Movabletype Uber-guru

[chroniker]

Who among you is the hands down MT master?

 

I would like to talk to you.

[TCH-Tim]

Who among you is the hands down MT master?

 

I would like to talk to you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Probably TCH-Bruce. If not the master, he's good anyway.

[woodygap]

Hi chroniker

 

I would seek TCH-Bruce or TCH-David. Both very smart on this subject.

 

Woody

[TweezerMan]

Depending on the questions, either Bruce or I may be able to answer them. Unless there is some reason why the discussion should be done privately, I'd recommend posting the questions in the forum so anyone who knows can answer them, and everyone reading the forum can benefit from the discussion.

[TCH-Bruce]

I agree with David. Unless there is some reason why the discussion should be private, I'd recommend posting in the forum. Maybe someone else would benefit from the discussion as well.

[chroniker]

There is no particular reason to discuss this in private. It's just that in my neck of the woods there is no one that is remotely interested in the mechanics of a blog/web site and they don't know what I'm talking about and I need help straightening somethings out.

 

What I'm needing is someone to help me correct the mistakes I found when I went to W3C. And I don't know what a properly installed site should look like so I'm needing someone to take a look at my directory structure and make sure that everything is in the correct place with the apporpriate permissions. I have no problem doing the work, I just don't know what I'm looking at.

 

I know that this is probably asking alot of someones time, but I do need the help and didn't think the forums would be appropriate place to do this.

[TweezerMan]

The following should cover most of the errors that the W3C validator is complaining about:

 

Extra <p> tags after </blockquote> tags:

It appears that you are using MT's "Convert Breaks" option on your entries, which automatically inserts <br /> and <p> tags into your entry text. The logic that does has some flaws, however. MT's "Convert Breaks" does not place <p> tags in the correct places when your entry has <blockquote> tags in-line with the blockquoted text.

 

Instead of entering a section of blockquoted text like this:

><blockquote>This is text for paragraph 1.

This is text for paragraph 2.

This is text for paragraph 3.</blockquote>

...you need to enter the text like this:

><blockquote>

This is text for paragraph 1.

This is text for paragraph 2.

This is text for paragraph 3.

</blockquote>

 

Errors referring to undefined 'entities':

This is referring to any unencoded "&" characters, which usually appear in links (but I believe you at least one that is not within a link). The "&" characters need to be replaced with the encoded equivalent of &

 

Required attribute 'type' not specified:

Some of your <script> tags do not have a "type" attribute:

><script language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://www.your-TCH-site.com/some_script.js">

Add a type="text/javascript" attribute to these <script> tags to correct this error:

><script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://www.your-TCH-site.com/some_script.js">

 

Element "u1" is undefined:

At the beginning of your "Daily Visits" links, you have a <u1> tag instead of a <ul> tag.

 

End tag for "br" omitted:

Any <br> tags that you've added yourself should use the self-closing XHTML form of the tag - <br />.

 

All of the above errors can be corrected yourself (manually), but there is an MT plugin that can automatically address some of the above issues if you rather go that route instead: Validable

[TweezerMan]

Regarding your directory structure and permissions:

 

The only thing that seems a bit odd with the directory structure is that your archives are under your MT directory (/mt/archives) instead of under your blog's main directory (/archives).

 

I'd recommend the following changes in your mt.cfg file:

 

1) Uncomment the HTMLUmask, UploadUmask, and DirUmask settings (remove the '#' at the beginning of each line):

HTMLUmask 0022

UploadUmask 0022

DirUmask 0022

 

2) Enable background tasks:

LaunchBackgroundTasks 1

 

I also recommend that you create an .htaccess file in your /mt directory, with the following directives in it:

>Options All -Indexes
<Files mt.cfg>
 <Limit GET>
   deny from all
 </Limit>
</Files>

[Head Guru]

David,

 

Your MT skills are awesome.

 

Just a note, David is the person that wrote our MT install guide.

 

Nice job David.

[TCH-Bruce]

David, you the man!

[TweezerMan]

Aw shucks, guys - Thanks!

[chroniker]

Regarding your directory structure and permissions:

 

The only thing that seems a bit odd with the directory structure is that your archives are under your MT directory (/mt/archives) instead of under your blog's main directory (/archives).

 

I'd recommend the following changes in your mt.cfg file:

 

1) Uncomment the HTMLUmask, UploadUmask, and DirUmask settings (remove the '#' at the beginning of each line):

HTMLUmask 0022

UploadUmask 0022

DirUmask 0022

 

2) Enable background tasks:

LaunchBackgroundTasks 1

 

I also recommend that you create an .htaccess file in your /mt directory, with the following directives in it:

>Options All -Indexes
<Files mt.cfg>
 <Limit GET>
   deny from all
 </Limit>
</Files>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

David, thank you for the help. The changes to the cfg were easy enough however, MT Core Setup shows my archive path to be /public_html/archives when it is, as you saw, physicaly located /public_html/mt. Since MT Core Setup thinks archives is somewhere it is not, I'm supprised it is working.

 

As for .htaccess, there is already one located at /mt with directives that MT generated. Do I insert your recommended directives before or following what MT has generated?

[TweezerMan]

David, thank you for the help. The changes to the cfg were easy enough however, MT Core Setup shows my archive path to be /public_html/archives when it is, as you saw, physicaly located /public_html/mt. Since MT Core Setup thinks archives is somewhere it is not, I'm supprised it is working.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not only does the Local Archive Path in Weblog Config need to point at your /public_html/archives directory (it actually should be a full server path - /home/cpanelName/public_html/archives), but your Archive URL also needs to point at it as well (http://www.demesneofallen.com/archives/).

