Version 1.0 of my Google Translate plugin is officially released.

As far as I can tell, there is not much documentation out there for associating an asset with an entry in Movable Type/Melody, so here is a straight forward explanation. In the entry editor, a plugin developer can latch onto the functionality that the entry editor already provides by simply adding some additional elements to the asset list. Here is a JavaScript function built around jQuery that illustrates the process.

That is taken from $MT_DIR/tmpl/cms/dialog/asset_insert.tmpl and modified to be able to be called from within the template editor. It should be callable from a plugin-created dialog window using window.parent.addAssetAssociation. The options parameter is a configuration object that takes in asset_id, asset_file_name and asset_thumbnail as properties.

This is how you create an association in Perl code using the MT::ObjectAsset object:

The datasource property doesn't have to be 'entry'. It can be dynamically set using the datasource method of the MT::Object subclasses like this: $object_asset->object_ds( $obj->datasource() ); That allows any number of object associations like ones between an object from a new plugin with assets.

On the OpenMelody mailing list, Byrne Reese sort of challenged me to create a plugin using ExtJs to demonstrate what it could offer Melody and Movable Type plugin developers. It's not finished yet, but I think that this version so far is a lot cleaner than the 2.X series. If ExtJs catches on with Movable Type developers, hopefully someone will create a theme for it that matches the look and feel of Movable Type.

Plugins

• Updated Comment Flag to make it send an email to the blog administrator when a comment is flagged.
• Released a new plugin called MT Closure Compiler which creates seamless integration between Movable Type's template editor and Google's Closure Compiler REST service, allowing JavaScript index templates to be minified and even optimized by the service as they are published.
• Released a WXR (WordPress Extended RSS) template for Movable Type which appears to work. It can be installed by simply dropping it into an existing Movable Type blog's template editor as an index template.

Themes

• Dark Relief
• Dark Smoke
• zFirst
• I Like Content
• Poetry
• iBlog2 - not formally released, but coming soon!

Some plugin and theme updates.

• Added support for dynamic publishing to Comment Flag.
• I'm adding support for email notification of a comment getting flagged to Comment Flag (first commit is ready, but not uploaded yet).
• Created a new repository for MTCollect. I took Kevin Shay's plugin and converted it into a config.yaml-based plugin.
• Made a bunch of commits to Movable-Type-Styles to get five new themes ready for an initial release.
  

For over a week, I've been working on converting WPtouch into a Movable Type/Melody plugin. Here is a demo of the work so far. It is steadily progressing to the point of being ready for a beta release. This will be a hybrid template set and plugin, as some of the template's behavior will be controlled by configuration settings made in the admin console. I have just a few more finishing touches and GitHub commits to make before it is ready for 1.0 beta 1 status.

Version 4 of Movable Type introduced YAML as a way to set up plugins. Besides being a lot easier to read than the old Perl file-based approach, it brings the benefit of reducing Movable Type's overhead because the Perl interpreter no longer has to load and execute a Perl script for each plugin. The YAML file configures Movable Type appropriate, and Movable Type loads and calls the Perl code referenced in the plugin now only as needed.

Recently, I have worked on converting the following plugins (with more to follow):

• Privacy
• Feeds.App Lite
• Textile2
• mixiComment
• Blog Cloner
• LinkRoller
  

More to follow as time permits.

Testing Ping.FM...

It's still not 100%, but it works just fine on Movable Type 4.261. Remember the old caveats about using it until it is "release-ready," but it showed no signs that the MT::Auth::OpenID drivers were conflicting. Once I get some time, I may submit a patch to Melody to actually fix the issue with OpenID that requires this hack.

For those who are interested, I've completed my last major commit to CREATE_BLOGROLL which is the Git branch of LinkRoller for adding the blogroll editor. There will be some minor updates, and this isn't a release, but it's there now for people who want to try it out. My next work on this plugin is going to be to convert LinkRoller.pl to a config.yaml file. That should go a long way toward reducing the impact that this has on Movable Type's memory footprint (probably not very much, but it will definitely help).