My First Plugin

Well, not really... but my first Movable Type plugin in a while.

I've been looking at the Movable Type 3.2 beta quite a bit from the outside in--i.e., by using the web application--but I wanted to explore the new options in the API. So (with Anil's prompting) I decided to write a plugin for 3.2 that would allow transferring posts--with all of their comments and TrackBacks--from one weblog to another.

There may be existing plugins that already enable this, but I wanted to take advantage of the new action pulldowns in the List Entries screens (both per-weblog and the global overview).

As an aside, what's amazing to me--and probably to everyone else who remembers the first release of Movable Type plugins--is how much plugin functionality has evolved over the years, and how well integrated into the UI plugins have become, particularly in 3.2. The first plugin-enabled release, Movable Type 2.2, allowed plugins to add new template tags, not touching the UI at all; Movable Type 2.6 allowed plugins to add new text formatting filters; Movable Type 3.0 and 3.1 allowed plugins to build applications that looked like Movable Type, but looking back, they always felt like separate applications.

With Movable Type 3.2, the plugin interfaces have evolved to the point where plugins are completely transparent: there doesn't have to be a difference in look-and-feel between plugins and core functionality. The two key areas of evolution are the listing screens and the plugin management and per-weblog configuration settings. This is great.

Getting back to my plugin, then, I used the new APIs for adding hooks to the listing screens to enable the following flow:

1. Go to List Entries (either in a specific weblog or in the System Overview).
2. Select the entries you'd like to transfer.
3. Select "Transfer Entries" from the "More actions..." pulldown menu.
4. Select the weblog to which you'd like to transfer the entries.
5. That's it!

If you have Movable Type 3.2 (you'll need a recent version of the beta), you can try out the plugin:

• Transfer 1.0
• The source code, if you just want to look at that

Update: a new ProNet post shows the plugin in action, along with describing the plugin functionality in more detail.

Comments

[Anil Dash]

Technically, I think the plugin requires tonight's nightly build or Beta 3, which isn't out yet but will be soon. :)

[David Evans]

Can you see this as a replacement for typemover when used locally? I've wondered if TypeMover will even work with 3.2?