Moving Experience
Most of my objections to using Movable Type (MT) appear to be baseless. While the installation of the software could have been made easier by having an install script/program and the instructions could be clearer, I still got it up and running after *only* three tries. One of those tries could have been avoided had I known the cryptic error message I got meant I needed to delete the MySQL database if I wanted to start over again.
Whichever the case, MT is now installed using the default template. It creates an index.html file that is W3C standards compliant for XHTML 1.0 (although I have not checked it for accessibility) and only about 5.5KB in size.
Note that it is a work in process and will change in size and look so I guess I should reserve final judgment. I further note that it creates a page that uses javascript for the comments facility so a certain percentage of people will not be able to use it (including me).
And finally, installing the software is not the same as using it. I reckon it will take awhile to get things how I would want it to look and then I need to decide if it's worth switching over or not.
But as of now, it looks like I should be looking for Dr. Pournelle's crow gif.
Comments
Dan,
While MT does use Javascript for the comments page, the link (by default; assuming here that you have not yet changed it) is set up so that if JavaScript is unavailable/does not work the comments will open a page, like a normal link, and allow comments to be entered.
Good luck with MT!
Ken
Posted by: Ken Scott | January 27, 2003 09:05 AM
Ken,
Mahalo for the information. I'm a newbie when it comes to these things so I appreciate the help from more experienced people like you.
Aloha - Dan
Posted by: Dan Seto | January 27, 2003 09:25 AM
You shouldn't need JS.
But JS may make some things faster sometimes.
Posted by: sjon | January 27, 2003 11:50 PM
It would be nice if the JS generated comments box was resizable. On my 1280x1024 19" monitor, the text entry box scrolls from side to side as you type in the text. And of course it means you can't read what you have typed without using the scroll buttons.
It's looking good, Dan :-)
Posted by: Jonathan Sturm | February 7, 2003 03:59 PM
I'll try looking at that and see if there is anything I can do. As far as I
know it doesn't have word wrap but maybe it does.
Thanks for the encouraging words as I am just a newbie at this but it is coming along. When you get your own installation done, try to make whatever modifications you want before you have too many posts. I say this because for some pages, MT has to regenerate all of the posts and the more posts you have, the longer it takes.
Aloha - Dan
Posted by: Dan Seto | February 7, 2003 08:11 PM
this is yet another test to see if word wrap is enabled on this. Hmmm, as far as I can see, it is because it is wrapping just fine in Mozilla 1.2. I wonder if it is browser dependent?
Posted by: test | February 7, 2003 08:14 PM