Recently in Movable Type Category

For those wondering if the now-dormant blogs will every see the light of day anew, here are the dreary steps that will be confirmed before going farther:

1. The procedure for configuring and maintaining images uploaded via Windows Live Writer will be fully documented on nfoCentrale Status.  The accuracy and completeness of that procedure will be verified by adding the support to Spanner Wingnut and also maintaining it there..
     
2. The next visible changes will involve learning to adjust the sidebars on the blogs, including customization of plugins, templates, and styles for individualization of the different blogs operated under the single MovableType engine.  This will also be seen on both nfoCentrale Status and Spanner Wingnut.
     
3. There will be some invisible work to support how a blogs features are adjusted over time but a record of changes and the progression can be maintained.   This will be accompanied by infrastructure adjustment as part of the deployment model for the various blogs, starting with nfoCentrale Status and Spanner Wingnut, with the big test being restoration of an existing, now-dormant blog.  The prime candidates for first restoration are Orcmid’s Lair, Pursuing Harmony, and Kiln Sitter’s Diary.
    
4. There is also more work to complete and stabilize the nfoCentrale site as the repository of all of the procedures and template-development work that is promulgated across all of the blogs and sites.
     

My current thinking is to have this completed enough by the end of the year that additional blogs start waking up and there are useful developments on those blogs and their related sites.

For reasons that I am uncertain about, I created a structure of five categories on this blog.  I don’t need those particular ones.  I might not need any (well, maybe just two, plus the no-category top level).  In particular, some of the current categories are usurped by comparable ones over on nfoCentrale Status such as blog development and Movable Type.

The current category miss-fires do provide an opportunity, however.  I want to be able to retire categories while retaining the content in their category archives.  For example, if I were to retire the category of blog development, I would like to retain the archive of category pages that existed up to that point, just as I have retained the Blogger-counterpart of the category from the previous existence of Spanner Wingnut.  I’d also like to retain use of the category for those posts that were assigned to them, even though the categories would not appear in the brief (or long) category index on more-recent blog pages.

This conflicts with the ability to republish the site.  I don’t believe removing a category has any impact on the archive for that category: it and its content will remain (though template changes accomplished by alteration of CSS files and Java scripts may be imposed retroactively).  But for pages still under Movable Type management, republishing the site, or republishing a page, will lead to removal of any deleted-category associations.

So the misplaced categories here on Spanner Wingnut are going to be my laboratory for seeing how to retire categories while also preserving them as much as possible. 

This situation also applies to changes of format as well.  So if I want to preserve pages in the format they were originally posted in, I must desist from those pages being republished for any reason.  Although I can avoid mass republishing of everything, I can’t prevent republishing of a page as a side-effect of something (track back, comment, simple updating of the post, etc.).  For archive and category pages, any addition or update to one of the archived posts will lead to republishing.  Also, I think changes to templates that involve the CSS and JavaScript files pages refer to will be perpetuated to all such pages when viewed from then on.  These are the factors that must be juggled. 

In some cases, the way to preserve something the way it was is to sequester a version, even if a screen-shot, so that it can be referenced from within the blog without fear that it will be altered by any of the changes that have been made since.

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.

Spanner Wingnut is now fully functional.  Format customization and authoring/maintenance improvements can now begin.  This is the foundation for all next-generation nfoCentrale blogs.

At this point,

• Spanner Wingnut is operating as the second Movable Type blog implemented on nfoCentrale.
    
• Comments and Trackbacks are fully functional
     
• A stock Movable Type template is in place with no customization beyond basic layout choice and identification of some categories.
    
• The previous, Blogger-generated Spanner Wingnut posts and archives are preserved in their entirety:
• the last main page 
• the last blog feed
• the one category (label) archive for blog development
• the full set of posts and their archive pages back to the 2004-06-17 initial post 

There is more to do.

Spanner Wingnut now becomes the laboratory for further customization of blogs, including

1. Setup of Windows Live Writer for authoring
      
2. Customization of Templates anc use of plug-ins as a basis for cloning further blogs that are currently dormant
     
3. Confirmation that a second blog under the same domain (e.g., orcmid.com) can be created and operated successfully, now that multiple domains are working.

This update supercedes the fledgling status and the progression of difficulites that are now resolved.