Edit This Page
Comments: 15
Richard Eriksson of Movableblog.com responds to Dave Winer’s mention of Movable Type not having an “Edit This Page” button (link via Erik - and I’d trackback to David Gagne’s excellent tutorial if he ran TBs). It’s a simple matter to replicate this functionality in MT, and there are multiple ways to do so. I’m picking up the story so I can mention Phil Ulrich’s EditEntryLink plug-in for MT which provides a direct log-in link to an entry’s editing page. I’ve been using it since I’ve forgotten when and it’s a very handy thing indeed.
Winer makes a big point that the Edit This Page button working on every piece of text on the page. I assume he means templates and so forth (well, “every” has but a single meaning, doesn’t it), and while I’m sure this is great if you need it, I don’t think it’s show-stoppingly important to be able to edit the infrastructural elements with the same immediacy as you can the stories themselves. To borrow a metaphor from print, you don’t need to do the art department’s job from the copy editor’s desk. If you do find yourself needing to edit templates as often as you edit stories, you may want to reassess the way you’ve set things up.
At any rate, it seems like a simple matter to adapt any of the MT edit methods to provide access to your templates if, for some reason, you were inclined to immediate, single-click dominion over every piece of text on the page.
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Posted to MetaStuff • 2003.05.18 (Sun) • 11:56
Comments
Posted by Erik J. Barzeski 2003.05.18, 13:05
Winer, whiner, what’s the difference anymore?
Incidentally, I’m not sure I see the point of EditEntryLink. It just writes out the code anyway right? It doesn’t do any cookie checking or anything to present the link only to logged-in users or anything, right?
Posted by Phil Ringnalda 2003.05.18, 13:06
I’ll have to dig up my login to a Manila site to see how it really works. I can’t remember offhand whether you edit both a single entry, and the template that applies to all entries, or whether you edit a copy of the template that only applies to that particular entry (other than the storage issues, and the lack of flexibility for site-wide redesign, that could be cool: post your Halloween entries only with a Halloween theme, and have them keep it for all time, or rework your template for just those entries where a long line of preformatted code is breaking something.
Either way, it was a good idea, and I’m always happy to steal good ideas from Dave. This one’s not quite completely stolen, since ETP should really only show for people logged in with editing permissions, but that could probably be solved with a bit of PHP/SSI, one way or another. Blogger actually had a decent enough implementation, using a remote javascript to keep permissions straight in multiuser blogs, so you would only see links to edit things you could edit, but they’ve let it completely rot away now. Shame, I use my links from EditEntryLink all the time.
Posted by Paul Michael Smith 2003.05.18, 20:44
All this fuss to save a few clicks of the mouse ?
I have a button on my mozilla links bar to my MT login which has stored my username and logs me streight in, so upto now that is just one click then next I click EDIT ENTRIES (click two) then I find the entry I want to edit and click that (click three).
Maybe if it’s an old entry I would have to click the drop downlist and select “ALL ENTRIES”. At the most it would be four clicks of the mouse!
We are a lazy bunch us blogger’s these days. :-)
Posted by Jesper 2003.05.18, 22:15
Paul: You’re missing the point. He’d have to scroll, and he could mess up his middle finger real bad, or if he was a neanderthal with (gasp) no scroll wheel, he’d have to use PageDn/Up or (gasp gasp) the arrow keys if he was on a crappy laptop.
:)
Posted by jh 2003.05.18, 23:55
Erik —-
I’m not sure I see the point of EditEntryLink. It just writes out the code anyway right? It doesn’t do any cookie checking or anything to present the link only to logged-in users or anything, right?
No, you’re right. It just basically throws that code in there.
Phil —-
rework your template for just those entries where a long line of preformatted code is breaking something.
A good idea indeed, and one I could certainly use around here.
Paul —-
All this fuss to save a few clicks of the mouse?
You bet. If the devil came along and asked for my eternal soul in return for having to click fewer times a day, I’d probably consider it.
Jesper —-
or if he was a neanderthal with (gasp) no scroll wheel, he’d have to use PageDn/Up
You can have my scroll wheel when you pry it from my cold dead fingers, mate. I was at a friend’s house the other day helping him set something up and he has a regular mouse, by which I mean a standard-issue Apple one-button mouse. I almost couldn’t use his computer. Really, how do people do it?
I’ve been a big fan of Kensington trackballs for years and years (currently on my fifth or sixth) and the built-in scroll wheel is one of the pinnacles of technological civilisation. Now using the Turbo Mouse Pro five-button trackball. I replaced the new translucent trackball with the heavier beige one from an old model. You can give those beauties a little flick and your cursor travels from one side of the room to the other.
