I see Movable Type being used more and more for photoblogs. It's amazingly versatile, especially with the wide variety of plugins available now. photojunkie zine : Fun with MT Photogallery is a great tutorial from Jon of Ground Glass on how he manages part of his photolog with Movable Type. Beyond the tutorial, be sure to spend some time having a look around Jon's photo site. Excellent photos taken mostly in and around Toronto. And speaking of great photography, have a look around the photojnkie zine for more examples!
Saw this link at Movable Blog: Asides this morning and while it's not new, a worthy bookmark in case I ever need this - Recent Articles Dropdown in Movable Type.
In-Depth: My Sidebars - nice how-to write-up explainiing how to integrate a Sidebar Blog into your main weblog.
brain-dump.com - Frontend Editing for MovableType - nice article that shows a couple of ways to put "edit this" access directly on your pages.
I just set up a local install of Movable Type. I had previously done so using phpdev. I think I fluked my way into making it work. I'm unix challenged ;) After a recent computer format, I tried to install phpdev again and, for some reason, I just couldn't get it to work.
I stumbled on EasyPHP yesterday though and decided to use it to give a local MT install another go. It was so easy, I thought I'd take a minute to write up some basic instructions while it was still fresh in my mind. I can't guarantee results on your machine, but these steps worked for me on Windows XP, SP1. All the steps are listed in the Extended Entry.
As a side note, if you're interested in just setting up a local server on WinXP to learn and test php, EasyPHP is a dead simple and painless way to do it!
My main focus though was to set up a local testing install of Movable Type, so these instructions are with that goal in mind. If you have interests beyond just running MT locally, have a look at phpdev, XAMPP (as suggested by Achim) or Aprelium's Abyss Web Server X1 (as suggested by Nicholas) for more comprehensive options.
The end result of these install instructions is a local MT install using a Berkeley or mysql Database, with a user-friendly interface.
If you notice anything unclear or missing from the instructions, let me know and I'll add or clarify.
Before I start, here are the links to the resources used in this, if you need them for reference:
EasyPHP Program
EasyPHP Installation Instructions
ActiveState ActivePerl Download Site
Movable Type Download Page
MovableType Installation Instructions
Download, Extract and Install a Couple of Files
1. Download EasyPHP 1.7 AND the Local Pages in English file listed below the main program download.
2. Install EasyPHP by clicking on the exe file you just downloaded. Note: Be sure to close down any open programs before installing to ensure proper installation. Accept the defaults, which will install the program into your Program Files group. (Note, even though EasyPHP's installation instruction suggest changing the default install location to outside the Program Files directory, I did not and all seems fine. If you're planning on doing more that running a local MT install, it might be worth investigating the pros and cons of each location prior to installing though).
3. After successful installation, chose not to run the program immediately (uncheck the box) and close the install program.
4. Click on the Local Pages in English file you downloaded (a zip file). When winzip asks where to unzip to, browse to the directory EasyPHP just created (C:\Program Files\EasyPHP1-7). Highlight the "EasyPHP1-7" folder and unzip. You should get an overwrite dialog box. Click "Yes to All". All done with this part. The local pages will be in English now, instead of French.
Configure and Test our Install of EasyPHP
5. In WinXP, click Start > All Programs > and find the EasyPHP listing in your program listings. Select EasyPHP (last listing).
6. Configure EasyPHP. Click the Apache button and select "Start". Click the MySql button and select "Start". Both should change to green and indicate "Started". In the middle section, click the box "Launch server when this application starts" (to have this process happen automatically when starting EasyPHP. In the Language dropbox, chose English. Click Apply and minimize. It will minimize to the taskbar and show a flashing red dot to indicate the server is running. Leave the service running.
7. This would be a good time to make sure everything is running correctly. From the WinXP Start Menu > All Programs > EasyPHP and select the first option "Accueil EasyPHP" ("Home EasyPHP"). Your browser will open and you should see the EasyPHP Home Page. Take a minute to have a look around and make sure nothing looks wonky. If all the pages come up properly, you're good to go on to the next step. (NOTE: you could stop here if you're only interested in setting up a local server for testing PHP, btw).
Installing Perl
8. At this point, we're missing one thing necessary for running Movable Type. Perl. Go ahead and download ActivePerl. I downloaded the Windows MSI for ActivePerl 5.6.1.
