June 2010 Archives

I much prefer Windows Live Writer for its ease of use, the ability to keep drafts off-line, and other capabilities.

Even so, I don’t have complete access to Movable Type functionality, and I want to maximize that.

Two valuable additions would include

• creation of Movable Type tags/keywords or whatever they are
• uploading of pictures to the assets folder below the post month that are used when I import images using the Movable Type browser editor for authoring

I am sure there are more provisions of interest, but these are the ones that attract my interest.

What I’m wondering right now is what happens if I retrieve interesting posts into Windows Live Writer, posts that were originally authored in Movable Type’s browser interface.  Perhaps that will reveal something useful about how things work and how I might accomplish the same with Windows Live Writer?

The current Windows Live Writer apparently does not have an automatic setup for Movable Type blogs.

I say apparently because my failure to set up the account access correctly was a barrier to discovering otherwise before I created my own custom wlwmanifest.xml file, thinking that was the problem.  For all I know, Windows Live Writer would learn enough from the rsd.xml file that Movable Type places at the blog location.

Having set up one that seems to be working as expected, I have also arranged to share the same one on every blog I set up on an nfoCentrale site.

The current form used by this blog (and all others automatically) is at blog-URI/wlwmanifest.xml. 

I am not so confident about the items at the end of the manifest.  I don’t think the various links are working.  It will take some experimentation to determine what the correct manual settings are.

Here is the one in use today, for posterity and accounting for any further changes.

(One future improvement in my use of Windows Live Writer will be finding a decent code colorization.)

I had not considered where to envision, develop, and account for nfoCentrale blog development up to this point.  Material has been scattered about different blogs and pages of various nfoCentrale web sites.

The coincidence of installing Movable Type and then bringing up the nfoCentrale Status blog has me imagining how I will make use of the nfoCentrale anchor site and this blog as a point of consolidation.

These categories have been called into the service of consolidated management and tracking of blog development across nfoCentrale.

The initial aim is to provide new narrative here and on pages of nfoCentrale.  I am starting out with just enough to capture continuing effort in migrating the blogs.  The priority is to have the blogs up and useful as quickly as possible, while avoiding rework in establishing consistent structures, templates, and any other configuration details.

Other niceties beyond capture of enough to remind myself of the course I’m on, will tag along later after the blogs are working well enough.

When authoring today’s Current Blog Status with Windows Live Writer, I noticed that setting sub-heading levels didn’t seem to have any effect in the WLW editing pane.  There is also no indication in the blog post itself whether these lines are any different from normal paragraphs.

This may be related to the use of XHTML instead of HTML for the Movable Type posts.  It might also be a template matter.

I did a View Source and confirmed that tags like <h3> are being passed through into the post.  I assume the problem is with a lack of styling in the templates and CSS for this blog.

Job Jar:

• Capture some screen shots of the way the subheadings are appearing now, along with confirmation that the HTML does contain the heading markup.
    
• Create a reasonable style for the additional heading levels on blog pages.

[update 2010-06-20T00:31Z Using WLW, I am adding Movable Type to the categories of this post and republishing it.  In this case, WLW has its local copy.  There is more to accomplish in this area.]

As part of moving operation of the main nfoCentrale blogs to operation with Movable Type, the original blogs have been placed in various flavors of dormant state. 

Proof-of-concept confirmation of Movable Type workability has been completed.   Customization for the desired style and templates of the main nfoCentrale blogs is now under way.

Meanwhile, here is the the alphabetical run-down of the current status for all of the blogs.

Kiln Sitter’s Digest [Dormant: to be revived under Movable Type]

This blog is dormant pending introduction of a Movable Type version with comparable style.

• The last main page remains at http://millennia-antica.com/diary/
• The last RSS feed remains at http://millennia-antica.com/diary/atom.xml
• Those pages, all previous posts, and the archive pages will all be preserved and tied into a new Movable Type version.

nfoCentrale Status [Active]

This is a new blog created for confirming Movable Type installation and configuration.   It is now used to provide status information for nfoCentrale blogs and for the ongoing development of nfoCentrale sites.  It’s customization is only loosely-connected with that for the other blogs of this family.

• The main page is at http://nfocentrale.com/status/
• The RSS feed is updated at http://nfocentrale.com/status/atom.xml
• The archive set for chronological posts and categories is available at http://nfocentrale.com/status/archives.html

Numbering Peano [Dormant: to be revived under Movable Type]

This blog is dormant pending introduction of a Movable Type version with comparable style.

• The last main page remains at http://miser-theory.info/astraendo/pn/
• The last RSS feed remains at http://miser-theory.info/astraendo/pn/pn-atom.xml
• Those pages, all previous posts, and the archive pages will all be preserved and tied into a new Movable Type version.

Orcmid’s Lair [Dormant: to be revived under Movable Type]

This, my original blog, is dormant pending introduction of a Movable Type version with comparable style.

• The last main page remains at http://orcmid.com/blog/
• The last RSS feed remains at http://orcmid.com/blog/lair-atom.xml
• Those pages, all previous posts, and the archive pages will be preserved and tied into a new Movable Type version.

