Enabling PHP on your server

2009-12-31T15:18:52Z

Hosting providers have different requirements to enable PHP on the servers you use. Our experience is:

GoDaddy: Requires all Web pages containg PHP code have the .php file type.

icdSoft: Enable PHP by creating an .htaccess file in the root directory and adding the following code:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php .html .htm

We can continue using .html as the file type and when PHP is embedded using

the server interprets it appropriately.

If in doubt, save yourself some time. Look for enabling PHP in the server support help pages or contact your hosting provider support staff.

Adding optional page layouts to MT 4+ themes

2009-12-29T22:15:23Z

There are instances when it is desired to have page layout options in the MT 4+ themes besides wtt, twt, tw, wt, mw and wm (w=wide, t=thin, m=medium). A case in point: on our personal Blog Providence (using the MT Professional Black Theme) we wanted a full Page width with no sidebars to display a Google Calendar and Google Map the entire width. Here's how we got it:

]]>

@import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>themes-base/blog.css);
@import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>addons/Commercial.pack/themes/professional-black/screen.css);

The themes-base/blog.css is the standard setup for all themes and contains the css definitions for the various layouts. We added the following:

/* Wide */
.layout-w #alpha {
    width: 940px;
}
.layout-w #beta }
    width: 0px;
}

The standard Page layout is wide-medium (wm) defined in the Page archive template with this code:

<$mt:Var name="page_layout" value="layout-wm"$>

The "page-layout" variable is later used to set the content style. We have two Pages created: "Road calendar" and "Road map" requiring the wide layout. Here is the code we added to the Page archive template (right after the standard value above):


<$mt:Var name="page_layout" value="layout-w"$>


<$mt:Var name="page_layout" value="layout-w"$>

Add the content to the pages and you will have a single wide page layout. Here are my examples:
Road Calendar
Road Map

Movable Type: Run Periodic Tasks on GoDaddy Hosting

2009-11-26T12:32:17Z

We experienced an issue running periodic tasks on GoDaddy's servers. "Periodic Tasks" is a tool in the MT library that allows many functions to be run in the background such as publishing entries in the future (Write Entry => Publishing => Status => Scheduled). ]]>
The GoDaddy cron setup wizard requires a full path address to run-periodic-tasks but the resulting cron command is:

cd  /home/content/d/a/a/userid/html/cgi-bin/; ./tools/run-periodic-tasks

Executing the "out of the box" run-periodic-tasks tool from the cron job produced a module addressing error. The code in run-periodic-tasks causing the error was:

use lib 'lib', '../lib'; (go up one level to find the lib directory)

A quick change to the full path of the MT lib directory:

use lib '/home/content/d/a/a/userid/html/cgi/mt/lib/';

got it to work fine.

The "out of the box" run-periodic-tasks code works fine in the icdSOFT hosting environment. The cron job setup is

/home/userid/www/www/cgi-bin/mt/tools/run-periodic-tasks

also using the full path to the task and referencing ../lib works fine.

Business Interchange Group - MT Tips Archives

Enabling PHP on your server

Adding optional page layouts to MT 4+ themes

Movable Type: Run Periodic Tasks on GoDaddy Hosting