mu.nu - It's mackerel stewed in chocolate!

June 12, 2006

Assitance, Please?

Hi Pixy,

I was getting some reports yesterday that people couldn't see any of my posts on merrimusings.mu.nu beyond 6/4. On my end, all was okay and eventually those who said they couldn't see them could see them later. When I logged in this afternoon, I am now only seeing posts up through 6/4...all the remaining posts and comments beyond 6/4 to present are MIA. Anything you might be able to do to help me out? Thanks so much for anything you can do to assist!

Posted by: Merri at 09:58 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Minx 101

Some time this week - assuming we don't get torpedoed again - I will be switching Munuviana over to Minx.

Yes, Minx.

Or mostly Minx. What I've done is adapted Minx to the Movable Type database. That way, you don't need to import your posts, change your logins, anything. You can keep using the existing Movable Type interface until the Minx interface is up to scratch. It just works.™

Except for templates, which are a bit different. Here's a quick overview of how templates work in Minx. There are (currently) three main templates that control the layout of your site: The Page template, the Post template, and the Comment template:

Page Template
<html><head>
<title>Minx Dynamic Pages for Movable Type</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ai.mu.nu/styles-site.css" type="text/css" />
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://blog2.mu.nu/cgi/showhide.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="container"><div id="center"><div class="content">
<center><b>[blog.name]</b></center><p>
[posts:here]
[magic.pager]
[magic.stats]
</div></div></div>
</body></html>
Very simple. You start with a standard HTML/XHTML page, and the Minx tags are marked with [square brackets]. If you have something in your template that's in square brackets that's not a Minx tag - intentionally or unintentionally - it just gets spat out unchanged. (The divs look a bit odd, but that's because I'm using an unmodified MT3 stylesheet for testing.)

We can see three types of tags here:
A simple tag, [blog.name], which just looks up the matching database field for the currently active blog and inserts it into the page at that point.

A here tag, which is used to simplify block processing. The [posts.here] and [comments.here] are the most common examples of this. Without any parameters** they loop through the posts or comments using the default settings for your blog and the default post/comment template, as appropriate.

The Post and Comment templates look like this:

Post Template
<h2>[post.newdate]</h2><p>
<b>[post.title]</b><p>
[post.text]  
<p class="posted">
Posted by: [post.authorlink] at
<a href="[post.url]">[post.time]</a>
| <a href="#" onClick="ShowHide('cc[post.id]'); return false;">Comments ([post.comments])</a>
| <a href="http://blog2.mu.nu/cgi/mcomment.cgi?post=[post.id]">Add Comment</a>
| Trackbacks (Suck)
</p>   
<div id="cc[post.id]" style="display:none">
[comments:here]
<p class="posted">
<a href="#" onClick="ShowHide('cc[post.id]'); return false;">Hide Comments</a>
| <a href="http://blog2.mu.nu/cgi/mcomment.cgi?post=[post.id]">Add Comment</a>
</p>   
</div>

Comment Template

<div id="c[comment.id]">[comment.text]</div>
<p class="posted">
Posted by: [comment.authorlink] at [comment.datetime] </p>
Again, we have regular HTML, with just a bunch of simple tags to insert the desired values. The Post template might look a bit complicated, but it is handling inline comments; a Post template without comments might be just:
<h2>[post.newdate]</h2><p>
<b>[post.title]</b><p>
[post.text]  
<p class="posted">
Posted by: [post.authorlink] at
<a href="[post.url]">[post.time]</a>
| <a href="http://blog2.mu.nu/cgi/mcomment.cgi?post=[post.id]">Comments ([post.comments])</a>
| Trackbacks (Suck)
</p>

Minx is intended to let you have full control of post and comment selection from the template, overriding the default settings, but those tags are more complex to process and don't work yet.

Finally, we have magic tags. We have two examples of this, the pager and the stats. Magic tags do magic stuff that isn't necessarily available using regular template substitution. The pager lets you go to the next/previous page of the blog (a fancier pager is coming); the stats show performance information (and a fancier version of that is coming too).

The central idea is to make as much of the feature set as possible available without making the templates scary. So you don't need to have a complex nested structure of post tags and comment tags. Just put [posts.here] in your page template (with maybe some optional parameters) and [comments:here] in your post template. Set the appropriate settings on your blog options screen and you're in business!

Maintaining Your Templates

Minx pulls its templates dynamically from the MT database. If you create index templates called mxPage, mxPost, and mxComment, Minx will use them to override the default templates. (Which are loaded dynamically as well, from blog number 1 - the old Ambient Irony blog.)

You can just use Movable Type to do this right now, but in the next week or so we will have a very nifty WYSIWYG (well, WYSIMOLWYG) template editor, which should make things a lot easier. No need for rebuilds to see your changes, either; it's in-stan-taneous!

