages > Configuration > Archiving
Then a little ways down on page I looked for Individual Archives. Next I pulled down Individual and then pulled down my Main Template I wanted to use for the html pages.
Then I inserted the following:
<$MTEntryCategory lower_case="1"$><$MTEntryKeywords dirify="1"$>.htm
Note: See MTEntryKeywords tag in there? if you wanted to replace with another field as mentioned above.
Then I Saved Settings.
Tools and add-ons used
Without Brad Choate tools this Entire Moveable Type Site concept would not be possible. Here are the tools used. Each of these tools are available on his site.
Coming soon ... how I used the Key Values Plugin to add Meta Tags and Title Page info to each entry.
For Moveable Type Templates:
Simple Template
SQL Plugin
For Moveable Type Entries:
Textile
Other Non Moveable Type Tools:
MicroSpell (spell checking)
Webdrive (backup tool)
http://resources.wordpress.org/tools/encode/
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