I'm pleased to announce that the new design you see on this site is also available as a Movable Type 4.2 theme! You can download MT 4.2 and the Mid-Century Template Set from movabletype.org.
My goal was to create a simple, elegant blog design with an emphasis on the content and build into it some cool features like the little sidebar photo gallery and ajax commenting.
If you've updated your blog to use this theme or if you have any questions, please comment on this entry.
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Hi Jim,
I'm using your theme but have modified it slightly so it doesn't look like the rest. I love how detailed the css is, though had to add something for pages and extended entries. Had a problem with the comment form not working too, but have fixed it. I'm intrigued that it's not finished, and am looking forward to any updates you have in mind.
http://mt4.juneeonline.com/babble-on/
Thanks for sharing
Toni
somehow it didnt work for me, i keep getting error everytime i want to republish the site, such as "tag MTCommentParentID unrecognized", another cookie session tag in the javascript unrecognized..etc
i know the tag exist, but i dont know why my mt shows that error. im using mt4.13 pro-pack.. now i have to switch back to classic template.. :(
Hi Faizal. I'm sorry you were having trouble. This theme is built for use with MT 4.2, which means it includes some things that aren't included with MT 4.1. If I have time I'll try to make a version that's compatible with your version.
Nice theme! I think I had to change a couple of lines/tags to get it to work for me, but otherwise, it looks great.
like faizal, i would also LOVE it if you could make the theme backwards compatible... it's a beautifully simple and clean theme. Thanks!
Very nice and clean theme! In general I think that insufficient number of nice themes is the main weakness of MT4 now.
In Byrnes announcement of the theme he indicated that it should be considered a beta version.
I know you guys have been busy getting 4.2 out the door, but when can we expect getting a finished version. I really like this theme and can see myself using it for a couple of projects I'm thinking about.
Hi Sara, I've made a few changes based on using it on this blog and I'm doing some documentation. I'm hoping that a final version can be released in the next few days.
Thanks a lot Jim. I'll def be looking forward to it.
Will it be possible to use it in a community blog?
Is there a way to add userpics (avatars) in comments?
Thanks in advance and for your great work
You'd have to modify to use if for a community blog or to add userpics in the comments. I've been blogging about different ways to change it, so maybe I'll try to address these things in the next few days.
I'd be great. Thanks again
I think I found a problem. I'm using windows 1252 charset and everything -works fine, except in comments via page form, as you can see there
http://www.giuda.it/archives/200808/death-tour.html
I found that in "comments" template a line sets charset as utf-8 and not as $mt:PublishCharset$.
I changed it but this hasn't solved the encoding problem.
Any ideas?
ps: This problem appeared after 4.2 upgrade.
main index and entry template build pages that don't validate
This charset problem (non utf-8) appears if you write a comment with IE and you press "submit".
This problem doesn't occour if
- you press "preview" and then "submit" with IE
- you use Firefox
Hope to hear you soon :-)
finally i can use it after upgrading to the new mt pro.. sweeeeet!
mt is too flexible and i would say way beyond our control, with the flexibility we can almost do everything with it, more than a cms. thats why it's hard to find a nice predesigned template, coz the number of ideas is infinite! :)
how about some team work out on a nice design, and other team transform the deisgn into mt template, hows that sound? im sux in designing, so i might join the coding team. we have a huge community right, sure we can organize an activity for the members..
I'm stalled on final installation with a comment problem. If you comment and click submit, you get an error saying no text was entered (both firefox and ie do this). If you preview first, comment goes thrrough fine. Any clues as to what I should be looking for?
Thanks for the gorgeous style, will be using it repeatedly once I resolve this last snag.
An update: solved the problem I had with comments returning the "no text" error. I found that I had a different charset in the html header than is in the comment java script.
Now, system works fine in IE, but in Firefox, once you click "submit" the page flashes briefly, then says it's loading, but never stops. If you go to another open FF browser, the comment is there, but the original browser keeps "loading".
Any hints for this one? We are so close...
Thanks again.
I really love the way you've improved the comment form - the default way of displaying it in MT always struck me as horrific :)
sorry for the newb question. I copied the theme file into the appropriate folders on my server but am uncertain how to apply the theme to my site. should it be avail in stylecatcher?
thanks!
JK
Hi JK. To use this template set on an existing site you'll need to refresh your templates. NOTE: This will wipe out any customizations you might have made on your existing templates, so be warned.
To refresh your templates go to Design > Templates and look for the "Refresh Blog Templates" link in the lower right corner. Click that link and choose "Apply new template set" and select Mid-Century from the list. You can backup your existing templates if you wish. Republish your site and you should be good to go.
