As I was sitting watching television today I noticed a slight wobble in the fabric of time. Nothing metaphysical but a sizable earthquake shook Japan today. Here In Shinagawa, Tokyo it was a very small wobble, barely noticeable. North of Tokyo it was very sizable at 6.2. Thankfully there are no reported injuries at this time.
This is a little HowTo to demonstrate how you can use your Moveable Type Personal Publishing program to maintain links. This is so obvious now that I hesitate to do a write-up for this hint but as I miss the obvious maybe you do also. The big advantage is that once everything is setup to add a link for you readers it is a simple matter of adding an entry, the same is true for editing a link.
First requirement is that you have MT setup and running on a computer acting as your web server. After which you download and install the FilterCategories plugin. MT can do limited filtering but not enough for my purposes. You can get the plugin and view the documentation here.
1. Tell MT to generate Category Archives.
Go into your Blog Config screen and open the Archiving portion of the configuration. Click the box next to Category (not under the Del column) and click the SAVE button.
2. Add categories
Got to the category screen and add the category “links”. This is were we will be keeping the links. Add any other categories for your blog now. You will have to categorize all of your entries from now to keep you site working.
3. Edit your template
For the main body of your MT tags for your entries add:
<MTCategories>
<MTFilterCategories exclude=”links”>
<MTEntries lastn=”5″>
…
</MTEntries>
</MTFilterCategories>
</MTCategories>
This will prevent your links (any entry of the prior defined links category) for adding an entry in your
For the links to show up your page add:
<MTCategories lastn=”10″>
<MTFilterCategories include=”links”>
<MTEntries><$MTEntryBody$><br /></MTEntries>
</MTFilterCategories>
</MTCategories>
Add the formating to fit into your style.
4. Add your entries
In the Entry body of a new entry add your link, <a href=”url”>URL Name</a>, under the links category you added early. Do not check off the various options available and save as a Draft. Next go into the Edit Entry screen and click on the Power Editing mode. Publish each of the links and save. It is important to add a category to each of your entries now for the entry to show on your Blog.
5. Rebuild the site
