July 2005 Archives

Byrne Reese has released MediaManager beta4... an updated, overhauled, "new and improved" MT32-friendly replacement for BookQueueToo, as well as MTAmazon32v1.0 (repackaged and updated MTAmazon). Very cool! Check out the screenshots for a walk-through and you'll be impressed, too.

Installation (on MT32b2) was not too difficult. First, I edited mt-config.cgi to specify my mt-static path (even though I do have it in the default location). Then I uploaded MTAmazon32.pl and MediaManager into my plugins directory (making sure to CHMOD 755 mmanager.cgi). In System Overview/Plugins I configured MTAmazon32 with my Amazon subscriber ID and cache location. Then I configured MTAmazon32's Amazon associate ID through each blog's plugin settings.

Oh, I forgot about MediaManager's static folder. Rename it mmanager and move it to your mt-static directory.

I think that did it. Hope I didn't forget anything... oh yeah, the cache folder... I actually forgot to create one and there's been no fussing about it. Is it not required with MTAmazon32? (I have gone ahead and created it.)

Anyway, the awesome new "Review" feature looks... well.. awesome!! Byrne brilliantly incorporated the Amazon image hacks that he had described previously on his site. I finally figured out how to use it. After you create your review (I had to do it as a draft), go to your entries and edit it by selecting a new Text Formatting option: "MediaManager: Layout1", select Publish, then save. You will have a very cool and nicely formatted review entry. Unfortunately, this plugin does not (yet!) have a php counterpart, so the review entries will not work with dynamic archives. :-(

FYI, MediaManager beta4 results are in the "books" section on my beta blog as well as in the left sidebar on this blog.

Success! I upgraded from MT3.2b1 to MT3.2b2 in under a minute. ;-) This upgrade went much better and I have been able, finally, to rebuild my previously existing blogs (well, I haven't tested ALL of them, but I'll work on that tomorrow). Installing the new MediaManager (replacement for BookQueueToo) helped ease the transition. I'll report separately about that.

I'm trying to avoid hacks to see how far MT3.2 will go without them, but I MUST have the "View Site" link back up top. I added the following lines to the end of the links in the <TMPL_IF NAME=AUTHOR_NAME> section (tmpl/cms/header.tmpl) and saved into my alternate templates folder:

Also limited blog searches to originating blog by adding to default search template form:

More details about "take 3" forthcoming...

Taking a different (more cautious) approach this time, I created a new MT directory and database (with contents copied from MT3.17 database) AND uploaded all the plugins I use. (Again, my purpose for now is to test upgrading.) This time the upgrade process did hang, but with no errors. It required me to log in again twice during the process. I did have success, though, with upgrading the database this time (no errors!). The rest of the story is not so sweet. Unfortunately, I have to take some of the credit for the problems I'm having. There is a little plugin fussiness and I won't be able to rebuild much of anything 'til I iron that out. (some plugin conflict is due to having edited the lib path because of activity log errors). Okay, that's done but I'm still having rebuilding errors all over the place. I'll be back...

Just logging my progress upgrading to MT3.2beta. I uploaded MT3.2b over MT3.17 files (except mt.cfg), went to mt.cgi and was prompted to upgrade my database. Clicked the button provided for me and it proceeded to FAIL on the DB upgrade. That yielded numerous errors with various error message written onto my index page. Being on the way out the door for a meeting, I didn't have time to record the error messages. :-\

I restored my backups and everything was back to its old self in no time. Gotta love those backups. They save my neck every time. ;-)

I will continue in the morning... already turning into a pumpkin due to too many late nights this week.

As if there wasn't already enough to get excited about with MT3.2 just around the corner, Byrne announced the coming transition of BookQueueToo to MediaManager which will take advantage of all the ninja sweetness of MT's new goodies. Fun!

And here's a somewhat related freebie... somewhere on some MTAmazon related sites (should have bookmarked them) suggestions have been made to add "/ref=nosim/" to Amazon URLs so the link takes you directly to the page with the "add to cart" link, resulting (supposedly) in a better referral rate. Here's an example:

I also tacked /ref=nosim/ onto my associate id in iTunes NowPlaying plugin for the same result. (example: username-20/ref=nosim/) Hopefully, it won't screw anything up. So far so good.