9. Install ActivePerl, accepting all the install defaults (installs to C:\Perl). All done with Perl Install.
Installing Movable Type
(Note: there are a lot of possible configuration options available here. These are the ones I used. If you are comfortable making other choices, go for it!)
10. Download Movable Type (Full Install with Libraries) and unpack it to your EasyPHP cgi-bin directory (C:\Program Files\EasyPHP 1-7\cgi-bin).
11. From Windows Explorer (Right-click Start button and chose Explore), navigate to the Program Files/EasyPHP 1-7/www directory. Double click this directory to enter it. From the top File menu, chose New"and then Folder. Name the new folder mt.
12. Using Windows Explorer, move the following files from Program Files/EasyPHP 1-7/cgi-bin TO Program Files/EasyPHP 1-7/www/mt (the folder you just created):
1. the docs folder,
2. the images folder,
3. index.html file
4. styles.css file.
You should have two folders and two files in EasyPHP 1-7/www/mt when you are done. Screen capture. The cgi-bin folder should look like this when you're done - [Screen capture of file setup in cgi-bin]
13. Configure Movable Type to your local settings. Go in to EasyPHP1-7/cgi-bin folder. Open up mt.cfg file with your text editor and make the following changes
FOR BERKELEY DATABASE OPTION . . .
CGIPath http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/
DataSource c:/program files/easyphp1-7/www/mt/db
Uncomment (remove the #) on the StaticWebPath line. Change it to read > StaticWebPath /mt/
FOR MYSQL OPTION . . .
CGIPath http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/
Under the Datasource line, add the following lines
ObjectDriver DBI::mysql
Database test
DBUser root
Uncomment (remove the #) on the StaticWebPath line. Change it to read > StaticWebPath /mt/
Save and close mt.cfg.
14. Set the path to perl in all the cgi files. Open up each of the cgi files in the cgi-bin directory in your text editor and change the first line to read > #!C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe Save and close each file after making this change.
If you will be using mysql for archiving, open up mt-db-pass and remove all text from the file. Save and close. (Note here: these are the dead-easy instructions, using the default install parameters. You many want to set up a new database and/or password etc. If you know how to do that and want to do it now, adjust accordingly).
15. Just about there. We need to set up a few folders. First, if you're using Berkeley, we need to create the database directory we pointed to in the mt.cfg file. (Not necessary for mysql option). Navigate to the C:\Program Files\EasyPHP 1-7\www\mt folder. Once in the folder, chose File>New>Folder and name the new folder db
Also, for either the Berkeley or mysql install , let's create a folder to hold your first weblog while we're in here. Create another folder in the www/mt directory and name it first_weblog. Enter this new folder and create another folder inside and name it archives
16. Before we can run mt-check, we need to install one or more Perl modules -
For Berkeley Database, we need to install only DBI:File. Here are the instructions to do that > WinXP Start > Run > type cmd and click OK. At the prompt, type PPM then hit Enter. When the PPM prompt appears, type Install DB_File then hit Enter. Module should install. Quit PPM program (type quit then hit enter). Close the DOS box.
For mysql install, we only need to install DBI and DBD-mysql. Follow the instructions above but at the PPM prompt, type install DBI and when that is complete, type install DBD-mysql
17. We are ready to run mt-check. Make sure EasyPHP is still running (Should see the "e" in the taskbar and it should be flashing the red dot). Open up your browser and enter the following url > http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/mt-check.cgi
If all has gone well, you should get a good report. Make sure it's reporting that the modules we just installed are found. (DBI::File for Berkeley or DBD::mysql for mysql install)
18. If all looked good there, go ahead and run mt-load. In your browser, enter > http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/mt-load.cgi
and you should get an "all went well" report.
19. Point your browser to http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/mt.cgi to enter Movable Type. Remember the default Username is Melody and password is Nelson.
20. Configure your First Weblog. Enter First Weblog and chose "Weblog Config". Here are my config settings >
Local Site Path > c:/program files/easyphp1-7/www/mt/first_weblog
Local Site Url > http://127.0.0.1/mt/first_weblog/
Local Archive Path > C:\program files\easyphp1-7\www\mt\first_weblog\archives
Archive Url > http://127.0.0.1/mt/first_weblog/archives/
Save and Rebuild All.
ENJOY!
**SECURITY NOTE:
I may be unix challenged but I know enough to know that this set-up should never be setup to be accessible to the outside world, as it uses program defaults and no password for the database, at the very least. If you want to run a web accessible server, use other programs/options. This setup is only for a testing server for local, personal use.
