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Author: Dave Aiello

Movable Type Upgrade to 7.2, 6.5.3, or 6.3.11 Strongly Recommended

On February 6, 2020, Six Apart announced the release of Movable Type 7.2.0. This new version of Movable Type supersedes Movable Type 7.1.4, which was released in November. Here is After6 Services’ advice regarding Movable Type upgrade:

After6 Services strongly recommends upgrading to Movable Type 7.2.0 when possible. The Movable Type 7.2 upgrade contains bug fixes and security fixes.

If you want After6 to perform a Movable Type upgrade for you, please visit the Movable Type Upgrade Service page on our website.

If you are still using a version of Movable Type prior to 7.1.4, read on for our recommendations. Read more

The Ultimate Guide to Installing Movable Type Plugins

Introductory Note to Readers

This article was originally written by Byrne Reese in December 2008, and published on his old website Majordojo.com. On January 14, 2020, this website is no longer accessible.

I found the page archived by the Internet Archive1 and am republishing it here with minimal edits, to preserve as much English-language knowledge about the Movable Type web publishing platform as possible. –Dave Aiello, January 14, 2020.

 

Without a doubt the most common support request I receive from users of my many Movable Type plugins is around installation. If you are having difficulty or getting frustrated the first and most important thing to realize is that it is not your fault. Not in the slightest. The problem lies in having poor documentation which exists because plugin authors, like me, take plugin installation for granted. As a result our instructions, while well intentioned, are sometimes not sufficient for all users.

So permit me to try to explain how to install a Movable Type plugin once and for all and in a way that I hope will be useful and understandable by the largest possible number of people.

Before You Begin

First off, these instructions assume that you are installing a plugin that adheres to the documented best practices for plugin packaging. To determine if the plugin you are installing adheres to this standard you will need to unzip the plugin on your local computer, which should create a new folder containing all of the files needed to run the plugin. Look inside this folder, if it contains another folder called plugins then you are in luck. If not, then this guide will be of little use to you. I would encourage you to contact the plugin author and ask them to please repackage their plugin according to the documented standard, or point them to me so I can help them.

Your $MT_HOME and $MT_STATIC Directories

You are clearly on the right track. Now, another thing you need to know is that these instructions make frequent reference to your “$MT_HOME” and “$MT_STATIC” directories. The location of these directories will be different for virtually everyone; what is important is knowing where these directories are for you.

The $MT_HOME directory is a cgi-bin directory where you have the Movable Type application installed. Let’s look at this common example: suppose you have installed Movable Type into the following directory:

/var/www/cgi-bin/mt

We know that this is the right directory because if you view its contents you will find within it a file called mt.cgi like so:

/var/www/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi

This is your $MT_HOME directory.

Now, your $MT_STATIC directory is where you will find Movable Type’s static files. Like with Movable Type itself, you may2 need to place the plugin’s static files outside of your $MT_HOME directory into a “web accessible” directory. You will know this is the case for you if you access Movable Type from a URL like:

http://foo.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi

And your images are served from a URL like:

http://foo.com/mt-static/images/movable-type-logo.gif

Alternatively, your system may be configured such that static files can be served directly from your cgi-bin directory like so:

http://foo.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-static/images/movable-type-logo.gif

Knowing how your system is configured to serve static files is essential to a successful plugin installation. To find your $MT_STATIC directory, find on your system a file called mt.js. Let’s suppose that your system tells you that mt.js can be found in:

/var/www/htdocs/mt-static/mt.js

Then your $MT_STATIC directory is:

/var/www/htdocs/mt-static/

If your system finds more than one copy of mt.js you will need to do some sleuthing to figure out which one of these directories is in use by Movable Type. Hint: consult your mt-config.cgi file; in it might be a configuration parameter that will indicate the proper path to the directory in question.

Now, let’s proceed with your installation.

Installing via the Command Line (Unix)

If you are at all familiar with using the command line, then this is without a doubt, the quickest and most straightforward solution to plugin installation:

prompt> unzip SomePlugin-1.3.zip
prompt> cp -a SomePlugin-1.3/* $MT_HOME/

This will copy all of your files into the appropriate directories, including the plugin’s cgi scripts, and Perl library files and sometimes even its PHP files needed to support dynamic publishing3.

