Girlie's Tips and Tricks

categories with most entries

This is a total copycat of the Scriptygoddess Most Commented On Entries, but I thought someone might find a use for it anyway. ;-)

Here, we'll use PHP to produce a list of the categories with the most entries.

]]> Create a new Index Template with an output file of categories.inc with the following code in it:

$catentries[] =
;

$catinfo[] =
"||";

?>

Make sure the box is checked to Rebuild this template automatically. Save the template and then rebuild it.

Where you want the listing to display, use this code:

# This is the path to the categories.inc:
include("/full/path/to/categories.inc");

echo "

$catentries[$i] entries: $cat_name (updated $cat_updated)

";

?>

Be sure to change /full/path/to/categories.inc to point to the location of the new Index Template you created, and 10 to the number of categories you want in the listing.

View a demo of the results.

2004 bloggies

I just wanted to say what an honor it is to be nominated for two categories in this year's Bloggies.

For a blog that started merely as a place for me to keep a personal list of "things to do to my site", Tips & Tricks has blossomed into something I never quite expected it to become. To know that other Movable Type users have found the information here helpful has been very gratifying, and has also challenged me to expand my own knowledge for the simple pleasure of sharing it with others.

I would like to encourage everyone to take some time to visit as many of the nominees as you can this year, and register your votes, whether for me or for "the competition". I think it's safe to say that bloggers, like everyone else, appreciate recognition for what they do. The opportunities for showing that don't come along every day - so grab it while you can, along with the opportunity to discover some great reads you might not have been aware of until now.

Thanks to everyone who nominated me; to my fellow forum moderators; to the plugin developers; to the users who keep me hopping; and last, but most importantly, to Ben and Mena Trott for creating such an inspiring product! The Movable Type community is incredible, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

And good luck to my fellow nominees - I'm in excellent company, there's no doubt.

category specific recent comments listing

In a recent entry, I showed how I used PHP/MySQL to display the lastn comments from a single category. The code can also be modified for use in a Category Archive page, to show recent comments only for that particular category.

]]> This piece of code from the original entry is the one to modify:

(placement_category_id = 54)

If you only assign one category to each entry in your blog, replace 54 with:

If you assign multiple categories to each entry, install the Compare plugin and replace 54 with:

Inspired by this topic in the MT forum.

show all comments for comment author

This PHP/MySQL code will list all comments made by a particular comment author (based on their email address - if you allow anonymous comments, you'll need to modify the code to use another field).

Also, the script uses the Trackback URL for each entry commented on to provide a permalink to the entry. If your entries aren't Trackback-enabled, you may get strange results.

Update 04.15.04: The code has been updated to strip tags from comment text as a precautionary measure against malicious code.

]]> //connection info
include ("/path/to/your/connection/file/connect.php");

$author = 'girlie';
$email = 'girlie@thegirliematters.com';

$leaders = mysql_query("SELECT comment_url, comment_author, comment_text, comment_created_on, comment_entry_id, entry_title, trackback_url FROM mt_comment, mt_entry, mt_trackback WHERE (comment_blog_id=8) AND (comment_email='$email') AND (entry_id=comment_entry_id) AND (trackback_entry_id=comment_entry_id) ORDER BY comment_created_on DESC");

$email=str_replace("@", "@", "$email");
$email=str_replace(".", ".", "$email");
echo "Comments by $author:

\n";

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($leaders)) {
while (list($key,$val) = each($row)) {$$key = $val;}
$date = date("m.d.y", strtotime($comment_created_on));
$comment_text = strip_tags($row['comment_text']);
echo "posted $date on entry $entry_title:\n";
echo "

$comment_text

\n";
}

?>

You must change /path/to/your/connection/file/connect.php to point to your connect file; change girlie and girlie@thegirliematters.com to match the comment author to display; and change 8 to match your blog ID.

You can also view a demo of the results (which is limited to 10 comments for the sake of brevity), and then read a tutorial at Virtual Venus on using the script dynamically for all comment authors.

"mail this entry" used for spam

SEE UPDATE BELOW

If you are using Movable Type's "Mail This Entry" feature on your blog, you are advised to rename your mt-send-entry.cgi file, or remove the feature entirely.

If you are not using the feature on your blog, you still need to either rename the script, disable it by changing the permissions, or remove it from your server altogether.

Spammers have discovered a means of using this script to send messages that will appear to be coming from your server.

Renaming the script won't prevent them from finding it if you continue to use the feature on your site, but it will slow them down a little if everyone chooses a unique name for the script.

Also, if you're using other versions of this feature such as Pop-Up Mail This Entry or MT-Mail-Entry, you may want to take a similar approach to those as well.