Orcmid’s Live Hideout [Unwanted: to be scavenged and then abandoned]

This blog was an experiment using Windows Live Spaces.  This blog is dormant pending its eventual retirement.

• The last main page remains at http://orcmid.spaces.live.com/
• The last RSS feed remains at http://api.live.net/Users(3713586660967533479)/Main?$format=rss20
• My intention is to scrape the posts that I want to preserve into other blogs and then abandon this blog.

Professor von Clueless in the Blunder Dome [Dormant: to be revived under Movable Type]

This blog is dormant pending introduction of a Movable Type version with comparable style.

• The last main page remains at http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/clueless/
• The last RSS feed remains at http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/clueless/clu-atom.xml
• Those pages, all previous posts, and the archive pages will be preserved and tied into a new Movable Type version.

Pursuing Harmony [Dormant: to be revived under Movable Type]

This blog is dormant pending introduction of a Movable Type version with comparable style.

• The last main page remains at http://nfoWorks.org/diary/
• The last RSS feed remains at http://nfoworks.org/diary/harmony-atom.xml
• Those pages, all previous posts, and the archive pages will be preserved and tied into a new Movable Type version.

Spanner Wingnut’s Muddleware Lab [Active]

This is the first dormant Blogger-generated blog to be revived as a Movable Type blog.  Its revival confirmed the creation of multiple blogs under different domain names under the same web server account.  This blog is used to confirm blog configuration and template customizations before the arrangement is used to clone the revival of remaining dormant blogs.

• The main page at http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/wingnut/ is taken over by Movable Type
• The final Blogger-generated main page is preserved at http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/wingnut/default.blogger.htm and the archive list is preserved on that page
• The RSS feed at http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/wingnut/wing-atom.xml is taken over by Movable Type
• The final Blogger-generated RSS feed is preserved at http://orcmid.com/BlunderDome/wingnut/wing-atom.blogger.xml

Blog customizations continue to be explored using Spanner Wingnut.

[2010-07-04T20:49Z reposted from Spanner Wingnut’s Muddleware Labs to confirm cross-posting via Windows Live Writer]

Windows Live Writer has an odd view of the theme of this page, but I do have it operating now with both nfoCentrale Status and Spanner Wingnut.  That completes the first pent-up item on my Next Generation blog customizations.

The advantage of this, for me, is the ability to have local drafts.  I can also cross-post rather easily using Windows Live Writer to post the local copy to multiple blogs, etc.

I will be doing more customization with Windows Live Writer.  I do need tags as well as images to work.  There may be additional provisions to be concerned about as well.

Right now, I am just happy to have this much working, ending the frustration of my previous efforts.

It is time for a victory lap, a little mt-config.cgi cleanup, and a relaxing evening dinner break.

PS: I am also going to see if automatic trackbacks are working even when I make a post through Windows Live Writer.

PPS: The trackbacks do work.  There will be more as the result of this 2010-07-04 cross-posting.  Note that I am maintaining the original timestamp to have the chronological history preserved.

There was apparently some serious comedy of errors where I had the wrong password that I kept trying over and over.  Even when I changed the Movable Type Web Services Password myself, I got it wrong in my local safe.

There is also some sort of weird latency that happens when trying to change it that tripped me up.

Now I just hope I have retained that password where it will work for me.

I even see that my wlwmanifest.xml is being processed, showing me my hierarchical categories.

I haven’t figured out how to enter tags yet.  I also don’t know what to do about images.

Let’s see how well this much works.

[update 2010-06-20T01:18Z This post is reposted via retrieval into Windows Live Writer, adding to the Windows Live Writer and Movable Type categories, and reposting.  There is no indication of any tags on the original, and I don’t think there are any images either.  This post may have come from Windows Live Writer in the first place.  That’s fine.  I apparently was able to retrieve it and we’ll see now whether it reposts properly, still dated 2010-06-01-19:19 local time.]

[update 2010-06-20T01:49Z This original post was created directly in Movable Type by using the MT browser-based editor.  This update was accomplished by retrieving the post into Windows Live Writer, now that it’s operating with Movable Type.  This retrieval and repost is part of my Movable Type forensics work.  I see that the images in this post are retrieved to Movable Type just fine.  It appears those embeddings will simply be preserved.  On the other hand, there is no indication of the tags that were on the original post.  This repost will determine if they are preserved or not.]

I am struggling in my efforts to have Windows Live Writer work with my Movable Type installation.

The easiest place to attempt the setup is right here on nfoCentrale Status.  There are a few things more to try, but what seems to be simple for others is just not working for me:

I use the Web Services password, but that doesn't do it.  Using an actual account User ID doesn't work either.  Hmm, it says name.  Do you think they really mean the name field.

Well, I don't know.  I do know that variations I've tried don't work, and that includes adding a wlwmanifest.xml along side of the rsd.xml that is already there on the blog.

The problem is that the use of a browser form is just not my idea of a good time.  And this form is very small.  The Zemanta service also causes delays from time to time.  All-in-all, this is not a great experience: