Six Apart Services has a bag of tricks that would make Felix proud. Over the last few weeks, we've released several pieces of code as open source that we think other developers might want to add to their own magic bags.
- Bob the Rebuilder
- A utility class using run-periodic-tasks to continuously rebuild blogs on a scheduled basis. (Note that rpt must be enabled for Bob to do anything.)
- Reblog
- Reblog pulls feed entries from RSS or Atom feeds and turns them into Movable Type entries. Imports can be run either manually or in the background using run-periodic-tasks.
- UnrecognizedTags
- UnrecognizedTags implements a system-level Tools menu item that will compile every template in the installation and report on all instances of unrecognized tags, collated by tag and listed by blog and template.
We've used Bob on a number of projects to keep index pages fresh when they're being populated by items such as ActionStreams that don't trigger a rebuild; Reblog is a utility knife that enables some highly complex content aggregation; UnrecognizedTags is incredibly helpful to keep templates from breaking when upgrading legacy systems or replacing plugins.
Additionally, we've pushed out the Services versions of two existing developer tools.
- MT::Test(now nonavilable)
- The Services update to the MT::Test framework, enabling more sophisticated tests of plugins (MT::App output, behavior under memcached, sessioning code, etc.)
- MT::Booter(now nonavilable)
- The Services update to the MT::Booter plugin for generating test data (users, entries, comments, and more).
These aren't official releases, so they're not supported by Six Apart, but they're tools that we use almost every day, and we're delighted to share them with the larger community of Movable Type users and developers.
George Vraca on July 3, 2012, 10:10 a.m. Reply
Thanks for the generating data plugin. I’ve waited about something like that. Thanks again for sharing it.
RobertG on July 4, 2012, 11:22 a.m. Reply
What a great set of tools! I’m sure they’ll come in handy, trying some of them right now!
Britney Jonhson on September 12, 2012, 11:55 p.m. Reply
All links lead to 404 page :(
Takeshi Nick Osanai on September 13, 2012, 2:22 a.m. Reply
Britney, I modified some links. Thank you for notification!
Rayan T on October 12, 2012, 4:18 a.m. Reply
I am proud of MT and what you have done through the years. Who is this guy Felix? :)
Isolde on November 13, 2012, 12:31 a.m. Reply
Reblog is an extremely useful plugin. It gives the opportunity to create entries without doing anything and it is great to keep you out of duplicate content which is so hunted by the search engines. Thank you for giving it to us.
lenoxx on November 13, 2012, 4:56 a.m. Reply
If I start to use Reblog and add entries from RSS can I add some text to make them unique?
Henry on November 22, 2012, 12:45 a.m. Reply
These tools are not made by Six Apart but you do use them every day. Can you tell me who made them and where we can see his portfolio.
Paisley on November 27, 2012, 3:15 a.m. Reply
It is not so good to use plugins which are not official. What will happen when you use such plugin but after some updates in the core of MT the plugin has not been updated too. Then you are off. This is why I prefer to use only plugins given by the Six Apart. Even the fact these three are recommended by the member of Six Apart.
Martin Andrews on December 24, 2012, 11:15 p.m. Reply
“These aren’t official releases, so they’re not supported by Six Apart” in GTHUB says that the plugins are created by Six Apart, how could they be not supported?