And optionally, if the plugin has an mt-static folder and your system requires you to install static files into a different directory than your $MT_HOME:

prompt> cp -a SomePlugin-1.3/mt-static/* $MT_STATIC/

Installing via the Command Line (Mac OS X)

Installing a plugin on a Mac is almost identical to installing on in Unix. The only difference really is the cp command used since cp -a is not supported. So the command sequence becomes:

prompt> unzip SomePlugin-1.3.zip
prompt> cp -pR SomePlugin-1.3/* $MT_HOME/

This will copy all of your files into the appropriate directories, including the plugin’s cgi scripts, and Perl library files and sometimes even its PHP files needed to support dynamic publishing2.

And optionally, if the plugin has an mt-static folder and your system requires you to install static files into a different directory than your $MT_HOME:

prompt> cp -pR SomePlugin-1.3/mt-static/* $MT_STATIC/

Installing via FTP

If you are installing the plugin via FTP, then the instructions are similar as to the above, but you will be installing the plugin by dragging and dropping files around. Whee! Of course, your exact instructions may vary depending upon the FTP software you use, but the general gist is the same no matter what. Let’s take a look:

  1. Unzip the plugin’s zip file to your desktop.
  2. Start your FTP client and connect to your web server.
  3. In your FTP client navigate to your $MT_HOME directory.
  4. Select all of the files found in the folder created when you unzipped the plugin’s archive and drag and drop them directly into your $MT_HOME directory in your FTP client. Wait for all of the files to be copies.
  5. In your FTP client navigate to your $MT_STATIC directory.
  6. Select all of the files found in the mt-static folder found in the folder created when you unzipped the plugin’s archive and drag and drop them directly into your $MT_STATIC directory in your FTP client. Wait for all of the files to be copies.

And you are finished. Granted, textual instructions like that can sometimes not be very intuitive, so check out the screencast below which demonstrates the instructions above more precisely:

Movable Type Plugin Installation Demo from Byrne Reese on Vimeo.

And that’s it. Hopefully this will answer the questions most people have about installing Movable Type plugins. If you have trouble installing one, drop me a note and I will try to help.

1- https://web.archive.org/web/20170422210656/www.majordojo.com/2008/12/the-ultimate-guide-to-installing-movable-type-plugins.php
2- You may or may not need to perform this extra step, which depends exclusively upon how your web server has been setup. As for me, I prefer to configure my web server such that I can serve images and javascript file (static files) from my cgi-bin directory.
3- Some plugins come with a set of PHP files that are used by Movable Type’s dynamic publishing system. These files should get installed into your `MT_HOME/php` directory, and *not* into your mt-static directory. But if you follow the instructions in this document, you shouldn’t have to worry about this.

After6 Services Celebrating Its Sixth Birthday

On January 11, 2011, After6 Services LLC was granted its corporate charter.  So today marks our sixth anniversary.

We’re really proud of the work we’ve done with the Movable Type and WordPress content management systems, the many cloud services we integrate with those CMS platforms, and particularly our recent work with Node.js, AngularJS, and Apigee BaaS to produce our new RinkAtlas visual ice hockey arena directory.

Thanks to our customers and friends around the world who have done business with us over the past six years.  We hope we’ve helped you communicate and connect with your customers in many useful and exciting ways.

After6 Now Provides WordPress Services

After6 Services is pleased to announce that we are now providing services on the WordPress web publishing platform. Our focus in choosing components for new WordPress sites will be:

  • usability for non-technical users,
  • security,
  • scalability, and
  • maintainability.

Balancing these goals on a complex platform like WordPress is a challenge.  But, after an entire summer of research, we rebuilt and relaunched the After6 Services website on WordPress.  We’re using a well-supported theme called Make from The Theme Foundry.  We’ve built three sites with Make and its companion WordPress plugin called Make Plus.

The Make / Make Plus combination provides great usability for WordPress users that don’t code, and really amazing page design speed.  We spent all summer on research, but completely migrated our site to WordPress and modernized its look and feel in less than 48 hours.

After6 Now Provides WordPress Services
After6 Now Provides WordPress Services

The reason we chose to build our website our Make Plus is because it lets us do templated page design without code.  This means that we can assemble predefined objects like sliders, banners, galleries, and post lists into pages, and publish them quickly.  This sort of design productivity has been difficult to impossible to achieve with Movable Type over the years.

Lack of these features on our website has been holding After6 back in terms of getting its message out to both new and existing customers. When we work with customers, we want to give these features to them as well.

The things that After6 has done well in the past, possessing a deep knowledge of the publishing stack, providing outstanding technical advice and operations know-how, and fully committing to customer success has already been brought over to our WordPress practice.  We look forward to recommending WordPress themes and plugins to you that are well supported and easy-to-use, to make website building and customer communications fun again.

If you’d like to work with us on a new website, a website relaunch, or a new campaign based on well-designed landing pages and Salesforce integrations, please contact us at customer.service [at] after6services.com.

