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Configuring Publishing Settings
Byrne Reese at 2006-10-11 19:11:54.
The rules for which pages to produce and what mode to use in their rendering are defined from each blogs Publishing settings screen.
The Publishing settings screen is broken down into three distinct sections: Publishing Paths, Publishing Preferences, and Archive Mapping. Procedures for accessing your blogs publishing settings are outlined below, followed immediately by a description of each field found within the Publishing settings screen.
To access your blogs publishing settings
Navigate to the Main Menu for your individual blog, or any administrative screen where your blogs left hand navigation bar appears.
Click the SETTINGS link found in the Configure section of the sidebar navigation menu. This will open the General Settings configuration screen for your blog.
- If the Publishing tab is not visible on your screen, click the link labeled Switch to Detailed Settings found in the upper right hand corner of the screen to reveal this tab.
Click the Publishing tab to open the Publishing Settings screen and edit the desired fields.
When finished, scroll to the bottom of the screen to click the Save button to apply your changes. Changes to the settings in this section require the rebuilding of some or all of your published pages in order to take effect on your public facing site.
Publishing paths
This section defines the root location on the server to which Movable Type should publish any static files as well as the root URL for your weblog.
Site URL: This required setting defines the base URL for your weblog. For example, if youre using the default configuration and templates, and your weblogs main index was located at: http://www.example.com/blog/index.html, your Site URL setting would be: http://www.example.com/blog/.
Site Root: The required setting is the physical location (i.e. file path) to which Movable Type will publish any static pages created by the blog. For example, under Windows it might be C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\hrblog or, with Unix, /var/www/htdocs/blog. An administrator will need to create this top-level directory on your server before the weblog can publish to it, but all other blog subdirectories will be created automatically by Movable Type.
WARNING: your Site URL and Site Root should never share the same values as your Movable Type installation. Publishing blog files into the Movable Type application directory can lead to numerous problems such as inadvertent overwriting of important files and could potentially be a security hazard.
Advanced Archive Publishing: By default, Movable Type publishes a weblogs archives into subdirectories of the Site Root. In some cases you may desire to publish the archives elsewhere outside of the Site root, providing a distinct URL for accessing them (e.g. using a subdomain). If so, you can select the Advanced Archive Publishing option to reveal fields in which you can specify the base Archive URL and Archive Root.
NOTE: This option should not be used for specifying an Archive URL/root that is below the Site URL/root in the hierarchy simply for the purpose of containing all of the subdirectories created for the archives. Instead, see the options provided by the Archive Mapping settings described later in this chapter.
Archive URL: This field is only revealed if Advanced Archive Publishing is selected. If used, this defines the base URL for the blogs archive pages.
Archive Root: This field is only revealed if Advanced Archive Publishing is selected. If used, this defines the file system path on your server for your archive pages.
Publishing preferences
The publishing preferences control options related to the archive publishing process.
Preferred Archive Type: This field defines the preferred archive type to use when creating permalinks for your entries. If you are using Individual archives, this is always the best choice.
File Extension for Archive Files: This field defines the default file extension that will be appended to the filename for each of your category (e.g. html, php, etc)
Dynamic Publishing: This setting controls which templates, if any, Movable Type publishes dynamically.
Archive mapping
As described at the beginning of this chapter, individual, monthly, and category archives are enabled by default, covering the needs of most users. Movable Type also supports daily and weekly archiving of weblog entries. Archive mapping allows you to specify the type of archives to publish as well as the location of those archives.
Additionally, Movable Type supports the publishing of multiple sets of each archive type for the purpose of providing readers with alternate representations of the content (e.g. RSS, PDF, lo-fi, excerpts-only, etc). For example, a single weblog may publish all of the following files: Individual entry archives, Individual entry feeds, Category indexes, and Category archives Recent.
In order to do this, the system must know not only how to publish these entries (i.e. with what content) but also to what locations. This publishing recipe combining archive type, template and publishing location is called an archive map.
Archive Mapping table
By default, each archive type has a single archive map associated with it. Each archive map shows its associated template and the archive file path it will use in publishing its files.
