Movable Type provides administrators with the means of quickly and easily installing a set of templates that together work to create entire web sites and applications, such as blogs and forums.

Selecting a Template Set at Blog Creation

When you create a "blog" within Movable Type, the application will prompt you to select the "Template Set" you want to use when creating the blog.

Changing Your Blog to a Different Template Set

You can also apply a template set to an existing blog by navigating to "Templates" found under the Design menu. From there, click the "Refresh Templates" link under Actions. A dialog will pop up and allow you to refresh your current template set, or apply a new template set to a blog.

An option is also presented to create backups of your existing templates if you wish. If that box is checked, Movable Type will create a copy of each of your templates and time stamp them so that you can always revert changes to individual templates if you wish. Your backed up templates can be found by clicking the "Backup Templates" filter found under Quick Links on the main template listing screen.

Note: When only one template set is available within the system, the pull down menu is suppressed. By default the free versions of Movable Type only come with a single template set called the "Classic Blog" template set - which is the official default templates for Movable Type.

Other Resources

• Registering Template Sets - learn how to package up a template set as a plugin to easily distribute it to customers.
• Template Exporter Plugin - Mark Carey produced a great plugin that automates the process of creating a template set from an existing blog. Perfect for beginners and non-technical folks.