Gavin, 16 August 03
Mark Pilgrim’s article on Cruft-free URLs in Movable Type got me thinking on the need for permanence and systematic URIs; a little further searching and I have implemented something along similar lines. To be honest, it offered a good chance to have a play with the workings of moveable type.
Having only set up MT a week or two ago I have no real backwards compatibility issue. Maybe that makes it easier for me to establish a consistent format using identification of entries by date and time with archive following a template entry of <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/%d/%H%M"$>. I am wary of using the keyword field for something it wasn’t intended (I guess that could be because I haven’t really worked out how keywords are used elsewhere in the system).
A change to htaccess files allows the URI to be correctly delivered while omitting the extension. Beyond the htaccess change – the rest was done through the moveable type configuration screens and did not require installation of moveable type extensions or hand editing templates.
I have also played around with Magpie RSS to deliver links to news. I had been using moreover for this which was ugly non-validating javascript with re-direct links. It also seems that moreover’s services are no longer available for free.
Considering I have never before fiddled with php etc, I’m quite pleased to have managed all this without too much fuss. I’ve also discovered one of the staples of the bloggers subject repertoire – discussing the technical details of how things work …..
