CFCL motd

MT Plugins: CCode

NOTICE: As of February 17, The CCode plugin has been disabled until further notice. On Jan 31 we wrote:
I have added the CCode plugin to Movable Type.

CCode is similiar to SCode in that it adds one more input field. But CCode doesn't require commenter's interaction. And it doesn't store any additional CCode-related data to DB or file.

CCode adds an additional input field to the default comment form. This value(=CCode) is calculated from the entry's own data, and that value is obfuscated by Javascript routines, using the obfuscator provided by http://www.jottings.com/obfuscator/.

To send comment spams, a spam-bot must parse a page and calculate it reversely. This reverse solution is not impossible theoritically. But although spammer finds a solution routine for CCode, the problem is still there. They have to visit a page, parse it, solve it, and finally send spam to only "that" page. If they want to send spams to 100 different entries, they have to repeat the above process for each entry.

To use the plugin for your weblog:

1. You have to add the content of obfuscator.js file into your Site JavaScript template.

   Either

   1. In your blog's Index Template menu page, open "Site JavaScript" template, and then add the content of obfuscator.js into the bottom of that template. Save and Rebuild it. That's all.

   2. Or ... The code has been added to the default site template. If you have not made other changes to your Site Javascript, in your Index Template menu page, check Site JavaScript template and do a "Refresh Template(s)" action. The content of obfuscator.js will be automatically added.

2. Configure your comments to use the CCode plugin.

   Insert <$MTEntryCCode$> tag within the comment <form> tag of Individual Entry Archive template and Comment Preview template. Proper inserting position may be as below.

   <input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="<$MTEntryID$>" />
   <$MTEntryCCode$>
   

   And then rebuild individual entry archives.

Daylight or Standard (MT Plugin)

We have installed the following Movable Type plugin:

• DaylightOrStandard — This Movable Type plugin implements a template tag for displaying text based on whether an entry's date falls within Daylight Saving Time.

The tag must be called from a location in a template where there's a date context—within an entry, a comment, or a calendar, or on a date-based archive template. For instance, to add "PST" or "PDT" to your entry timestamp:

   <$MTEntryDate format="%B %d, %Y %H:%M"$> 
   <$MTDaylightOrStandard daylight="PDT" standard="PST"$>

New MT Plugins Installed

We have installed the following plugins for Movable Type

• PerlScript Plugin — <MTPerlScript> is a tag for Movable Type templates. If you know how to write Perl code, this custom tag gives you remarkable flexibility in producing pages from Movable Type. You can literally do any kind of manipulation you can think of using your Movable Type data.

• MTMacro — Sometimes it's nice to get a lot for a little. Macros let you do that. Instead of typing laborious HTML as you write your entries, a macro can do all the work for you so you can concentrate on writing. Perhaps you want to use a set of icons within your posts but don't care to write tags all day long. Or maybe you'd like to link up to Google queries without having to type out the full URL. This plugin allows you to do that and much more.

• LinkEntryToFile — LinkEntryToFile is a plugin that modifies the interface of Movable Type. When the plugin is installed, you can specify a file on your server to link to the Entry Body or Extended Entry field. The linked file will be kept in sync with the entry, so that you can edit it in an external editor.

  This plugin basically takes MT's handy "Link this template to a file" feature and applies it to entries. When using MT to manage certain types of content, especially content that contains extensive HTML formatting, it's useful to be able to use your favorite text-editing application, with syntax highlighting, Undo, search and replace, etc., without having to repeatedly copy and paste into the MT entry screen.

• TextWrap — This plugin implements template tags and a global tag attribute for displaying text wrapped into lines of a specified length.

• Loop — This plugin implements a set of template tags for looping through a list of values, repeating a portion of a template for each value in the list.

• Columnize — This plugin implements a set of template tags for displaying text in multiple columns. Your text will be broken up into approximately equal portions, and the HTML formatting you specify (i.e. a table cell) will be repeated once for each portion.

• DateTags — This Movable Type plugin implements a set of template tags related to calendar dates.

• BigPAPI — Movable Type provides a powerful API that allows developers to extend its functionality. Plugins can add tags to MT's templating system, or create full-fledged applications that interact with the MT database.

  One missing piece of the API, however, has been the ability for plugins to modify MT's own interface—the screens you see when using Movable Type to manage your content.

  BigPAPI is intended to fill this gap. It provides hooks so that other plugins can access and alter any page of the MT interface before it's displayed to the user. In effect, it enlarges the Plugin API—hence the name BigPAPI.

  Unless you're a developer, that's probably all you need to know. The best way to get an idea of the kinds of things BigPAPI enables plugins to do is to install one or more of the plugins that have already been developed.