Yet another easy way to integrate del.icio.us with PHP - Movable Type specific instructions for displaying your del.icio.us links in your MT weblog using PHP.
Added Jan 22, 2004: Bill points out that the instructions have been revised and are now even easier to integrate! Thanks Bill.
Nice tutorial that explains how to integrate a "quicklinks" blog in with your regular weblog entries. Requires a couple of plugin installations. hit-or-miss: Integrated Quicklinks Tutorial [via Blog-Fu]
Updated Jan. 10, 2004: A revised version of this tutorial was posted.
Do you leave your best stuff in other people's comments? Do you forget where you comment so you don't get back to follow the conversation? Then the Yoz Grahame's Cheerleader: Commentblogger bookmarklet might be of interest to you. An interesting idea for collecting comment information for private or public consumption. Currently for Movable Type only.
Spam Wait for Movable Type Comment Spam, by John Wehr - a new option in the fight against comment spam. From their site ... "These files will make it necessary for a person or robot to wait fifteen seconds after accessing a comment form to post a comment. As humans generally take time to read an entry and write a comment, this should be unnoticeable. Hypothetically it should prevent most simple comment spam bots from functioning properly."
Via Virtual Venus: "Mail This Entry" Used For Spam - reference this thread at the MT Forum. If you don't use the "Mail This Entry" script in MT, the last thread by Rossz suggests a quick and easy addition to the script to make it unusable by spammers.
James Seng's blog: Bayesian filter for MT - another Movable Type spam solution.
MT Extensions: Avoid Comment Spam 1.0 - part plugin, part hack but would look like a good option if comment spam is a problem.
I linked this on my blog this morning but I thought I'd note it here as well. If you're using upcoming.org and would like to add an RSS feed of your events to your MT blog, here's a tutorial that shows you how (uses the RSS Feed plugin).
Legends of the Sun Pig: A reviews blog (or sidebar reviews) with Movable Type - complete with a how-to tutorial! The end result is fabulous. Nice work, Martin!
[via Lovelinks]
I can't say that comment spam has become an issue for me yet, but I'm bookmarking this in case it ever does - Seven Quick Tips for a Spam Free MT Blog. Tip #6 is a hack I like though - having a "Delete this Comment" link in the comment notification email. Handy for spammer and troll situations.
TrackBacks as bookmarks - Virtuelvis - another one that's been out there for a while but is a unique idea for a bookmarks log so I wanted to bookmark it myself!
This has been out there awhile but I wanted to note it here so I could find it if I find the time to do this. RoyalTS - Monthly Archive Calendar.
Via Ordinary Life, finally, a solution for automated posting of deferred MovableType entries! MovableTypeTrickle. I can't wait to try this!
Just catching up on reading the MT Forum and a couple of goodies caught my eye.
First, from Gavin, the FlipFlop Plugin, which allows you to alternate styles or colors or anything you can think up! Haven't tried it yet, but it looks very cool!
Not a plugin, but an add-on is SharpMT,, which is an off-line blog entry writer. This is still in Beta but I've tried it and it works great!
Update: one more! Sean Willson's Rebuild Mod gives a ton of control of MT's rebuild process.
A while back, I posted a link to a MT Forum thread which provided a solution for allowing anonymous postings to a MT blog. Through a trackback to that original post, I find a further hack to that solution that completely hides the MT interface from the poster.
Via Ain't Too Proud to Blog, a link to A Whole Lotta Nothing's instructions for Use Trackback to display Winamp Playlist.
Thanks to Donna for pointing me to a neat idea for Easy Friends Links at Maniacal Rage. Also from MR, some PHP code for Better Category Sorting.
One last tidbit from garrett's site, the Currently Hearing Winamp Plugin looks very neat, as well.
From the MT Forums this morning, funvill shares a solution for allowing anonymous postings to a Movable Type blog.
Interesting thread from the Movable Type forum today, showing how to integrate a WYSIWYG html editor into the MT interface. Be sure to follow the link in the 2nd posting in the thread from John, who has made some modifications and provides a neat screen capture of his new interface.
At the Movable Type forum, some detailed information for anyone looking to integrating Gallery into Movable Type. (Gallery is a separate, usually stand-alone image gallery script.)
From the Movable Type Forum tonight, jblanton shares some PHP code that generates the age of entries, as an alternative date header, as done at Textism.
