Movable Type, Static Pages, Flexibility and Scalability
January 08, 2004 | 
15 Comments
I was talking with a friend of mine about the Movable Type intranet we’re building down at the hospital and he was expressing concern about the flexibility of MT, it’s scalability and the fact that it’s not a true dynamic content management system because it creates static pages.
He also mentioned that it’s not a true open source solution and that by going with MT we were pretty much marrying the hospital to MT as thoroughly as we’d be marrying Microsoft if we’d gone with Sharepoint or any other proprietary technology.
He’s a Microsoft guy, literally. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I was able to convince him that, in the main, this wasn’t true. Because Movable Type builds static pages it’s fairly easy to separate those pages from the system. Once built, in essence, they’re no longer part of the system.
You can use Movable Type to build just about any kind of pages you wish. Cold Fusion, ASP, PHP, CSS, you name it. After talking about it some, he warmed up to the idea a bit, but still worried that at some point we’d want to move to a true dynamic system (I’m not sure why we’d ever do this but…) and then have to go back and start over putting those static pages into whatever system we chose.
Like we wouldn’t have to do that with our old FrontPage system or the Sharepoint system he was suggesting.
Today, after thinking about this some, I had an epiphany. The concern he was expressing is simply not a big deal. You can use MT to create all types of files, so it should be trivial to create a file containing all of the content or data that can be imported into just about any other system.
MT creates XML pages for news feeds by default. I imagine you could create a template for just about any flavor of XML you could find. You may run into a bit of work in the actual entries themselves, but in most cases I doubt it’d be a problem.
I’m here to tell you folks, Movable Type is pretty much risk free when it comes to legacy code. Anything you put into it will be able to be pulled out in a variety of ways that is limited only by your creativity and template coding skills.
For example, you could build a special XML template for something like InDesign and use movable type to build import ready templates to make a print version of your Web site. Or if your brand new CMS system supported a special schema and you needed to get your content from MS into it, just build an XML template that pulls the data and puts it into the right places.
You could do both of the above with just a little template work.
Can you do that with your CMS? I’m pretty sure FrontPage can’t do that. ;)
Filed under: Web Development
Comments
1. Andrei Herasimchuk said:
Very true.
I’m in the midst of adding all sorts of PHP widgets so the layouts of the various sections will be more dynamic for my site. Just working through little kinks here and there.
Since you can create multiple blogs for major sections with MoveableType, you can then just create PHP widgets that link them together. I have two side projects I’ll be doing that with.
All in all, it is a fairly flexible system, but only for content related things. I could see it easily working for an intranet, as long as it’s used more as a fancy bulletin board system with links to web-based applications and other important information.
MT is fairly flexible. What it lacks from my point of view are more “if” tags, to allow larger sections of content to come and go. It also lacks basic things like empty strings, which is somewhat bothersome. (e.g., if there are no comments, I would like the option to post a “No comments” string in the empty space. As it stands now, I’m going to have to figure out how to use a PHP script to do it myself. I might just wait for MT 3.0 before I start going for those kinds of customizations.)
But hey… its free. Beggars can’t be choosers. (Speaking of which… I do need to make a donation next week.)
Posted on January 9, 2004 12:36 AM | #
2. Mariann said:
You’re very right about the template coding skills, though it’s taking me some time to learn what’s available and what I can do with it. Toss in some solid plug-ins and a snazzy CSS-based design, and you’ve got a firm base for any website. I’ve seen some amazing things!
I’m currently working with pMachine for my department’s website, only because it features member-only content area and an events calendar. A hybrid approach of MT and pMachine gives me the best common features in both blogging packages, so I now have to reapproach the department pages. I’m using both for my online course and it’s working out really well, though I’d prefer to use only MT.
Posted on January 9, 2004 03:51 AM | #
3. Gene said:
One downside of the current MT interface is that it doesn’t scale very well. Managing hundreds of posts (or worse–hundreds of comments) is a major pain. But they’re supposed to be improving that in MT 3.0.
It’s interesting to imagine the weblog software of 2010–what kind of system will you need when Asterisk has 5000 posts and 10000 comments? Maybe you’ll be wishing you’d invested in Interwoven. ;)
Posted on January 9, 2004 08:56 AM | #
4. Keith said:
Andrei – I think you’d be surprised at all that can be done with MT. We’re using it for 90% of our Intranet. Department sites, FAQs, Policies and Procedures and many other types of typical Intranet sites run very well via MT.
I’m not sure how long you’ve been using it, and you are right about some lack out out of the box flexibility, but there are hundreds of MT plugins out there to do thing with. Your no comment thing is one of them.
Posted on January 9, 2004 09:16 AM | #
5. Tom Coates said:
It’s worth pointing out, of course, that Movable Type isn’t free - at least not for commercial uses.
Posted on January 9, 2004 09:31 AM | #
6. Keith said:
Tom makes a good point that I guess I left out simply because we’re not for profit and it is free for us.
However, even if you have to pay for it, it’s very well worth the very mimimal (especially related to other CMS solutions) cost.
Posted on January 9, 2004 09:45 AM | #
7. Mike said:
Movable Type is handling about 5500 pages with no problem, on my work site at www.erlanger.org. I’m using it as a CMS on IIS, having MT spit out ASP :) Talk about alphabet soup. Each section is setup as it’s own weblog with each sub-section as a category in that blog. We looked at larger CMSs, but the cost didnt’ justify the use and we’re not about to spend something it takes an engineer to operate.
I like MT because of the static pages. I can also create templates to transfer the entries to xml or other export pages. It handles the hits nicely. It is an investment in time and effort, but it works for our needs.
