Movable Type Weblog

MTLookup: Firefox Search Plugin

Mark from murky.org has created a plugin for the Firefox browser. It allows users to search MTLookup from within the browser toolbar. You can find the needed information on Mark's website on One more Firefox Plugin.

Thank's a lot Mark! This is a very useful extension.

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MTLookup: Announcing Version v3

I am currently designing the next version of MTLookup. There will be several enhancements to the user interface. I estimate that the new version will be ready in January 2006.

With the next version, MTLookup will be able to index the content from the well-known Movable Type Support Forum. So within one result list, you will be able to find tutorials and support questions.]]> Continue reading

MTLookup: Fulltext Search is not that Easy

A user told me about a query that did not return the expected result list. He was simply searching for the three letters »3.2« (three dot two). This should return a long list of hits. However, the result list was empty. So I had to enhance the algorithm a little bit.

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The FAQ has been extended

The FAQ has been extended, explaining the following questions.

October 29th, 2005: When looking at my generated webpages, some of these pages contain characters that really look strange. When looking at the same text in Movable Type, anything looks fine. Read FAQ: Special Characters appear as Garbage in the Entries

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MTLookup: Six Apart Documents Updated

Some hours ago, Six Apart announced that the Movable Type User Manual had been improved and extended. As MTLookup allows including the User Manual in search queries, I refreshed the MTLookup database immediately.

Both the Movable Type User Manual and the Movable Type Knowledge Base have been spidered completely. The information about these two websites has been updated in the MTLookup database.

Update: After having updated the MTLookup database, I did some reading. Yes, the Movable Type documentation is really good. Congratulations! And it is a perfect idea to create a manual with the help of a Movable Type itsself. My next user manual will be created with Movable Type, too.

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MTLookup: Testing Smart Suggestions

Once in a while, my own programs analyze MTLookup's search logs. They find out, which keywords have been used most often. They also look for search phrases, which resulted in long result lists - trying to find those queries whose result lists are so long that it was difficult for you to find what you were looking for.

Today, I started with integrating a new feature into MTLookup: giving suggestions to the user, how a search query might be improved and better results be found.

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MTLookup v2: more Websites, more Articles

After the second version of MTLookup has been released some days ago, more websites have been added to the database. These are: Murky, alogblog, David Raynes, Brad Choate, Don't Back Down, and Everitz Consulting.

Welcome on board.

Currently, MTLookup knows 26 websites with 2400 articles.

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MTLookup v2 Improvements: This and That

Some days ago, a new version of MTLookup was released. Please read Second version of MTLookup released for the announcement. I will describe the new features in several posts, which will be published here in the Movable Type Weblog.

Today, I want to tell you about several small improvements.

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MTLookup v2 Improvements: Query Feedback

Today, I want to tell you about query feedback.

Update: The feedback function has already proved to be a good medium for commenting a result list. A user told that certain phrases containing special characters did not give the expected results. This was corrected by me. For example, you can now successfully search for...

Thank's a lot for the feedback. And don't stop sending it.

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MTLookup v2 Improvements: Persistent User Data

Today, I want to tell you about persistent user data.

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MTLookup v2 Improvements: Stemming

Today, I want to tell you about stemming and how MTLookup benefits from this.

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MTLookup v2 Improvements: Website Indexing

Today, I want to inform you about website indexing and show how new websites can be included into MTLookup.

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Second version of MTLookup released

Today a new version of MTLookup, the search engine for Movable Type related information, has been released. Several new features have been implemented.

In a couple of days, I will describe all improvements in detail. Here is a summary of the most important changes.

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How to get indexed by MTLookup

I am currently working on a new version of MTLookup, offering lots of new features. In a previous article, I wrote that it will probably be released in August. That schedule is still valid.

One improvement will be an extended database. More websites will be indexed, more articles will be included. For this, I recently described how to get indexed by MTLookup.

There are two ways for making your articles be included in MTLookup.

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