How much of a dork am I? I finally have an evening to relax after a crazy stressful work-filled weekend, and I spend it with the new Movable Type 4.
It's actually kind of fun. Okay, for me this is fun, I really am a dork. The installation was easy because they have this new "install wizard" that walks you through everything. The interface is somewhat different, I'm spending a little time at first figuring out where things are. I think once I get used to it I'm going to find it more intuitive. I'm not moving any active sites (like this blog) to MT 4 while it's still in beta, but I've got one I'm working on that requires some programming, and won't go live for a few weeks. That seems like the perfect way to try out the beta.
The biggest improvement so far is that it's a lot easier to create and maintain pages that don't fit into the "blog" format. I guess they're trying to make it more of a content management system than just blog software. Which is how I've been using it already for a couple of clients, by hand-coding in the features I needed. I'm hoping this new version will provide some of the new features I have on my to do list, and/or will simplify some of the features I've already done.
They've also added some programmatic functions like an if statement and a loop, which will be very helpful. Unfortunately, being a beta the documentation is spotty, and I couldn't figure out how to use the new MTif tag. No biggie, I've got a plugin that does conditional statements on categories and that's what I need. I also found a plugin that adds a bunch of date comparisons, which is really helpful for the site I'm working on now.
Speaking of being a techno-dork, tomorrow I get to set up Skype! I need it for an upcoming project. I was lucky enough to have a friend I could borrow a headset from, so I can find out if it will work before I have to buy any hardware.
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