Live in the Delirious Cool: Making your archives easy on the eyes. - displaying your monthly archives by title. If I didn't use the calendar archives, I'd be doing this!
I recall seeing the original "Flip Gallery" code awhile back and thought it was very cool. It's now been updated as Flip Gallery 2, and said to be "about 99% more user friendly". It does look great! Nice looking slide show script using PHP and customized for use with Movable Type too. [Sample Flip Gallery page here]
Adam Kalsey has just released a new plugin. The Simple Comments Plugin will merge trackbacks and comments into a single list, rather than the default which displays them separately. Download the Simple Comments Plugin from Adam's site. [Phil Rignalda also talks about this plug-in here.]
Garrett has written up a great tutorial for adding Graphical Date Headers
to your movabletype posts. This is PHP-based so it requires .php extension pages to work. I really like the finished product!
Alternately, anyone looking for very simple graphical date headers that doesn't require php, can find some code and instructions at Empty Pages Graphical Dates.
This recent thread at the Movable Type Forum, highlights a unique MT plug-in. The Disemvowelment Plugin removes the vowels from comments of known comment "trolls", making them unreadable and look ridiculous. Too funny!
From the author, "shrpshr.pl is a small plugin which filters out the vowels for comments coming from a designated IP address (or addresses)." Download for the Disenvowelment Plugin.
This thread at the mt forum provides lots of information and various methods for skinning your blog or other web page.
Rayner's is pumping out movable type plug-ins like crazy! His latest MTOtherBLog, which allows you to include Templated content from other blogs in your own, as long as they are all on the same installation of MT [movabletype.org : Support Forum Thread]
This one will come in very handy!
David Raynes has made a great new plug-in for movabletype that will generate a random entry from you blog. Perfect for a sidebar link for fun. Available for download from his site. [movabletype.org : Support Forum Thread]
Just cleaning up my favourites list and bookmarking some forum threads of interest:
• Hack mt to send a confirmation e-mail when someone signs up for notification.[Thread]
• Hack to add "Unsubscribe" to notifications feature. [Thread]
• Ideas for using mt as a links log [Thread]
• Php to print out "today" or "yesterday" for blog posts. [Thread]
• Including updates from other blogs on main page ie. portal page. [Thread]
• Bookmarklet for up-load file to mt. [Thread]
Nilesh has provided a very interesting new MT plugin. Called BlogTimes, it generates a bar chart that shows the time of day that a blogger typically blogs. I had to give this a go and you'll see my results at the very bottom of this page (scroll waaay down!). As you can see, I'm not a night owl ;) Kind of a fun little addition to a blog. The plugin and information can be found here. If anyone needs any help to install this, just let me know and I'll write out a step-by-step thing.
Girlie found this old post on the mt forum, which shows how to hack mt-add-notify.cgi to gather an url along with the email information from people who sign up for notifications. Handy thing to have. Here's the movabletype.org : Support Forum Link with instructions.
Gavin has built a great plugin for bringing live weather feed into MT from InterceptorVector weather.
It's very simple to install, although I did have to add the XML::Simple module because my server didn't have it installed. That was easy enough as well though. It can be downloaded here.
The nice thing for me is that this feed provides listings for Canadian cities as well. Not all weather feeds do. Now if it would only give me my weather in degrees Celsius ;)
Here is the thread from the mt forum on this subject, as well as having a download link for the plugin. It's still being developed so check the thread for updates or problems encountered etc. A sample output is on the sidebar here as well, showing the available variables. You can customize it to include as much or as little as you want.
Very nice plugin, Gavin!
Added November 26/02: Gavin has a new version of his plug-in available ... now with Celsius output tags! Thanks again, Gavin.
I wrote this up for someone today, so I thought I'd post it here as well in case someone is looking for step-by-step instructions for installing the LGF Referrer Script (link on the left sidebar under "Scripts") in movabletype. This is a php script, so you must be able to run that. Also, it requires that the page you want to track referrers to be php (ie. index.php). Instructions follow:
Instructions for Installing LFG-Referrers Script.