 

Your remark about an .htaccess file already being present, and the fact that apparently invalid URLs are serving (.php) pages indicates to me that maybe you've set up MT to use dynamic publishing (and it's not quite set up right).

 

As for .htaccess, there is already one located at /mt with directives that MT generated. Do I insert your recommended directives before or following what MT has generated?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To my knowledge, MT does not ever generate an .htaccess file. If there's one there, I would assume that CPanel created it, or perhaps you did if you set up MT to use dynamic publishing. The only way to know for sure is to see what's in the .htaccess file now.

[chroniker]

Your remark about an .htaccess file already being present, and the fact that apparently invalid URLs are serving (.php) pages indicates to me that maybe you've set up MT to use dynamic publishing (and it's not quite set up right).

 

As for .htaccess, there is already one located at /mt with directives that MT generated. Do I insert your recommended directives before or following what MT has generated?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To my knowledge, MT does not ever generate an .htaccess file. If there's one there, I would assume that CPanel created it, or perhaps you did if you set up MT to use dynamic publishing. The only way to know for sure is to see what's in the .htaccess file now.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

The .htaccess file begins with

 

## %%%%%%% Movable Type generated this part; don't remove this line! %%%%%%%

# Disable fancy indexes, so mtview.php gets a chance...

Options -Indexes

 

(There is alot more that text I didn't include)

 

and it ends with

 

## ******* Movable Type generated this part; don't remove this line! *******

[TweezerMan]

To my knowledge, MT does not ever generate an .htaccess file.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dug around in the MT code, and that statement's just wrong. Under certain conditions, MT *will* write out an .htaccess file:

 

1) Dynamic publishing is enabled

2) .htaccess file does not exist

3) .htaccess file does exist, but does not contain any Rewrite directives

 

MT writes the .htaccess file to the directory indicated by your Local Site Path and Site URL settings in Weblog Config. The .htaccess file for MT's dynamic publishing should be in your /public_html directory, and there should not be one in your /mt directory.

 

So....

 

Do you have the following settings in Weblog Config:

Local Site Path: /home/cpanelName/public_html

Site URL: http://www.demesneofallen.com/

Local Archive Path: /home/cpanelName/public_html/archives

Archive URL: http://www.demesneofallen.com/archives/

 

And - Do you have a similar .htaccess file in your /public_html directory as the one in your /public_html/mt directory?

[chroniker]

MT writes the .htaccess file to the directory indicated by your Local Site Path and Site URL settings in Weblog Config.  The .htaccess file for MT's dynamic publishing should be in your /public_html directory, and there should not be one in your /mt directory.

 

So....

 

Do you have the following settings in Weblog Config:

Local Site Path: /home/cpanelName/public_html

Site URL: http://www.demesneofallen.com/

Local Archive Path: /home/cpanelName/public_html/archives

Archive URL: http://www.demesneofallen.com/archives/

 

And - Do you have a similar .htaccess file in your /public_html directory as the one in your /public_html/mt directory?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

My Archive URL is http://www.demesneofallen.com/mt/archives/

 

The .htaccess that is located in /public_html is different from the one that I referenced in my /public_html/mt. It has your recommended directives along with

 

AuthName www.demesneofallen.com

AuthUserFile /home/*/public_html/_*_*/*

AuthGroupFile /home/*/public_html/_*_*/*

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm

[TweezerMan]

I guess the question now is - Where do you want your archives to show up at?

 

MT Core Setup shows my archive path to be /public_html/archives when it is, as you saw, physicaly located /public_html/mt. Since MT Core Setup thinks archives is somewhere it is not, I'm supprised it is working.

My Archive URL is http://www.demesneofallen.com/mt/archives/

If you weren't using dynamic publishing, this setup would cause all of your archive links to be broken. The Local Archive Path and Archive URL are supposed to correlate to the same location (just as the Local Site Path and Site URL are).

 

If you want your archives to be in the /mt/archives directory, you should have the following in Weblog Config:

>Local Archive Path: /home/cpanelName/public_html/mt/archives
Archive URL: http://www.demesneofallen.com/mt/archives/

If you want your archives to be in the /archives directory, you should have the following in Weblog Config:

>Local Archive Path: /home/cpanelName/public_html/archives
Archive URL: http://www.demesneofallen.com/archives/

 

MT uses the Archive URL to build your archive page links - that's why they all point at /mt/archives. The .htaccess file that MT setup in the /mt directory is intercepting requests for archive pages from the /mt/archives directory and causing MT to dynamically generate the pages to display (instead of returning a 404 Not Found error page).

 

The directives that are in the .htaccess file in the /public_html/mt directory should all be in the .htaccess file in your /public_html directory. If you ever decide to make one of your Index templates a dynamic one, it will not work, as your /public_html .htaccess file has no directives to make dynamic publishing work in that directory.

 

The directives that I suggested you add to the .htaccess file in your /public_html/mt directory: they should go at the top of the file, before everything else (assuming you do not remove the directives already there - but I think you should).

[chroniker]

David,

 

I apologize for not responding sooner. Thank you for your help and input, you've been a big help. Unfortunitly I have'nt been able to put it all to use yet.

 

Thanks again.