dummied

Why I stick with MT

At a glance

This entry was written on January 29, 2006.

The entry prior to this is entitled Set it and forget it.

The entry following this is entitled Newspapers and the search game.

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As much as Movable Type sometimes aggravates me (usually just when I have to wade in hip-deep in a thicket of perl), I continue to stick with it.

It could have something to do with a free, ProNet license, which eliminates any of the cost concerns that seem to drive some people to free solutions like WordPress and TextPattern.

Mostly, though, I think it's the flexibility Movable Type allows me to harness.

And I was reminded of it the other day by the scramble from a group of WordPress users to set up a simple sorting mechanism using comment count. It's something that Movable Type has been able to do for quite a while now—and without mucking around in MySQL (unless you want to ... which is always an option).

All you need, much like my last entry, is either the Compare plugin or a smattering of PHP.

<MTEntryCommentCount>

Just like <MTBlogEntryCount>, <MTEntryCommentCount> outputs a single number, this time for the number of comments that have been left on a particular entry.

So, using Compare, if you want to sort them, it's just a matter of:

<MTEntries lastn="1000000">
<h3>The First Circle</h3>
<MTIfBetween a="[MTEntryCommentCount]" lower="0" upper="10" numeric="1">
<a href="<MTEntryPermalink>"><MTEntryTitle></a>  </MTIfBetween>
<h3>The Second Circle</h3>
<MTIfBetween a="[MTEntryCommentCount]" lower="11" upper="20" numeric="1">
<a href="<MTEntryPermalink>"><MTEntryTitle></a>  </MTIfBetween>
</MTEntries>


And so on.

You can also code something similar using PHP, but I'm not going to get deeply into that here.

Why still Movable Type?

To me, using something like WordPress of TextPattern locks me in to PHP and dynamic pages. As much as I am starting to dislike perl, it's nice to know the option's always there. And if I want dynamic pages, Movable Type can accommodate me (I don't take advantage of it ... but I could). WP and TP can't give me static pages in any way, shape or form.

I'm also comfortable with the MT templating system. I've been using it for a long time now, and I can code most everything without glancing at the manual at this point. The one thing that always stops me from moving to some other system is that I never find their templating system as easy to use or understand (but that might just be me). I always change from the default theme, and usually start a new design from scratch with little or no traces of the default template (one exception here: the comment form ... which I am still getting around to working on), so the templating system is big deal in my case.

I also just like flat pages. I don't mind rebuilding and have always had this thought in the back of my head that flat HTML files would get served quicker than on-the-fly generated pages (turns out, that thought was more or less right .. and you get some search engine benefits as well). I used to hand-code my journal when I first started writing for the web. I'd sit in front of an FTP program and change all the links by hand, upload a new entry and then check everything. I am getting more comfortable with grabbing things straight out of the database, but I still prefer my pages to be as flat as possible.

I also like the Movable Type user interface more than the alternatives. I'm familiar with the nomenclature; it's all clean and professional-looking. Wordpress strikes me as an odd mix of a six-year old's art project and an engineer's idea of clear, concise writing. Textpattern just looks unweildy.

All this said, if I had to pay for a copy, or ask a client to pay for a copy of Movable Type, I'd have to take another hard look at other options.

But I'd still probably come back to MT.