(available from http://littlegreenfootballs.com)
1. Download script and unzip.
2. Unzipped folder should contain 6 files including:
example.php
readme.txt
semaphore.ref
lgf-reflog.php
reflog.txt
show-refs.php
3. Upload reflog.txt and semaphore.ref to the directory where your index files are located. CHMOD both of these to 666.
4. Open up lgf-reflog.php in a editor and look for the variable "$mydomain = 'mydomain.com';. Change mydomain.com to the name of your domain, without the http://www. part. It should look like this:
$mydomain = 'fortysomething.ca';
Be sure that you retained the single quotes around it and the semi-colon at the end of the line.
Save and close this file.
5. Upload lgf-reflog.php to the same directory that you uploaded reflog.txt and semaphore.ref to. No CHMOD change is required.
6. All done ftp-ing files to your server. Moving over to Movabletype files now.
7. Open up your movabletype Main Index Template file.
8. At the very top of the page (before the DOCTYPE declaration etc.), paste this code into the top of template body:
9. In movabletype templates section still, click Create New Index Template.
Template Name - Referrers
Output File - referrers.php
Paste this code into the Template Body: (this is just the code from the LGF file "show-refs.php" that is in the unzipped LGF folder)
This file may be freely distributed
as long as the credits and copyright
message above remain intact.
--------------------------------------------
*/
// Name of referrer log file
$reflog = "reflog.txt";
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Last 50 Referrers</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style type="text/css">
body {
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
p {
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 10px;
line-height: 14px;
color: #000000;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$rfile = file($reflog); // read the referrer log into an array
echo "<p>\n";
foreach ($rfile as $r) { // loop through the array
$r = chop($r); // remove trailing whitespace
if ($r <> "Direct request") echo "<a href=\"$r\">$r</a><br />\n"; // if not a direct request, link it up
}
echo "</p>\n";
?>
</body>
</html>
Save and then rebuild all index files.
10. You should now have a new file on your server called referrers.php in the directory where your index file is. You can check this new page by opening it up in your browser by typing in, for example, http://www.fortysomething.ca/referrers.php . It will probably be a blank page at this point (no referrers logged yet), but you should see that the Title Bar says "Last 50 Referrers".
11. Now, you'll maybe want to wait a bit until some referrers actually get logged onto this page. Just keep checking it for a bit until you see a referrer listed so you know it is working ok.
Once it's working, you can set a just set up a regular link to this new page from your main index page (or where ever you'd like to link to it from). Of course all this assumes you want to have your referrers displayed on a separate page. You could also do a php include of referrers.php anywhere in your blog. Also, you can format the referrer page by adding your own CSS styles to the referrer.php template.
12. One last thing, there is a hack to this script that will produce the date and time of the referrer available from scriptygoddess, if you want to add that feature. There are also hacks there for logging google referrals separately and excluding certain referrers from the referrals listings.
Wangjianshuo details how to Add Unsubscribe Function to MovableType. I haven't tried it yet, but I think it's a great feature so I'm going to have a go at it.
Here's another interesting thread on the mt forum showing how to use mt as an agenda-type program. Requires php. movabletype.org : Support Forum Thread Link
Scriptygoddess has come up with another great script - this one for adding bold, italics and links in the blog comment areas. You'll find their entry with the script here. You can see it in action on this blog by clicking on the comment link.
Added later: It was pointed out to me that the script could be made more XHTML compliant be changing it from bold to strong and from italic to em. This is easily changed by editing the head section of the script and replacing the b tags with strong and the i tags with em.
This is an interesting thread on the mt Support Board, showing how to use PHP to provide an alphabetical listing of achives. Good work, Kristine!
This is an interesting thread from the mt forum, for anyone interested in using mt as an events calendar. movabletype.org : Support Forum Link
For anyone who hasn't already found it elsewhere, here is the PHP code for conditional comments - ie. Comment? 1 Comment, 2 Comments. The code for trackbacks is included as well. The bolded part is the part that will show on your page that you may want to change to your own preference of wording. Code follows
I always thought the term "converting" to php was a bit misleading. It's makes it seem like a big, dynamic process or something. I imagine it's kept more than a few people from making the switch. With php becoming more and more popular, there's no reason to be left out. Here are a couple of threads from the mt forum on the subject:
Here are some basic instructions:
1. First and foremost, obviously your host must support PHP. If you don't know for sure, ask them before you start.
2. Open up your main index file template. Change the output file name from index.html to index.php
3. Save and rebuild your index files.
4. Important! At this point, you will have both an index.html and an index.php file on your server (the index.html does not get automatically deleted by this process.) Since most servers will look for and display any index.html file before any other, if you want your index.php file to show (which you do), you need to FTP to your server and manually delete the index.html file.