Hi annie -- I'm not sure why that would happen. Is the site in a publicly accessible place? It'd be easier to troubleshoot if I could see what was happening myself. Feel free to send me the link at jramseydesign (at) gmail.com
Your theme is brilliant Jim! I've tinkered with bits and pieces to suit my blog - but it's just what I was waiting for. Thank you.
am i the only one who experienced this?
everytime after comment, the ajax work in background, then in the area where the comment supposed to appear, it loads the whole websites+new comment instead of loading the comment only.. now it makes the whole page like a nested page.
i believe this is the ajax problem... any idea guys?
No Faizal you're not the only one, me too - and seems like "annie" has a similar problem (except I have the nested-loading page problem in IE/FireFox/Chrome).
Definitely seems like an ajax issue, the POST to mt-comments.cgi responds with a redirect back to the original page/entry which then loads and messes things up. I'll do some more debugging shortly.
I'm sorry I haven't been more responsive to comments, but I've been buried lately.
Annie said:
"An update: solved the problem I had with comments returning the "no
text" error. I found that I had a different charset in the html header
than is in the comment java script."
She said that worked for IE, but FF was still giving her problems. I hope that helps.
don't apologise, we appreciate any/all your help :)
I had a closer look, comparing your blog behaviour to mine, and found the issue (but not how to resolve it).
When your comments form does a POST to mt-comments.cgi, only the comments are returned which updates the div as expected. On my blog, instead of returning only the new comments, mt-comments.cgi returns a 302 redirect to the original entry page, which then (re)loads into the comments div and messes everything up. No idea yet why mine behaves differently.
Aha - got it :-) You need to enable the MT setting:
Preferences --> Comment --> Use Comment Confirmation Page
(on by default for new MT4 blogs, but always been off for me and others it seems).
Fantastic templates but is there any possibility they might be extended to the community blogs and forums too? I want to do an integrated community and forum site and was surprised to see there really is only one template for both.
oh man thank god... i always turn that off, so the only solution now is to turn it on?
whatever it is, now ill just 'hide' that preview button.. hehe! thanks Ewan!
Ran into an incompatibility with this theme and the AJAX Star Rating system from MT-Hacks. Granted, I didn't get into the plumbing of it, but fact is that with it's components enabled in the HTML Head the comment system breaks (returns results in plain text, and the widget fails to pull data). Comment them out, and the theme's comments work just fine.
Just a head's up for those that plan on using Mid Century with the AJAX Rating.
Hi all! About "no text error":
It's becouse blog and comment script (mt-comments.cgi) place at diffent servers.
I create symbolic link to movable type directory from blog directory and use this path to comment script.
It Work!
I posted this issue on the MT site, but I guess here would be more appropriate...
---
Building out a new site using Mid-Century as a base, and I'm having an issue with the AJAX comments "breaking" when I try to run other, rather common, AJAX components -- such as Lightbox 2 (important) and MT-Hacks' Ajax Comments (not so important). I've tried different orders in the HTML head, but either the comments post to an unformatted comment page (as opposed to inserting above the comment box like they're supposed to) or it breaks the aforementioned components in similar fashion. This is confirmed by commenting out each item and checking them individually.
You can see it here:
http://speedcenter.tv/content/2008/10/mazdas-kiyora-to-paris.html
(site in development still)
Any suggestions? FWIW I'm using Movable Type Pro version 4.21-en with: Community Pack 1.6, Professional Pack 1.2
Here's the section that Firebug is pulling up as being in error:
$(document).ready is not a function
(?)()begi-s-m...-kit.html (line 368)
[Break on this error] $(document).ready(function(){
I assume it's related, but don't know for certain.
Found part of the problem: Lightbox 2 has an issue with some of the components herein. I changed out to Thickbox and both comments and the lightbox effects work.
Lightbox 2 had another issue of "breaking" IE7 for some reason. It would crash the browser when used along with this theme on MT. Normally, Lightbox 2 doesn't have these type of issues. The issue was particularly hard to find because the effects worked fine on FF on both Mac an PC as well as Opera.
Oddly I haven't had problems having the comment confirmation page setting to off. Turning it on is what breaks things for me...
There are two small conflicts with AJAX Ratings comment ratings and the mid-century template set:
1) An ajax library conflict, but a very minor one, and a very simple fix. In the "comments" module, look a line that reads:
$(document).ready(function(){
and replace it with:
jQuery(document).ready(function($){
Notice that the line has 2 changes: 1) using "jQuery" instead of "$"
at the start, and 2) adding "$" near the end as shown. This tweak does not affect the functionality of comment form at all, it simply avoids the conflict (which relates to prototype's use of the $ symbol)
2) A CSS issue in which the mid-century CSS had img tags appearing in the byline to display: none. The effect was that the voting image
would not appear. This can be overridden with the following declaration (It's in the ajaxrating.css file referenced in the above url, but your put in anywhere after the initial styles.css reference):
.comment .byline img {
display: inline;
}
See http://mt-hacks.com/wba/2008/11/test-entry.html
for an example of the two working together or if that's eventually changed to a differnt them, see http://2008.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-blog/