MovableType 2.0

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on March 20, 2002). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

I’ve just upgraded the backend for my site to Movable Type 2.0, which was just released today. New toys are always good! :)

Front page changes being the most visible, I’ll address those first.

Of lesser consequence, I’ve taken off the ‘Recently Read’ box for the time being. I’m not reading as much as I was before my ‘puters got down here (something I hope to work on correcting after the hullabloo of moving into my new apartment settles down), and I wanted to open up space for the newest addition.

The newest feature addition is one I’ve been looking forward to being able to do since I started reading that it would be included in the MT 2.0 upgrade. On the right below the archive listings, you’ll now notice a ‘Recently commented on’ section. This lists the ten posts that people have (hrm…let’s work on this….) most recently commented on. Yeah, that was tough to figure out, wasn’t it? ;) Anyway, new comments will pop a post to the top of that list, and if you hover your cursor over the post title, it’ll display a comment telling you how many comments have been made total for that post. Nifty, eh?

The less-visible change I’ve made is to the monthly archive listings, and it’s also a change implemented in MT 2.0 that I’ve been waiting for. While I like the standard of having my newest post at the top of the main index page, ensuring that the newest information is always the first to be seen, it seemed kind of silly to me that this forced my monthly archive pages to also display in reverse chronological order. MT 2.0’s stronger sorting features, however, allow me to keep my main page as is, while sorting my monthly archives so that they can be read in chronological order, top to bottom. Makes much more sense to me.

I think those are the only changes I’m going to make for the moment. I’m sure if I stumble across something else that I feel I just have to add, I’ll babble about it. And, of course, suggestions are welcome, if anyone has any.