If anyone's reading this, they'll have noticed I've been silent for several days now. There are reasons for that:
Movable Type is what powers wetcoast.org. As a weblog generator, it's great. It's extremely powerful, yet flexible as well. It takes a bit of setting up (the folks at Movable Type will set it up for you for a fee, if you wish), but once it's up, it's pretty robust.
It's also expandable, with a large number of plug-ins (for example, weather updates) that have been contributed by Movable Type afficiandos.
And, as many people have discovered, it can be used for more than just weblogs. I've been spending the past several weeks setting it up as the nucleus for an intranet, with news, announcements, and events. Depending on how an entry is classified, it goes to a particular page. People can subscribe for updates or make comments. More than one person can contribute items. Pages are updated automatically. Archives are kept automatically. You can search through the entire database for past items.
I do with though that someone would come out with a proper manual for the program. It ships with a manual, but it's very basic and most of what I've been doing I've learned through trial and error and through rummaging through the Movable Type support boards to see what suggestions other people have had and what pitfalls they've encountered.
I'm not finished yet. I want to display the events in a visual calendar. And I want to be able to post news releases, complete with logo and boilerplate copy. There's a few technical tweaks I'll have to make in order to do so, which will mean a couple of hours of trial and error and support board searches. Until then, wetcoast.org will have to wait.
Posted by wetcoast at September 10, 2003 08:51 PM