If there are any developers out there interested in working on a fix for this vulnerability, please leave a comment and I will contact you with the details of the method being used (if you need them).

Update: Ben posted a fix in the previously-mentioned forum thread:

Before line 40 in mt-send-entry.cgi, add these lines:

die "Invalid from or to value"
if $to =~ /[\r\n]/ || $from =~ /[\r\n]/;

Save mt-send-entry.cgi, upload to your server in ASCII mode, and CHMOD permissions to 755 again (if necessary).

(Cross-posted at Virtual Venus)

nicer autolinked urls in comments

Movable Type offers an autolink feature for URLs in comments, which is rather handy. However, if a URL is lengthy, it can mess up the display in other areas of your site (such as a Recent Comments Listing in your sidebar).

Dylan Cuthbert posted a hack that will extract just the site name as the text of the link.

]]> You'll need to hack two MT files: lib/MT/Util.pm and lib/MT/Template/Context.pm (line numbers referenced are as of v2.64, and code changes are in color):

lib/MT/Util.pm, lines 403-412:

sub munge_comment {
my($text, $blog) = @_;
unless ($blog->allow_comment_html) {
$text = remove_html($text);
if ($blog->autolink_urls) {
$text =~ s!(http://([^\s/]+)\S*)!$2!g;
}
}
$text;
}

lib/MT/Template/Context.pm, lines 1215-1230:

sub _hdlr_comment_body {
my($ctx, $arg) = @_;
sanitize_on($arg);
my $tag = $ctx->stash('tag');
my $c = $ctx->stash($tag =~ /Preview/ ? 'comment_preview' : 'comment')
or return $ctx->_no_comment_error('MT' . $tag);
my $blog = $ctx->stash('blog');
my $t = defined $c->text ? $c->text : '';
$t = ($tag =~ /Preview/ ? $t : munge_comment($t, $blog) );
my $convert_breaks = exists $arg->{convert_breaks} ?
$arg->{convert_breaks} :
$blog->convert_paras_comments;
return $convert_breaks ?
MT->apply_text_filters($t, $blog->comment_text_filters, $ctx) :
$t;
}

I have not tested this hack personally (believe it or not, I do very little actual hacking to my own MT files). but I thought it was worth adding here and to the Requested Features List.

more than five recent items on editing menu

By default, the Editing Menu for your blog shows the most recent entries, comments, and trackback pings (5 of each). Here's how to increase that number.

]]> The code is in lib/MT/App/CMS.pm, and all line numbers are based on v2.661.

Entries, lines 233-236:

my $iter = MT::Entry->load_iter({ blog_id => $blog_id },
{ 'sort' => 'created_on',
direction => 'descend',
limit => 5 });

Comments, lines 254-257:

$iter = MT::Comment->load_iter({ blog_id => $blog_id },
{ 'sort' => 'created_on',
direction => 'descend',
limit => 5 });

Pings, lines 272-275:

$iter = MT::TBPing->load_iter({ blog_id => $blog_id },
{ 'sort' => 'created_on',
direction => 'descend',
limit => 5 });

Change 5 to the number you want to display.

how to work with templates when making changes

Just something I posted on the MT Support Forum that I thought I'd put here as well, regarding how I use link this template to a file when making changes to my templates that I may not want to keep.

]]> I have a templates folder in each of my blog directories. I use the Link this template to a file field to save a copy of every template. For example, my Main Index template is linked to a file named templates/mainindex.tmpl.

When I want to make changes to a template that I'm not sure I want to keep, I modify the linked filename by adding a number to the name (templates/mainindex2.tmpl) and press SAVE.

If I decide I don't like the changes, I delete everything in the template body window, modify the linked file name back to the original (i.e., remove the number) and press SAVE again. The original template then appears in the body window, and I'm back to where I started.

If I decide I do like the changes, I just modify the linked file name back to the original and press SAVE to copy over the original linked file, and now my changes have been permanently retained.

Every now and then, I FTP to my site and remove any of the testing templates by deleting those with numbers.

font switcher

I've implemented a rather rudimentary (to me, anyway) font switcher for those who find my teeny font hard on the eyes. It's based on this article from A List Apart, and you can find the options down on the bottom of the sidebar at left.

I split my current stylesheet down into four new ones:

styles-all.css - those that apply everywhere (i.e., are not font-size specific)
styles-pref.css - the default font sizes
styles-medium.css - 2px greater than the default font sizes
styles-large.css - 4px greater than the default font sizes

I haven't the patience for full-scale skinning of my site, so this is as close to fancy as it's going to get around here.

email not required for comments

Here's some code I'd noted from a forum post by Ben Trott quite a while back - it allows comments to be posted without an email address required. I've slightly updated the change for the latest version of the code.

