I am glad that you found my website about Movable Type and I hope that you are able to find important information for your own work. In this entry I want to give you some information about my website, so you are able to use my Movable Type Weblog efficiently.

What is next?

After having read this help, you should have a look at the Sitemap. There I have collected all entries and put them in a reasonable structure. You will get a good overview of all entries.

What is a weblog?

Movable Type is a product developed by Six Apart. It is used for creating websites organized as a Weblog.

The name Weblog« is the short form for »Web Logging«. It is a certain way of publication, where one or several authors write articles about varying subjects. Movable Type supports this work as the base platform.

A weblog contains the following important elements.

• The text written by an author is called an Entry.
• The start page is usually designed as an Index Page containing the most recently published entries.
• The entries will be merged in Archives. Either the full text is saved in an archive. Or maybe just the introduction with a link to the full text is copied. The archives are built with respect to various criteria. For example there are time-based archives ("all entries from March 2005") or category-based archives ("all entries for category installation").

Weblogs often deal with personal subjects. The author writes about personal experiences or thoughts.

My weblog's content is technical. It describes the platform »Movable Type«. It is only personal in the sense that it describes my experience with this product.

Page Structure

Each of my weblog's pages has an identical structure. You will immediately see three areas.

• There is the Banner on top of each page. On its left side you see the logo for my weblog. This logo is a link to the start page. If you click on it, you will return to the start page. On its right side, you can find important links that will lead you to this help, the sitemap or to the FAQs (frequently asked questions).
• On the right side of each page, you can see the Sidebar. As with the banner, it always shows the same information. For example, it contains some links for opening the archives (category or month) and some more commonly used links.
• On the left side you will see the page's contents. There a specific subject is discussed - as for example with this help. When looking at an archive you will usually see a list of entries leading you to the information.

Page Types

There are three different types of pages in this weblog.

• The entries are the central part of a weblog. In an entry a certain subject is discussed. Currently you are reading the entry »Help«
• If you open this weblog and look at the start page, you will see the index page. An index page lists several entries with respect to some criteria. For example, the start page always shows the 10 most recently published entries. Therefore, you can easily find out whether anything new has been published. There are other types of index pages, too. They list entries alphabetically or grouped by category. You can find these kinds of pages via the sitemap.
• Additionally all entries are collected in archive pages. I create archive pages with respect to category and month of publication. Therefore, you can easily find all entries for the category »Problems« or all entries from »March 2005«.

User Interface

In my weblog, all headers are highlighted with a blue area. The main headers additionally have a dark blue line below the area.

After having selected an item from the sidebar, the selected item will be printed with bold typeface. Therefore, you will be able to see the active context.

All links will be colored light blue. If you hover the mouse on top of it, the color changes to red and the text is underlined. All links pointing to external addresses will open in a new browser window.

On the start page, the entries are sorted by date descending. Therefore, the most recent entry is always on top. The archive pages are sorted by date ascending. Some index or archive pages will give you the option of changing the sort order.

Comments

You can comment many but not all entries. This is a basic feature of many weblogs. Unfortunately, it is often misused, so some action is needed. My weblog enforces the following rules.

• When writing a comment you can enter a name, an email address and a URL. These fields are optional. You may leave them empty.
• I recommend giving a name. If you do not want to give your real name, choose a pseudonym. If you do so, please always use the same pseudonym when commenting.
• A tool has been put into place that prevents inserting comments by software. For making it work, you have to preview a comment before it can be posted.
• Your comment will not be visible immediately. I will manually publish them.
• If you are using a TypeKey profile, your comments will be visible immediately.
• Comments that are violating a law and comments that are insulting will not be published.

mgs