The Archive Mapping section of the Publishing settings screen is made up of the following components:
Archive Types: This column displays all archive types available in the system. Those that are enabled are checked.
Template: This column displays the name or names of the archive templates associated with a particular archive type in a mapping. Templates are grouped by the archive type to which they are mapped.
Archive File Path: This column displays the format of the file path associated with each mapping, which dictates where the archive files should be written to and what their URLs should be. The default file path is structured based on the corresponding archive type, but can be customized to a different structure.
Delete: This column contains the icons for deleting each corresponding archive mapping.
Create New Archive Mapping: This link, found on top of the archive mapping listing table, opens a new archive mapping editor.
To modify the default archive file path
1. In the Publishing settings screen, scroll down to the Archive Mapping section and locate the Archive Template and Type combo you wish to alter.
2. Click the arrow in the corresponding dropdown menu to display the default archive file path for that combination, as well as the Custom option, typically located at the bottom of the list.
3. If your desired archive file path already exists, select it from the menu. If not, select custom in the dropdown menu to enter your own archive file path.
4. Next, type a new archive file path in the empty field using Movable Type template tags, Format specifiers, text or any combination of these three.
5. With your new archive file path defined, click the radio button to the right of this field to set is as the preferred archive file path for that archive mapping.
To create and add new archive maps
1. In the Publishing settings screen, scroll down to the Archive Mapping section and click the Create New Archive Mapping link located near the upper right corner of the archive mapping listing table.
2. Select the archive type you wish to use from the archive type dropdown menu.
3. Next, select the template you wish to use from the template dropdown menu.
4. Click the Add button, and the system will create a mapping with the default archive file path for that type.
NOTE: If an archive map already existed for that archive type and also used the default archive file path, you will need to modify the archive file path of the new one so that it doesnt simply overwrite the old one.
To set a preferred archive map
If you create more than one archive map for a single archive type, you will be offered a choice for which archive map is your preferred one for that archive type. This status is used by the system when creating links to the pages of the archive type from other pages it produces.
For example, if you had two archive maps for your Individual archive type, one of which produces HTML pages and the other RSS feeds, setting the HTML-based archive map as preferred would instruct the system to link to that page from the main index instead of the RSS feed.
All of this will be covered later in the Using Templates section.
To remove existing archive maps
1. In the Publishing settings screen, scroll down to the Archive Mapping section.
2. Click the trashcan icon to the right of the archive map you wish to remove.
3. If you are sure you want to delete the archive map, click OK.
NOTE: When you remove an archive map, it does not remove any of the files that may have been published by that mapping, but instead only the association and archive set. When all of the archive maps for a particular archive type have been deleted, the archive type will be suppressed from the display but is still available in the creation of new archive maps.
To enable or disable an entire archive type
Although removing all archive maps from a particular archive type will effectively disable the archive publishing for that type, an easier method of managing archive types is through the use of the checkbox on the left side of the table.
1. In the Publishing settings screen, scroll down to the Archive Mapping section.
2. Find the Archive Type you wish to enable (or disable).
3. Check (or uncheck) the checkbox to the left of that Archive Type.
4. Click the Save Changes button.
NOTE: Unselecting an archive type in this way (and saving the configuration) disables all of its constituent archive maps while preserving their configurations for later use.
To create a custom archive file path
Customized archive map file paths can be created using:
Movable Type template tags
Archive file path format specifiers
Text, for including parent archive directories or arbitrary parts of the path
Any combination of the above
1. In the Publishing settings screen, scroll down to the Archive Mapping section.
2. Select Custom from the Archive File Path dropdown menu for the Archive Type you wish to create a customized archive file path for.
3. Enter the custom archive file path you wish to use. The set of shorthand specifiers are listed in Appendix D and you can see those used in creating any of the provided drop down options by selecting the option you are interested in and then subsequently selecting the "Custom" option.
4. Click the Save Changes button.
NOTE: When constructing the final output path and URL Movable Type will take the archive file path specified and append it to the end of the Site URL/Root. Further, if one has not been explicitly specified in the archive file path the File extension for archive files (p. 57) will be appended to the end of all of it to form the complete path.
Byrne Reese at 2006-10-11 19:11:54.