Advanced Features

You can also include templates using the [include template] tag. The template to be included must also begin with "mx", since Minx only looks at those, but you don't actually specify the "mx" when you use the tag. So, for example, you can create a blogroll template called mxBlogroll and include it with the tag [include blogroll]. (It's not case-sensitive.)

Minx supports conditional processing with if and ifn. if and ifn can be used with any simple tag to test whether the value of that tag is "true" or not. A tag is true if it is a non-zero number or a non-empty string, otherwise it is false. Any text between [if tag] and [/if] is included if the value of the tag is true. And any text between [ifn tag] and [/ifn] is included only if the value of the tag is false.

You can't nest if tags, though you can nest an ifn inside an if and vice-versa. If you want to get more complicated than that, for now you'll need to use sub-templates with include.

For example:

[if post.comments]| <a href="#" onClick="ShowHide('cc[post.id]'); return false;">
Comments ([post.comments])</a> [/if]
[ifn post.comments]| No Comments [/ifn]
That will show the inline comments clicky if there are comments, but just the test No Comments if there aren't.

More tomorrow.

Although... If anyone can work out why the examples have gone all shrinky in the test version of Minx, that would be much appreciated. It's the same stylesheet as my blog, but the examples there are normal size.

Update: It was the DTD?! I didn't know the DTD could do that. What. Ever.

Update: Fine now in Firefox, but still squishy in IE 6. But then, so's pre'd text on my blog, so at least it's consistent. Fine in Opera. Fine in Konqueror, so probably also fine in Safari. Weird in IE7, which resizes the entire page.

I blame Microsoft.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:13 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 11, 2006

Sneak Preview

Right here.

Far from finished, but coming along nicely. The production version will use a different web framework that is about five times faster; I hope to set that up in the next week or so. In the meantime, play around!

Update: Special cached version for high-volume web sites here. The cached version is now standard! However, Minx doesn't cache pages for you if you are logged in. That means that if you are updating the site (posting entries or comments, tweaking the templates) you always see your changes immediately. But if you get an Instalanche or Slashdotted/Farked/Digged/whatever, 99.9% of visitors won't be logged in, and will get the fast cached version of the page.

Pages are cached as they are generated, and if the cached version is less than five minutes old it coughs that up instead, which can be a lot quicker.

For example, processing time for Ace's blog is 0.12 seconds. Retrieving it from the cache is less than 0.01 seconds.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:20 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 10, 2006

Trackbacks out of kilter

I've gotten a number of links (and the author said trackbacks too) but none have come through. I checked my setup to insure I'm accepting trackbacks and I am. Can this be fixed?

Thanks.

Posted by: GM Roper at 02:05 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 09, 2006

File Manager Error

After I tried to login and upload and image in to my file manager, I get this error:

[a fatal error or timeout occurred while processing this directive]

Thanks,

SR

Posted by: Sacramento Republicrat at 03:17 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I am unable to publish.

After the mysterious disappeance of my blog last night, it was back this morning.

I attempted to publish a post and the system bounces me out to the login page rather than publishing the story.

It is saved as a draft, but will not upload.

Posted by: Sactodan at 02:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

BLOODY HELL!

I don't know which is worse, those bastard denial-of-service attackers, or those bastard spammers.

Just die, will you?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Vanishing Blogs

For some reason, Movable Type has started silently failing when rebuilding the static pages. That means that when someone leaves a comment, your blog might suddenly disappear.

If this has happened to you, log in to MT, go to Rebuild Site, and choose either Rebuild Indexes or Rebuild All. Just try not to do it all at once, or the system wil get sloooooow.

I've made some changes that I think will fix it, but they will take a couple of hours to take effect. (Yes, it involves DNS again.) I've also kicked off a rebuild of the main index of all our MT 2.6 blogs, and will repeat that every few minutes for the next couple of hours until I'm sure the problem is fixed.

We have *got* to get off Movable Type. I don't think this is MT's fault, but there are too many things that can go wrong when the intallation is the size ours is - and we can't upgrade.

By a strange coincidence, I start my new full-time job writing our new blogging system tomorrow. (Yeah, tomorrow's a Saturday. But if someone's willing to pay me to write a new blogging system that I can use for munu, I'll work Saturdays.)

Update: CRAP!!!!! It's still broken.

Update: Okay, it seems to be fixed now. Rebuild your blogs at leisure. Report any more problems in the comments.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:16 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Denial of Trackbacks

Pixy,

Not that you probably don't already have enough to worry about, but I have noticed that trackbacks on a number of sites do not seem to be working. That is when I click on the their trackback link I get a 404. From my random testing it seems to happen for those of us using a pop up window for trackbacks - like Munuviana.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 02:46 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

My Blog Has Gone Missing

My blog has sudenly gone missing - All I get is a blank white page.

There have been numerous DDOS probs lately, I know, but this time the iother Munuvians that are usually out when mine is are all up and running fine.

Any ideas??? Apparently others aren't able to access it, and I just checked a slew of Munuvians in the sidebar, they are all fine.

