This weekend, Kevin Shay, the developer behind several of Movable Type's most popular plugins, release the first Movable Type 4 plugin. Some credit should go to Arvind as well who has been working on upgrading Custom Fields to work with MT4, but Kevin's plugin represents a truly original MT4 idea.
Bookmarks is a plugin that allows users to maintain a list of bookmarks to any page in the application. The list is easily accessed through a "Bookmarks" menu, which is used for managing and adding items to the list as well.
In addition, each user can maintain their own set of unique bookmarks, turning Movable Type into a much more personalizable application. Major kudos to Kevin Shay. Now we need to launch our new plugin directory so that plugins like Kevin's and Arvind's have an equally awesome home to be listed and promoted.
16:9 1.78:1 OAR
July 3, 2007 12:55 PM | Reply
This is insanely useful, especially since I do a lot of direct bookmarking to parts of the MT interface (like all unapproved comments).
Viking KARWUR
July 4, 2007 10:56 PM | Reply
Congratulations... Waiting more plugins for MT4
Pai
July 8, 2007 10:15 PM | Reply
ya man.. ive been bookmarking some of the pages in MT too for faster access, great job Kevin!
Batsirai
July 24, 2007 9:19 AM | Reply
Fantastic... really need Custom Fields or Right Fields moved over to MT 4.
Any timelines of a production level version of MT 4? Will the transition be smooth between 3.35 and 4?
Byrne Reese
July 24, 2007 9:55 AM | Reply
@Batsirai - I know Arvind has adapted his "Custom Fields" plugin to work with MT4. I have used it myself and can attest: it is awesome.
Transition should be smooth and we are documenting as much as we can what users should be aware of during their upgrade at our new Movable Type wiki at http://wiki.movabletype.org/.
As for a production level version of MT4. Stay tuned, I don't think we are far away!
Batsirai
July 25, 2007 8:02 AM | Reply
Looking forward to the new release in the next few days! Sweet.
You mentioned you used custom fields... where did you get the MT4 version... can't find it anywhere, and the lastest download for MT3 doesn't seem to work. I tried installing it with Plugin Manager (ahem!), and that wouldn't work in MT4 build 7 either...
Any tips - I assume you have a MY4 version of custom fields... feel free to email me the packaged file - or point me towards it. I know you are busy today... but thanks for any response. Your quick responses are a great sign - and I know people will come back to MT when you give that kind of interaction.
Let me know.
Batsirai Chada
July 30, 2007 9:02 AM | Reply
Is everyone on holiday now that RC1 is out? If this community is going to take off, a few more posts and responses to posts are in order.
Great product - but what happens next? When is the final release anticipated? I would guess many plugins are waiting till then before they release MT4 versions...
The problem is that some plugins are critical to some MT sites/blogs... so until the plugins are released, the blog will be kept in 3.35 and earlier... and MT4 will be an optional upgrade... The pluigins will notr be released in mass, until the final version is released.
On top of that... those who want to use MT4 for client production sites... may not want to go forward without a timeline for the final release... Excited - but I cannot move forward without certain plugins...
Please respond to my earlier post about getting a MT4 version of Custom Fields and your Plugin Manager, etc...
Basically we need more info, more posts. Let's get the final release out, so the plugin guys can make their changes.
Byrne Reese
July 30, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply
It is hard to anticipate the exact release date of MT4, but our release of RC1 signals that we believe MT4 is ready for production use. At this point the team is focusing on spit and polish and resolving some of the relatively more obscure bugs and issues being raised by the multitude of customers using the various web servers, operating systems and databases Movable Type supports. I can tell you that each and every day we evaluate the active bug list to see if we are ready for release. Right now I can say that we will have at least one more release candidate - with RC2 scheduled to be released tomorrow (Tuesday) or Wednesday. So stay tuned.
As for the Custom Fields plugin, I am sorry I have been unable to respond to your earlier comment regarding that plugin. I know Arvind has been busy with school and is now off on a well deserved holiday before he heads off to college. Send me an email at byrne at sixapart dot com and I will make sure I send you a copy of the plugin. I would publicize it more widely, but Arvind has only released this plugin privately to the ProNet community, and I worry i would overstep my bounds if I shared it publicly without his permission.
As for Plugin Manager... Plugin Manager is likely to get a rather substantial overhaul in the coming months to take advantage of the many new features introduced to the platform, many of which were added with Plugin Manager in mind. But I am not sure when I will have time to devote personally to that project. I am always looking for help though. So if members of the community would like to pitch in, let me know. You can always check out the latest source code from code.sixapart.com.
Also, developer documentation is finally coming online to give developers the information and tools they need to start updating their plugins.
Thank you for your patience Batsirai. We are committed to getting Movable Type out the door as fast as possible, but more importantly, we are committed to releasing a high quality product above all else. Bear with us, and continue to share your feedback with us regarding the plugins that are most important to you!
Tony
July 31, 2007 1:29 PM | Reply
Unfortunately, I'm not even sure if the general user can even access the updated Custom Fields plug-in... The download on the site is not compatible with the current beta and there's no real mention of MT4 on the site.
So I'm stuck waiting in the meantime, although I'm more looking forward to an updated Right Fields. I love that one!
Arvind Satyanarayan
August 8, 2007 9:23 PM | Reply
Hi, I've just launched the public beta of CustomFields 2.1 which is compatible with Movable Type 4.0. You can get more information here
dynasource
January 27, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply
Arvind, thank you for the Customfields beta. It is working excellent on my blog. It is still in beta, are there still issues ?