Movable Type 4 beta released

Movable Type 4 beta is released and I have to ask myself if any of their users are still around to care.

Published June 05, 2007
Categorized as Quick Links
Short URL: https://snook.ca/s/812

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Josh B. said on June 05, 2007

Honestly? If they can deliver a better rich-media experience for me and my (luddite) users, I will switch back in a heartbeat. I find Wordpress to be an exquisite tool for textual content, but anything else seems like a struggle. I am hoping that some of the media-management experience 6A gained developing Vox has been pushed back to MT...

Su said on June 05, 2007

Yes, they are. And, in fact, several people who have been vocally critical of MT for years have surprisingly popped up with supportive comments. That was weirdly cheap and petty, Jonathan.

Jonathan Snook said on June 05, 2007

I must be cranky tonight. I've obviously underestimated the number of people who've stuck around. For those that have moved on to other platforms, I'd be surprised if they were fickle enough to switch back (which was more my point, however sarcastically made).

For new installs, I'd still be resistant to jump on board. Once bitten, twice shy. From spam issues (which improved in recent versions) to rebuild issues, it was just a hassle to deal with. Having been developed in Perl also meant a smaller base of developers who could pitch in.

Even going open source, I'll be interested to see the overall uptake on the new version. I'd be surprised if it made much of a dent in the WordPress or even Expression Engine markets.

Nate Klaiber said on June 05, 2007

Honestly, my first thought when I read your title was 'Who cares?' Then again, I am not an avid user/supporter of MT. My opinion is completely one sided. Maybe it's worth checking out - but it needs to have some great features/support to contend with what is already the strong force out there (Mainly WP).

Guess Ill go check it out now....

Su said on June 05, 2007

Jonathan: Fair enough. I think it's questionable to pointless speculating how many people will switch back from wherever they may have gone. People fickle enough to do that are, well...fickle and not really the ones I'd worry about. They're the ones who will jump to Habari the moment it gets released.

The language question is funny, because I would really love and continue to look for a PHP-based option for myself, because I know more of it than Perl. But I have particular reasons for not using Wordpress, only starting with repeated destructive upgrade releases, and though I haven't looked at it in a while, there were a lot of things about EE that I disliked.
But the competition always feels primarily manufactured. I'm not aware of very many sites being built with Wordpress; blogs, yes, even fairly elaborate ones, but still primarily just blogs. Expression Engine I think many people just find daunting because of the amorphousness of customizable content types. Because a lot of people just plain want to build a blog. And the circle is complete *grin*

Biscuitrat said on June 05, 2007

I, frankly, love Movable Type and while I never upgraded from 3.2 to 3.3 (the upgrade process scared me), it keeps getting easier and easier. What with the probable open-source movement, Movable Type might become more popular. Granted, it will never overtake WordPress, but I still prefer it regardless.

So yeah, the announcement kind of brightened my day. Movable Type users aren't exactly few and far between.

Roger Johansson said on June 06, 2007

I'm still around. Despite all its problems it works well for me.

Carlo Laitano said on August 05, 2007

I've been an avid MT user for some time now. I've tried adventuring into the Wordpress world and the Expression Engine world but I never really decided for them. My first argument is the templating system. I've found MT a lot more flexible with it's template tags and archive mapping. I'm so cumfortable with it that I can honestly say I run a full, very large to say, website using MT almost exclusively (I use a gallery and message board as well).

I tried using Expression Engine the same way but I never really got comfortable with it. Using MT together with a couple of plugins, my site has grown into a very extensive magazine-type community including news, reviews, previews, events calendar, downloads, articles, bios and much more.

As soon I saw the new MT 4beta I tested it out; and although it still has some bugs to be fixed (i'm using release candidate 2 at the moment) i'm pretty happy with the turnout. Now i'm just waiting for some plugins to release their MT4 version and i'll surely transfer all of my site's content to my mt4 installation.

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