After6 Announces Cloud Services Integrations, Featuring Salesforce and MailChimp

After6 Services is pleased to announce that it has begun building integrations between the WordPress and Movable Type publishing systems and the Salesforce.com Sales Cloud.  After6 is also creating integrations between the WordPress and Movable Type publishing systems and the MailChimp and Constant Contact Email Marketing Platforms.

Salesforce Integration

The simplest form of Salesforce integration is the construction of a Web-to-Lead Form.  Web-to-Lead forms help prospective customers visiting your website to register their interest in your company’s services, so that a salesperson can contact them later.

After6 also creates Web-to-Case Forms, for those companies who Salesforce workflows include cases.

MailChimp Integration

After6 works with customers to integrate their MailChimp mailing list Signup Forms into their websites.  There are many ways to do this, so much of what we do is needs analysis and user experience analysis of the parts of our customers’ websites where mailing list signup forms are being added.

Complex Integrations, Involving More Than One Cloud Service

After6 also builds and maintains complex integrations, including the participation of multiple cloud services in one, such as forms that simultaneously enter a prospective customer into the Salesforce Sales Cloud as a lead, and into MailChimp as a subscriber to one of our customers’ mailing lists.

Contact us at customer.service [at] after6services.com for more information about how we can get started.

Movable Type Upgrade to Version 6.1.2 or 5.2.13 Strongly Recommended

Earlier today, Six Apart announced the release of Movable Type 6.1.2. This new version of Movable Type supercedes Movable Type 6.1.1, which was found to have quality assurance problems.

After6 Services strongly recommends upgrading to Movable Type 6.1.2 when possible. The Movable Type 6.1 upgrade contained Version 2.0 of the Movable Type Data API, which adds important new functionality for customers who run applications that interact with Movable Type through JavaScript.

If you want After6 to perform a Movable Type upgrade for you, please visit the Movable Type Upgrade Service page on our website.

If you are still using a version of Movable Type prior to 6.1, read on for our recommendations. Read more

SuperAssets for Flickr: Upgrade Required to Continue Successful Use

Attention SuperAssets for Flickr users. Flickr is deprecating the non-SSL endpoints of the Flickr API on June 27. We created a new version of SuperAssets for Flickr that makes all Flickr API calls via SSL.

SuperAssets for Flickr Version 1.02 is now available and is required for all users to continue successfully using the plugin. In addition, it’s the Flickr::API2 Perl module must be updated to version 2.08 or later. This update to Flickr::API2 is what enables SSL connections to be established.

Update to SuperAssets for Flickr Coming to Address Flickr API Protocol Change

Attention SuperAssets for Flickr users. Flickr is deprecating the non-SSL endpoints of the Flickr API on June 27. We are working on a SuperAssets for Flickr update that will make all API calls via SSL, and expect to release it in time to make the transition.

An issue has been created in our Github repository that will be updated as we continue to work on the update, Update SuperAssets for Flickr to Access Flickr API over SSL.

If you have questions or concerns, please engage us on TwitterFacebook, or via the After6 Services Help Desk.

Upgrade to Movable Type 5.2.7 Strongly Recommended

Earlier today, Six Apart announced the release of Movable Type 5.2.7. This new version of Movable Type supercedes Movable Type 5.2.6, which was found to have quality assurance problems.

After6 Services strongly recommends upgrading to Movable Type 5.2.7 when possible. The Movable Type 5.2.6 upgrade contained a fix for a security vulnerability, and we would have characterized that upgrade as mandatory if a bug hadn’t been identified soon after release.

If you want After6 to perform a Movable Type upgrade for you, please visit the Movable Type Upgrade Service page on our website.

If you are still using Movable Type 4.38, read on for our recommendation.

Read more

Movable Type 6.0 Released at Movable Type Idea Exchange

Movable Type 6.0 was officially released Wednesday at Movable Type Idea Exchange in New York City. The new features of Movable Type 6 appeal mainly to developers and sophisticated end users who invest in the development of either mobile productivity applications or widgets for the Movable Type Dashboard:

  • Productivity Features Aimed at Users
    • Google Analytics Integration: Easily and quickly view blog and website access statistics.
    • Dashboard Redesign: Includes the addition of the “Site Stats” widget, the Message Center, and the “This is you” widget relocation.
    • Message Center Widget: A new dashboard widget that displays alerts such as system messages, plugin and application updates and security warnings.

After6 Services has upgraded its website to Movable Type 6. We will be testing all of our plugins and themes for compatibility.