April 2005 Archives

The Movable Type team has been hard at work and we have some very exciting things coming in the 2005 release schedule. To kick things off we are proud to introduce Movable Type 3.16.

Movable Type 3.16 sports significant improvements to application security and over one hundred other fixes which really make it a highly recommended upgrade for all users.

Movable Type 3.16 is a simple drop-in replacement for any user who is running version 3.1 or higher. As long as you are running one of these more recent versions, there is no need to run an upgrade script or do anything other than upload the files in the upgrade distribution. Of course, if you're running a version older than 3.1, you will need to consult the upgrade documentation for details on how to upgrade.

Here are some of the highlights of Movable Type 3.16:

• Fixed email notifications for entries and moderated comments which were broken for some users in the last release
• Fixed several bugs affecting customers running Movable Type on Windows servers including a plugin API bug that caused broken links to plugin configuration screens
• Fixed a bug with AltTemplatePath that now allows you to easily and completely customize your MT administrative interface
• Made significant improvements to the posting interfaces including numerous bug fixes with QuickPost and hierarchical display of categories
• Implemented better error checking and data validation throughout the program leading to fewer dead-ends and cryptic error messages
• Fixed several issues with dynamic publishing
• Includes a new open-source version of the 'nofollow' plugin exhibiting many best practices of plugin development. If you have the previous version installed, it's preferable to remove it. See the post on Pronet for more on this.

For a complete list of all of the changes, see the changelog as well as the release notes included in the distribution. The known issues list details the remaining bugs that will be rectified in future releases.

For developers who are interested in reading additional technical information about this release, the post on ProNet explains more about what is going on under the hood. (We think you're going to hear a lot about AltTemplatePath modifications in the near future.)

If you already purchased Movable Type, or downloaded the free version, you'll be able to download the new release for free from your Movable Type account. As always, there is a free, unsupported personal version of Movable Type 3.16 which will satisfy the needs of a large number of personal users.

On the other hand, if you want to purchase a license (and get access to our awesome technical support) but don't see any packages that fit your needs exactly, we'll be happy to work with you to find something that's right. Get in touch with us through the contact form (select Custom License or Sales Inquiry in the dropdown) and we'll do everything we can to get you off and running.

Thank you for continuing to choose Movable Type. We are confident that you will find Movable Type 3.16 to be one of the most solid releases in MT history.

Workflow, a new plugin for Movable Type 3.1x, has just been released by David Raynes. While we don't usually feature new plugins as part of our news about the Movable Type platform, we thought it was worth pointing out because Workflow adds a powerful new area of functionality, and also marks a milestone for the growth of our plugin community.

First, the features: Workflow lets you limit control of publshing rights to certain authors in your Movable Type installation, allowing other people on the system to act as editors and review entries before they're published. Administrators can control who has rights to any of these levels of permissions. Plus, authors can transfer ownership of a post to other authors and they'll be notified by email when the transfer happens.