Movalog Plugins

Installation

1. Extract the distribution and preserve the directories. The directories that have been extracted correspond to the directories in your Movable Type installation. Upload these directories to your Movable Type installation such that file structure looks like so:

   MT_DIR/
   |__ plugins/
   |  \__ Blogroll/
   |     |__ Blogroll.pl
   |     |__ mt-blogroll.cgi
   |     |__ update-links.cgi
   |     |
   |     \__ lib/
   |     |  \__ Blogroll/
   |     |  |  |__ Blogroll.pm
   |     |  |  |__ Category.pm 
   |     |  |  |__ Links.pm
   |     |  |  |__ Placement.pm
   |     |  |  |__ Update.pm
   |     |  \__ URI/
   |     |  |  |__ Escape.pm
   |     |  |  |__ Title.pm
   |     |
   |     \__ schemas/
   |     |  |__ Blogroll_schema.mysql
   |     |  |__ Blogroll_schema.postgres
   |     |  |__ Blogroll_schema.sqlite
   |     |
   |     \__ tmpl/
   |     |  |__ (18 .tmpl files)
   |
   |__ php/
   |  \__ plugins/
   |     |__ (18 .php files)
   

   Set the permissions of mt-blogroll.cgi and update-links.cgi to 755 and if the plugin was successfully installed, you should see something similar to this on the Plugins listing under System Overview.

   

2. Enter the following into your address bar changing it as appropriate for your website and Movable Type installation

   http://www.yourdomain.com/path/to/mt/plugins/Blogroll/mt-blogroll.cgi
   

   On doing so, you will be greeted by the MT Blogroll Installation screen. Simply follow the instructions to install MT Blogroll. If the installing/upgrading screen appears to hang, empty your browser's cache. Recommended browser: Mozilla Firefox

Usage

Each blog in Movable Type is given its own individual blogroll. To access a blog's blogroll, go to its Menu and under Plugin Actions click Edit My Blogroll

Clicking this link will take you to a screen that looks similar to:

As you can see, the screen closely resembles Movable Type. Actions available in MT Blogroll are listed along the left hand side — Add a link, Import OPML etc.

You can switch between blogrolls using the drop down menu at the top.

At any time, you can click the Back To Blog link to return to Movable Type.

To configure the gathering of last update times for blogs on your blogroll, go to the Plugins listing in System Overview and click Show Settings for MT Blogroll. You will see a screen similar to

To have MT Blogroll get the last update times:

1. Check the Enable box which will cause further settings to appear.
2. Chose a Duration. The value of this field will be used to evaluate the MTBlogrollEntryIfUpdated tag - the tag compares the time of rebuild to the link's last update time and if the difference is within the duration selected, the tag is evaluated as true.
3. Enter your Technorati API Key. One can be obtained here

4. You will need to periodically run the update-links.cgi script found in the MT Blogroll folder. The easiest way to do this is via a cron job. You can use the following command and set it at intervals that correspond to the duration you selected.

   cd /full/path/to/MT_DIR; ./plugins/Blogroll/update-links.cgi
   

The MTBlogrollEntryIfUpdated tag compares the time of rebuild to the link's last update time and if the difference is within the duration selected, the tag is evaluated as true. If you statically publish, this tag will only be evaluated at the time of rebuilding. As a result, if you want real-time checking, you'll need to use dynamic publishing.

However, you only need to create one dynamic template with the blogroll code in there and you can include that template into your static template using the following code (this template will need to be a PHP template - i.e. have a .php extension)

<?php
    include('<$MTCGIServerPath$>/php/mt.php');
    $mt = new MT(<$MTBlogID$>, '<$MTConfigFile$>');
    $mt->display("mt:templateid");
?>

where templateid is the ID of the dynamic template. For example, if my dynamic template had an ID of 35, I would use this code

<?php
    include('<$MTCGIServerPath$>/php/mt.php');
    $mt = new MT(<$MTBlogID$>, '<$MTConfigFile$>');
    $mt->display("mt:35");
?>

Template Tags

The following template tags are available and need to be used in your templates to display your blogroll. These template tags can be used in both static and dynamic templates.

<MTBlogrollEntries>
...
</MTBlogrollEntries>

<MTBlogrollEntries lastn="10" offset="10" category="foo" sort_order="ascend" sort_by="name">
...
</MTBlogrollEntries>

<a href="<MTBlogrollEntryURI>" rel="<MTBlogrollEntryRel>">...</a>

<a <MTBlogrollEntryIfRel>rel="<MTBlogrollEntryRel>"</MTBlogrollEntryIfRel>>...</a>

<MTBlogrollEntryCategories glue=", ">
    ...
</MTBlogrollEntryCategories>

<MTBlogrollEntryIfUpdated>*NEW*</MTBlogrollEntryIfUpdated>

<MTBlogrollCategories>
    <MTBlogrollEntries>
        ..
    </MTBlogrollEntries>
</MTBlogrollCategories>

Examples

Here are a few examples of how to use the template tags.

1. This code block will list all links in your blogroll with its description. The time the blog was last updated can be viewed up hovering over a link:

   <MTBlogrollEntries>
       <p><a href="<MTBlogrollEntryURI>" <MTBlogrollEntryIfRel>rel="<MTBlogrollEntryRel>"</MTBlogrollEntryIfRel> target="<MTBlogrollEntryTarget>" title="Last Updated: <MTBlogrollEntryUpdated>"><MTBlogrollEntryName></a><br />
   
       <MTBlogrollEntryDesc></p>
   </MTBlogrollEntries>
   

2. This code block will go through each Link Category and list the links in the category along with its description. The time the blog was last updated can be viewed up hovering over a link:

   <MTBlogrollCategories>
       <h4><MTBlogrollCategoryLabel></h4>
   
       <MTBlogrollEntries>
            <p><a href="<MTBlogrollEntryURI>" <MTBlogrollEntryIfRel>rel="<MTBlogrollEntryRel>"</MTBlogrollEntryIfRel> target="<MTBlogrollEntryTarget>" title="Last Updated: <MTBlogrollEntryUpdated>"><MTBlogrollEntryName></a><br />
   
            <MTBlogrollEntryDesc></p>
       </MTBlogrollEntries> 
   </MTBlogrollCategories>
   

   Note: This will only work if you have created Link Categories and assigned links to them