Posted by sasha 2003.05.19, 00:15
Interesting, the weblog script I’ve been writing for the past 2 years (PHP/MySQL) has had an “edit this entry” right from the very beginning. Of course back then, determining whether or not it would show was based on a particular ip address. Now, it shows only with a correctly started session (which only starts if a correctly stored cookie is found).
Not only is an “edit this entry” so conveniently placed right at the end of every entry, there is also a “administration pannel” link, as well as a “make a new post” link. An “edit this entry” link also appears below every comment.
Posted by Donna 2003.05.19, 01:08
I’ve been using an “edit this entry” MT hack cooked up by Lynda of digitalwoe.com for a loooong time now - the original entry appears to be lost in the mist, but it offers a link to the entry and the opportunity to hide the link from all but select IPs. I’d post it here, but I’m terrified that it would somehow break your comments, PHP and all - anyone can e-mail donna at deliriouscool dot org for a peek.
Posted by Paul Michael Smith 2003.05.19, 04:58
LOL Jh,
I was only joking before. I would be all for saving those annoying extra clicks.
I too know the value of the mouse wheel, I have a rubbish mini laptop mouse and when I was in the car the other day I noticed how annoying it was to have to click the scroll bars to the right of the screen everytime I was view a preview of my new site design. :-)
Posted by joh3n 2003.05.19, 08:58
Mousewheels? Trackballs? Break free of the primordial navigation soup! Get a powermate and be free!!!
I’m also a wee bit lost on the point of Winer’s complaint, since personally, I like the layers of engagement I have with an MT entry with a fresh out of the ‘box’ install.
Posted by Johan S 2003.05.19, 10:15
I have a small “edit entry” image in the shape of a pen in the entry metadata on my site. Can’t say I use it much, though. I usually only use it when I spot a typo in an entry I just wrote, and then it’s a good chance that I still have MT open in another tab, making the button unnecessary.
Heck, I might as well remove it. edits templates
Posted by Jesper 2003.05.19, 20:41
jh-
You can have my scroll wheel when you pry it from my cold dead fingers, mate. Mmmm. Lubley. I, of course, referenced Dave Winer.
I was at a friend’s house the other day helping him set something up and he has a regular mouse, by which I mean a standard-issue Apple one-button mouse. I almost couldn’t use his computer. Really, how do people do it? Noone missed a second button before Windows 95. Noone missed a scroll wheel before 1997. Noone missed back and forward buttons and optical mice before Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. kisses his
I’ve been a big fan of Kensington trackballs for years and years (currently on my fifth or sixth) and the built-in scroll wheel is one of the pinnacles of technological civilisation. Now using the Turbo Mouse Pro five-button trackball. I replaced the new translucent trackball with the heavier beige one from an old model. You can give those beauties a little flick and your cursor travels from one side of the room to the other. I can’t stand trackballs. They’re just too imprecise, but I guess you have been training for a long time.
Posted by Jesper 2003.05.19, 20:47
jh —
rework your template for just those entries where a long line of preformatted code is breaking something. A good idea indeed, and one I could certainly use around here.
Actually, I helped mr Choate with that the other day for his Matrix layout. Set pre’s width to 95 or 90 % and you should be done. Or, with a layout this precise, just measure up.
One of my other recent findings are that your images have borders (it’s true!) and those two pixels added is enough to stretch the main content area enough to make the sidebar slide down to the bottom. Reduce the sidebar’s width with 2px and you should be ok.
Posted by jkottke 2003.05.21, 01:39
I hacked up some ETP functionality for my MT-managed site a few months ago. The ability to one-click delete comments in threads is extremely handy.
Posted by jh 2003.05.23, 10:48
Donna sent along the PHP snippet she mentioned above and gave permission to post it. Thanks! Here it is:
<? $ip = $REMOTEADDR; if ($ip == "IP HOME" || $ip=="IP WORK") { print "<a href=\"<$MTCGIPath$>mt.cgi?mode=view¬
&type=entry&id=<$MTEntryID$>& blog_id=<$MTBlogID$>\" target=\"edit\" title=\"For me, not you\">[edit]</a>"; } ?>Note the ¬ character used to break a line here. Remove that and make sure the lines it separates are on the same line in your working code. Everything else should wrap just fine.
Long, long ago, there was a person named Pintaro. He was not very 1337 although he was uber enough to save Pawn Pilder. When Pawn ran away from the guillotine, Pintaro blocked the guards and was repeatedly battered. He was then disfigured and kicked around.
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