Posted on January 9, 2004 12:37 PM | #
8. Andrei Herasimchuk said:
That plug-in did the trick. Thanks a bunch!
Posted on January 9, 2004 01:44 PM | #
9. James said:
Keith, your exactly right in that you can create a template to output pretty much any format of your choosing. With the 3.0 release I think they plan support of exporting in the ATOM spec (think rss on steriods). Now from what I’ve heard in bits and peices is that this will be the defacto way to export/import data from one Blog system to the next. ie: blog to MT or vise versa without the need to write specific import code. As soon as ATOM takes off, I won’t be shocked to find it becoming something nearly any CMS can work with.
Posted on January 9, 2004 08:00 PM | #
10. patricia said:
I started out using MT simply to publish my blog. As I delved more into the program I began to realize just how powerful it can be. I’m now using it to publish my entire site. The combination of CSS, MT and PHP (though I’ve still got to learn PHP…just keep reusing bits I’ve picked up here and there.) can’t be beat. Implementing a new design is a snap. I’ve also customized individual templates to spit out corresponding info according to an entry’s category. Really, the beauty of MT for me is how user friendly and how flexible it is.
I use an MT tag and a little php to show the No Comments text.
Posted on January 9, 2004 09:41 PM | #
11. Dris said:
I work on my own CMS, Überblog. Not because I don’t like MT or other options, but because I just like knowing everything that’s going on. I’m a control freak.
ÜB itself is very beta right now. It powers (that I know of) my site and several of my friends’ sites. For the same reason that I chose to write my own CMS, I wanted the system to be as flexible as possible. So far, I haven’t encountered much that I can’t do with it. With some creativity, I have no doubt I could export my site to a print format, or anything else. In fact, that might make for an interesting project.
I’m not sure how MT handles RSS and other specs, but when I went to add RSS as a “feature” for ÜB, I actually just ended up writing a new template with the existing system.
…Not that I recommend anyone use it (at this point)… Like I said, it’s very beta.
Posted on January 10, 2004 10:37 AM | #
12. Carp said:
Yeah, don’t use it. You get it working, then BAM, Dris comes up with some brand new version that’s better, and since your server runs WINDOWS FREAKING ME, because you haven’t had time to install RedHat, it takes forever to get it working right with the update.
Actually, I’ve been pleased. He knows what he’s doing.
Posted on January 11, 2004 08:16 PM | #
13. tlack said:
Though I love MovableType (and I use it for my site), I must be the only programmer left on earth who doesn’t understand how MovableType fits into the general content management needs of a Web site. For a few reasons:
1. To get something usable, you have to scrap pretty much all the templates it came with. Wouldn’t a general purpose, standards-based CMS save you a good amount of time in this case?
2. MT is very “entry oriented.” I can see the relationship if you’re maintaining a list of press releases, but if you’re updating a FAQ page, a company history page, etc., how does this fit? Having one entry per category feels like a hack to me.
3. It’s more difficult to program extensions for than a general straight-PHP CMS would be due to the needless database/object abstraction layer. (This is a personal issue, I suppose, but it’s discouraged me from making a few changes to MT that I’ve had in mind)
4. It’s Perl. Again, personal issue. For fear of being burned at the stake I won’t explain this one. (See #3)
5. Rebuilding! Reminds me of the old “compile-build-run” cycle.
6. The obvious “it ain’t free!” aspect.
I feel like using MT as a general CMS tool is like buying a Ferrari just to get the transmission and seats (in this case, the form-based static content management and maybe multiple author/multiple user support). We’re throwing out so much of MT for so little.
Is this a reaction to there being few good, very simple GPL/BSDL content management systems out there?
Posted on January 19, 2004 11:05 PM | #
14. Phillip Winn said:
tlack, I’ll step up to the plate and defend MT. :)
1. I’ve never seen a CMS system which could be used straight out of the box without modification. Also, since the primary market for MT is personal weblogs, people generally won’t want to use the default templates for artistic reasons. That said, I would be happier to have more sets of default templates from which people could choose, as with TypePad.
2. One entry per category sounds like a hack to me, too! For FAQ pages and so on, I create a new index template that doesn’t automatically rebuild with each post.
3. Yes, this sounds like a personal issue. I administer one site that uses a combination of MT tags and PHP code, and they’re both pretty easy to modify, so I do things in one or the other based on whether I want them done at post-time or page-reload.
4. Perl and PHP sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g… (See #3)
5. Right now another site with which I’m involved is having host problems. Serious host problems. With a dynamic system, the website would be down, period. With MT’s static approach, the website still displays the most recent post since it is a static page, and that post explains that there are host problems. The dynamic -vs- static issue is a big one, but generally I prefer the flexibility to do either or both. MT + PHP lets me choose which pages and even which *parts* of pages I want to be dynamic or static.
6. As in beer, or speech? It’s free for people and non-profits, and only $150 for companies. $150! For that, you get the source code, though admittedly it’s not “libre software.”
MT as a Ferrari, I like it!
The problem with “good, very simple” solutions is that they’re always missing just the feature you need. Or worse, because you haven’t driven the Ferrari, you have no idea what you’re missing. You describe MT as a Ferrari, and yet still people with very simple personal-weblog needs complain that the most basic and obvious features (to them) are missing!
However, based on what you’ve described, you might be interested in WordPress (formerly B2).
Cheers!
Posted on January 20, 2004 06:43 AM | #
15. John said:
Im still new so i have no idea..
Posted on May 15, 2005 09:13 PM | #
Comments are now closed