]]> Open up lib/MT/App/Comments.pm (save a backup first!) and look for this code (currently at lines 70-73 in v2.64):

if (!$blog->allow_anon_comments &&
(!$q->param('author') || !$q->param('email'))) {
return $app->handle_error($app->translate(
"Name and email address are required."));

and replace with:

if (!$blog->allow_anon_comments && !$q->param('author')) {
return $app->handle_error($app->translate(
"Name is required."));

Save and upload the new version of the file to your server in ASCII mode.

Note that I've not actually tested the code myself - I just wanted to document it for reference by others who might be interested in doing this.

lastn comments from one category

I was playing around with this a while back and figured I'd better blog it before I lost track of it again.

This MySQL/PHP code gives me the last 5 comments on entries in one particular category. The display format is identical to the Recent Comments listing in my sidebar.

Note that the permalinks to the entries are customized to match my Archive File Templates, so this probably isn't something you can just cut-and-paste to use for yourself, but it gives some idea of how permalinks can be constructed.

]]> Here's the code:

/path/to/connect.php");

$blogurl="http://www.thegirliematters.com/tips/archives";

function dirify ($s) {
$s = strtolower($s);
$patterns = array('/<[\/\!]*?[^<>]*?>/s', '/&[^;\s]+;/', '/[^\w\s]/', '/ /');
$replace = array('', '', '', '_');
$s = preg_replace($patterns, $replace, $s);
return $s;
}

$comments = mysql_query("SELECT comment_url, comment_author, SUBSTRING_INDEX(comment_text, ' ', 10) AS comment, comment_entry_id, entry_title, date_format(entry_created_on, '%y%m') AS archive_path FROM mt_comment, mt_entry, mt_placement WHERE (comment_entry_id = placement_entry_id) AND (placement_entry_id = entry_id) AND (placement_category_id = 54) ORDER BY comment_created_on DESC LIMIT 5");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($comments)) {
$url = $row['comment_url'];
$author = $row['comment_author'];
$text = strip_tags($row['comment']);
$title = dirify ($row['entry_title']);
$titlenodir = $row['entry_title'];
$archivepath = $row['archive_path'];
echo "• $author: $text [entry]
\n";
}
?>

Items in color represent variables to be changed (and of course, there's the whole permalink issue in the last echo statement).

FYI, here's the Archive File Template I use for my Individual Archives:

/.php

which gives me filenames as YYMM/entry_title.php, and that is what the code is written to mimic.

configuration listing with php and mysql

I was really excited when Kristine presented us with the Multiple Blog Suite - but for some reason, my browser (IE5.5) didn't seem to get along with the Suite files too well.

Since I already have a means of backing up my templates, I wasn't too distressed about that. But I really wanted to get my hands on the Configuration piece of the Suite.

So I stole K's code, and used it as the foundation for my own Configuration Listing, adding some new option details not included in the original.

]]> First off, if you're not using PHP and MySQL, then I'm sorry, this isn't going to be anything you can use. Maybe one day, I'll learn Perl, but for now, these are the two subjects I'm brain-deep in trying to figure out.

I've zipped the files and put most of the instructions there, but I'll give you a little overview.

Files included:

configreadme.txt
configscript.php
configscriptwrite.php
connect.php
nav.inc
styles.css

There are two versions of the script itself: configscript.php and configscriptwrite.php.

The first gives you a display page only, which you can save locally using File > Save As from your browser. The second gives you the display page and writes the contents to a .txt file on your server as a backup.

If you have multiple blogs, you can create multiple copies of the script file, and use nav.inc to view the listings for each of them.

And styles.css is provided for customization if you're not fond of the traditional Girlie colors.

Because I'm a stickler for managing everything I can in MT, each of the script files for my blogs was created as a Template Module in my newly created Backup blog (more on what I use this blog for can be found at Virtual Venus).

Finally, there's a sample output page for your viewing pleasure.

It may not be useful to anyone other than me, but I really enjoyed the challenge of learning to do this. And there's really no point to learning if you don't share the final results. :smile:

category count excluding one category

Kristine whipped up some PHP using the FilterCategories plugin to give you a total count of all entries in your blog less those in one particular category.

$all="<$MTBlogEntryCount$>";
$not="general">
<$MTCategoryCount$>
";
echo $all-$not;
?>

Replace general with the name of the category you want to exclude.

Found in this MT support forum thread.