Mark - www.knockinonthegoldendoor.mu.nu

Posted by: Old Cloots at 01:22 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 08, 2006

Good News, Dickhead News

Good news first. I've been in contact with the network guys at Insight Broadband, and they've found the problem and fixed it. So if you're with Insight, and you're using the special DNS addresses, please switch back to using Insight's DNS. Yes, the special addresses still work, but the next time mu.nu changes servers, they will stop working, and your internet access will die. (Not just for mu.nu, for everything.)

Dickhead news: The denial-of-service attack is still going. Latest attackers all come from Turkey, and I think I've identified the target.

I can block the attacks and prevent them from causing trouble, but only after they attack. So between the time when they launch their assault and the time I drop the bomb, there could be some hiccups. If you can't get to a blog, give it a few minutes and try again. If anything goes off the air for a long time, do email me. I might already be working on it, but it might be something I missed.

Thanks for your patience everyone!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:09 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 07, 2006

Blogrolling Question

I guess I'll just ask this, even though I've come across a few references on the internet at large. How does one implement a blogroll in MT 2.6? And if there's more than one way to do it, what's the most efficient/trouble-free/easiest? Well, I know there are tradeoffs between those objectives, of course.

Posted by: Demosophist at 09:46 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 06, 2006

Word Press Blogs Down

Pixy I was just over here looking for the latest news and realized you might not have received any email about this... but the blogs using Word Press are down. The page shows:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.

...

Yada Yada Yada.

Anyhow, thought I would pass that along, because I KNOW you don't have anything else to do with your time.

Damn DDOS jerks.

Posted by: Teresa at 02:33 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mail

... hello, all.... since the latest changing of servers (thanks for all the hard work, Pixy), my mail is rejecting my login.. I have tried changing my password via controlx panel and get a disk read/write error... and when I attempt to get into the webmail via controlx, I get a database error.... my normal client (Outlook) can't login either.. I am getting username/password message.... is anyone else having trouble with their mail?...

all the best,

Eric

Posted by: Eric at 01:48 PM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 05, 2006

Deferred Posting

I presume that with all the uping and downing of servers that the deferred function has been disabled for the time being. In case it just got missed in the moving and twisting of metal things, here's a note that it isn't working at the moment.

And if there is time to play with it, any idea if deferred pinging might be a possibility in the future?

Thanks again.

NOTE: Sorry abouts sounding callous about the DOS -- I only just now found out about it as I haven't been online -- and my blog and this one appear to be working just fine, so I guess the DOS is over? If not, please send me the home address of the source of the DOS so I can mail them...something...

Posted by: Ogre at 12:02 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

DoS Attack Update

Hi everyone.

As I mentioned earlier, on Saturday mu.nu was hit by a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), which took out one of our servers, Yuri - the server that hosts most of our blogs. I posted on Ace's blog because it is hosted on a different server and was one of the few blogs still up.

I moved all the blogs to our other server, Kei, and after a few hiccups, we were up and running again.

About sixteen hours ago there was a brief attack on Kei, and then four hours ago the attack resumed in full force, taking out pretty much everything.

With the help of our hosting providers I have now firewalled off enough of Eastern Europe and East Asia that the servers are more-or-less coping. I'll need to keep a constant watch on things though.

I think - just maybe - we may have pissed somebody off.

Anyway, bedtime for me (it's 3AM here in Oz). See you all later.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:01 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

New Search Routine

There's a new search routine in town, and it goes whooosh!

It's a drop-in replacement for the MT search, only it's not an evil pile of crap.

Drawbacks: It ignores your templates, and the links currently don't work if you have customised your individual entry archive filenames. (Beyond the html/shtml/php thing, that is.)

At the moment it only scans the last 500 posts, but once we get both servers running again I'll be able to improve on that.

Update: After a bit more hacking (Ace's blog made it explode) it seems to be working pretty well. Have a play with it and let me know what you think.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:46 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 04, 2006

New Comment Thingy

I'm testing the new comments system live here at Munuviana.

Because it is 100% 98% backwards-compatible with the standard MT comments, we're running both side-by-side.

Right now, you can't post comments with the new system, only view them. That's why there's a big "DOES NOT WORK" message there. When it does work, I'll remove the message.

Update: Now you can post comments! But it doesn't rebuild the blog page, so the comment count won't change automatically. I'll fix that next.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:34 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 03, 2006

I've been Blacklisted

Someone has blacklisted the word "online" which happens to be part of my email address. I don't like commenting with a bogus address. I don't even like having to use 0nline. I think that's just rude. It's really annoying when I have to do it on my own site!!

Can someone with access to and knowledge of the black arts of the blacklist set me free.

I'd be most grateful.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 07:52 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mail issues

I'm getting a lot of mail at gmroper@gmroper.mu.nu that say "mail undeliverable" but I cannot tell if they are coming to me or from emails that I've sent.

I've not changed anything on the "Horde Options" so I'm not sure what is going on. Any suggestions

Posted by: GM Roper at 05:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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