Are you ready for this? We’re really stoked.
Today begins a 2-month period of beta releases and official quality assurance testing.
Though we still have loose ends to tie up, we wanted to get the code so that people could begin to use it and provide feedback. We plan to release a new beta version every two weeks until the app is stable. Once stable, we’ll be creating release candidates. And we’re hoping to offer a stable build in mid November.
For those who are dying to download it now…
Download
Warning! - This is beta software and is not recommended in any production environment.
- Movable Type 5.0 Pro Beta 1: zip | tar.gz
- The MT5 Pro Beta is also available in Japanese: zip | tar.gz
We also have a Pre-Release Software License Agreement if you’re interested.
Quick links: Bug? | Feature? | Beta Forum | Source Code | Release Notes | Know Issues
About Movable Type 5.0
For those who aren’t distracted with downloading and installing… here’s a little history:
Development of MT4.3 and 4.31 were led by the Services team in the US and was primarily focused on app performance, resolving pain points common on large installations, making some of their most popular plugins part of the core product, and a major documentation update. (MT 4.31 is the current stable build supported by Six Apart.)
About the same time that 4.3 development started in the US, our Japanese team began a 6-month major undertaking to overhaul the app interface and add many other features that have been requested worldwide. The result is such a dramatic progression which will be released as Movable Type 5.
Movable Type 5 focused on three major feature areas:
Below is a summary of each. More detailed documentation will be created as we near official release.
Websites
With MT3 and MT4 it was possible to hack a blog to act as a “Page Blog” but this relationship is not built into the UI.
Using blogs to create a website in MT4 requird that one blog be dedicated to being the “page blog” and used for aggregation of content from the other blogs. It looked something like this:
A website in MT5 contains the blogs:
Here’s a diagram of how the Professional Template MT5 looks when mapped to website and blogs in MT5:
So in summary, website features:
- new “website” object
- blogs are associated to websites
- pages can be added to websites
- rebuild website separately from the contained blogs.
- app UI has the ability to move blogs between websites
Just for a little more clarity, here’s a diagram of the main object relationships in MT5:
CMS
User Dashboard
- A starting place for users to quickly jump to any blogs and websites they have the ability to manage.
Revision History
- Revision history for entries, pages, and templates. Revisions contain all data related to the entry/page/template including custom fields values.
Custom Fields Update
- Custom Fields extended to five more object types in addition to Entry, Page, Category, Folder, and User:
- Website
- Blog
- Comment
- Template
- Asset
- Custom Fields by Category/Folder allows custom fields to be mapped to a category/folder such that they are only displayed on the Edit Entry/Page screen when the entry/page is placed in the respective category/folder. For example, if a text-area custom field for “Ingredients” is associated to the category “Recipes”, the “Ingredients” field will only display when the entry is placed in the “Recipes” folder.
- Export/Import Custom Field Data - when exporting entries, all custom fields data will also be exported. When importing, custom field data will be imported if the importing blog has the same custom fields as the exported blog. (The Themes feature can help to export/import these custom fields between blogs or websites)
Themes
- Apply a theme with a single click and then rebuild the blog/website to apply changes to published website.
- Themes contain: templates, style-sheets, static files (images), widgets, categories, folders, and custom fields
- Themes for websites and blogs.
- Install themes just like plugins
- Export theme from current blog and optionally include all or a subset of the custom fields, static files, categories, and templates currently associated with the website or blog.
Other Significant Features
- Deprecation of the custom JS libraries and adoption of jQuery for the MT app user interface.
- Extend-able administration screens with jQuery and structured HTML
- New permissions and default roles
- all strings are now UTF-8 encoded
- create and distribute your own design themes
There are probably a few I’ve missed in this summary, but I’ll update this entry with any I’ve missed as I become aware of them.
Found a Bug?
- To avoid duplication of efforts, search existing bugs (from the feedback page) before submitting a new bug.
- Submit a bug in the Greyhound (MT5) Beta
Want a feature?
See the process on the Feedback & Support page.
Beta Forums
We have created a MT5 Beta Forum for topics related to the beta.
Source Code
If you want to check out the source code for the MTOS portion of MT5—code-named Greyhound—use the following Subversion command:
svn checkout http://code.sixapart.com/svn/movabletype/branches/greyhound
The changes for 4.3 (slapshot) and 4.31 (hanson) have been merged into the greyhound branch.
Release Notes
- Movable Type 5.0 System Requirements
- MySQL 5.0 or higher
- Perl 5.8.1 or higher
- Requires PHP5.x for dynamic publishing
- On MT 5.0 All blogs will be created under the website object. If you version-up from MT4, a “Generic website” is created and all blogs will be placed there.
- MT 5.0 uses YAML::Syck to validate plugin YAML files. If you have YAML error, you can switch to YAML:Tiny by adding config directive below on mt-config.cgi. YAMLModule YAML::Tiny
- New Role “Website Administrator” is added. It has a privileges to manage website with blogs under it.
- New privilege “Manage Website with Blogs” is added that permit user to manage a website with all the blogs under it
- New privilege,”Manage Website” and “Manage Theme” are added
- Some privilege names are modified. Manage Blog (MT4: Blog Administrator), Change Settings (MT4: Change Blog Setting), Publish Site (MT4: Publish Blog)
- Role “Designer” is modified to add “Manage Themes” privilege.
- You need the “Create Blogs” system permission and also “Website Administrator” privilege to create a new blog in a website.
- When you move blogs between websites, you need to copy uploaded assets to the new path manually. It is also recommended not to delete files in the old path to avoid broken links.
- Select “Theme” instead of cloning existing blog as a personal Blog option in New User Default settings.
- Template editor is replaced by CodeMirror that works well on major browsers. Syntax highlight switch is removed.
- You need to specify “Image”, “Video”, “Audio” or “Asset” to add custom fields for each type.
- System-wide custom fields are not included in Import / Export
- Template revision history contains only contains Template options “Output File” and “Publishing”, “Link to File” and “Publishing” is not included.
- Tiff and BMP files are not supported on Dynamic publishing MT:Assset
Know Issues for MT5 Beta 1
These issues will be fixed in future beta.
- Some administration screens are not displayed properly on Internet Explorer 6 and 7.
- Some of the bundled themes are not fully functional.
- Error message is displayed when you hit
Enter key to create a new category and tag.
- Backup and Restore are not fully functional.
- Error occurs when you post page with Windows Live Writer.
- Required field validation is not working on the comment and user custom fields.
- Cannot insert asset when editing entries with Firefox 3.0
- Side menu is cached on FastCGI environment
Big thanks to all the awesome work done by Six Apart developers in Japan and the US working on this release.
Well that’s all for now.
Looking forward to knowing what you think about MT5.
Enjoy.
