Plugin Basics: Building Your First Movable Type Plugin

From the following sections you should now have a pretty good understanding of what a Movable Type plugin is. We have not yet discussed the many different types of plugins one can possibly create, but suffice it to say you can build virtually anything. Let’s not worry about that complexity right now. Instead, let’s begin by wading into the shallow end of the pool. Then as we progress through this guide we build your skills and confidence up so that you will feel comfortable at the deeper end of the pool.

One of things we hope you will see is just how easy it can be to write a plugin. Movable Type has been designed and continues to evolve in such a way that it tries to limit the amount of programming knowledge you need in order to develop a plugin. The use of Perl is sometimes unavoidable, but as we understand more about the patterns developers follow to build their plugins, the Movable Type community will adapt to making those patterns easier to replicate.

The following section with introduce you to how Movable Type plugins work. First we will discuss the basic syntax of the heart of any Movable Type plugin: the configuration file, or config.yaml file. Then we will create the simplest plugin you could possibly write and slowly add to it, introducing you to simple concepts as we go.

• Introduction to the Movable Type Registry
• A YAML Primer
• Registering Your Plugin: Basic Plugin Metadata
• Adding Your First Configuration Directives
• Adding a Simple Template Tag
• Adding a Conditional Template Tag
• Adding a Template Tag Modifier