5. All done! The index.php file is now ready to add php scripts to.
You can repeat this process with any/all of your index-type pages (master archives, etc), changing the output file to a php extension and rebuilding. While it is not required to delete the html versions on the server if the file isn't named index, you can delete them if you like.
If you want your archive pages to have a php extension as well, you need to go into your Blog Config and change the preferred extension for your files from html to php. Rebuild your site. Bear in mind here that if you link to your own entries or others have linked to your entries, they will now not be found after the extension change. There are some solutions for this in the threads noted above. Again, you will now have an html and a php version of each of your archive files on your server. While it is not necessary to delete the html ones in this case, you can do so, especially if disk space is a concern.
You shouldn't encounter any changes to the operation of your blog. A few fine points to check: The sidebar code for recent comments for example, includes the extension .html in the code. If you are using this code, simply change the extension to .php instead and it will work fine. Also, if you have a menu system or other internal hard-coded links, be sure to change them to .php extensions.
This script from scriptygoddess is very handy and I wanted to bookmark it here as well. While originally intended to generate tables on the fly for thumbnails in a photolog, I've found it can be made to work for a variety of uses, such as putting archive listings into columns etc, just by changing the MT related tags to the appropriate ones. Javascript and php versions are available.
Since I've seen this asked on the MT Forum several times lately, I thought I'd just bookmark it here. This is the link to the instructions for making extended entries and comments open and close on the index page - Scriptygoddess Link
I was reading this article tonight and also remembering someone (mcroft?) mentioning that they included scripts in their blog pages by modules, and it all got me to thinking that this sounds like a really good idea (in the same vein as moving CSS to an external pages, for efficiency and bandwidth savings.)
Presumably, it would be done by creating a new Template module, copying any common scripts (popup, trackback, expanding entries) into this new module, setting the output file of the module to something like common.js and then pulling that file into the blog pages with <script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript" src="/common.js"></script> in the HEAD section.
Sound right?
This thread at the mt forum provides a number of solutions for creating a chronological archives listing. Solutions to this were offered using javascript, the PerlScript plugin or php! Just pick your favourite flavour :)
[Source] In this thread at the mt forum, thomase shares his code for a mt generated "to do" list, using categories.
I might be missing something here, but it would seem to me it would be just as easy to make a template module and include it into the sidebar. Instructions for doing it the module way follows, as an alternative:
1. Go to "Templates" page.
2. Scroll down to the bottom and select "Create New Template Module"
3. Name the module To Do List
4. You don't need to specify an output file.
5. Enter text similar to this into the module body:
<s>Make a To-Do list</s><br />
Smile more often<br />
Call my mother<br />
Do the dishes<br />
Call in sick tomorrow<br />
(Note: I discovered you have to code in the line breaks. The <s></s> tags create the strike-through for "done" tasks.)
6. Save your module. Don't rebuild just yet.
7. Add the following into the sidebar area of your index template:
<div class="sidetitle">
To Do List
</div>
<div class="side">
<$MTInclude module="To Do List"$>
</div>
(Note: Assumes default styles. Your CSS may differ)
8. Rebuild your Index Templates Only.
9. Enjoy your list. To modify it, simply open up the template module and add, delete or strike-through your entries. Save and rebuild to see changes on your page.
You can see a sample of this on the sidebar of this page, right below the links!
I recently tried Kristine's Master Calendar Archives tutorial and I just love the results! I've only been blogging for about 10 months, but already my archives were out of control. I love the look and functionality of the calendar archive. You can see my results here. Requires php.
[Source] Mcroft shares code for putting category listings in a drop down box (about half-way down the page). I'm assuming the first part of the code goes in the HEAD section with the MT scripts and the second part goes where the drop-down menu should appear on the page. I'll have to test that out!
Added later: Tested it out and it is quick and easy. The first part of the code should go in the HEAD section, in between the <script> </script> tags The second part can just be pasted into your index template where you want the drop-down menu to appear. It could easily be used for recent entries or archives, by switching the MT Tags in the code to the appropriate ones.
Added later, later: Loopy provides this alternative, from Pete Bevin. I'll check that out as well, loopy! Thanks.
Girlie shares how to place an [edit] link within each entry on your index page, that only you can see, which allows you to edit a post simply by clicking on the link. Requires PHP. I have it working on my blog and it is a great time saver.