MovableType 3.3 Problem with mt-site.js
Posted July 16th, 2006 @ 02:01pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm not even sure where to start. This site, NSLog();, was updated to MovableType 3.3 on Friday. I just noticed this morning that I couldn't comment as a TypeKey-logged-in user, and later, that the TypeKey (sign in or sign out) message wasn't even appearing.
A few hours later, I've copied the mt-site.js template from The Sand Trap to this site, and all appears to be working again.
I ran a diff on the two templates, and aside from a few minor things that you wouldn't expect would create such problems, the files were the same. Clearly what you'd expect and what's reality didn't mesh in this case.
I'll do a little more experimenting…
Donate Life
Posted 16 Jul 2006 at 2:10pm #
The problem appears in the sections that employ "MT_TRANS," as in:
document.write('<p><MT_TRANS phrase="Thanks for signing in,"> ' + commenter_name + '<MT_TRANS phrase=". Now you can comment. ">'+etc...Posted 16 Jul 2006 at 2:27pm #
I'm not sure if my MT 3.31 download included all the proper files or what, but any attempts to use MT_TRANS result in failure.
MT 3.31 includes extra .js files for a few languages (mt_de.js, mt_es.js, mt_fr.js, mt_ja.js, mt_nl.js, mt.js). I've installed those.
Earlier today, I briefly restored some of the templates to the default MT 3.3 state, and I believe MT_TRANS worked then (in that the TypeKey phrases appeared and all that). I have been updating the same templates here on my blog - sometimes in big chunks, like when the TypeKey stuff was released - since MovableType 2.x. Somewhere along the line, I may have missed something that MT_TRANS relies on.
If it can be avoided, I'd clearly prefer not to start over and re-code this site using the default MT 3.3 templates.
So, at this point, I have no idea why MT_TRANS fails. I'm going to file a help ticket to see if someone at 6A can tell me what's going on.
Posted 16 Jul 2006 at 8:30pm #
Aha. The last time I had to use any of the templates must have been prior to MovableType's "translation" features (when were they introduced?).
Basically, when you refresh a template via the MovableType admin interface, the MT_TRANS tags are actually removed and the correct language is substituted. You cannot copy directly from the default_templates files as you could before the multi-language support made its way into MT.
So, problem solved. I think. For now.
Posted 17 Jul 2006 at 6:50am #
Sorry I didn't see this sooner, I would have saved you a trip to support. I had the same problem when I first went to MT 3.2 in one of the early betas.
The easiest way (I've found) to pick apart the new templates without worrying about MT_TRANS issues is to create a new blog. You'll never publish it, so it doesn't matter. Just use it to pull a copy of all the default templates, then delete.