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Features of 4.3: Smarter Blog Cloning

By Matt Jacobs
Posted July 28, 2009, in News.

Up until the general release of MT 4.3, we are publishing details on the features of 4.3. Today we'll focus on blog cloning.

blog-cloning.png

For quite some time, blog cloning has been built into Movable Type. It was created to help add a new blog without having to recreate templates, categories or anything else. The problem was that most often there was never the need to clone everything in a blog.

Movable Type 4.3 has added some new features to the cloning process:

  • Ability to omit specific content from the cloning process.

    The following content can be omitted:

    • Entries/Pages
    • Categories/Folders
    • Comments
    • Trackbacks

    It may seem like a minor addition, but it can save precious time while developing a site.

  • Ability to specify critical blog settings for the new blog before cloning to prevent accidentally overwriting existing content.

    The following fields may be set before cloning:

    • blog name
    • path
    • URL

Several more checks (e.g., a confirmation page, better defaults) have been added to make this process rock solid.

Personally, it has already made testing and setting up a few new installations much easier and faster. I hope this feature will scratch an itch for many of the Movable Type consultants out there.

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11 Comments

jeux en ligne

jeux en ligne on January 10, 2010, 7:45 a.m. Reply

I wanted to clone my blog, but every time I get error that I do please?

Qiana

Qiana on July 31, 2012, 9:41 a.m. Reply

This is a good idea. I have never seen such neither in Wordpress nor Joomla. As I see you have even developed the idea which is great.

Alice Rochdale

Alice Rochdale on September 4, 2012, 8:46 p.m. Reply

Really tricky solution :)

Martin King

Martin King on September 10, 2012, 11:25 p.m. Reply

Yes, more of the things you have added sound logical, but it is strange to me you hadn’t had a confirmation page before this update.

Caroline83

Caroline83 on October 8, 2012, 5:34 a.m. Reply

Actually, cloning a site is something that people do very often (or at least some parts of a site). It’s good that MT thought about that cuz doing it by yourself can couse you many troubles, especially if you are not completely sure what you’re doing

Arnold Costoff

Arnold Costoff on October 19, 2012, 12:30 p.m. Reply

You can clone comments, does it mean that you can clone the whole content of a blog?

Mina Gladbah

Mina Gladbah on November 2, 2012, 10:40 p.m. Reply

Hello, can you tell me how to omit the trackbacks for example? I see it is possible, but I haven’t seen an explanation how to do it.

Angelo

Angelo on November 12, 2012, 6:55 a.m. Reply

Having this upgraded function in hand is far more convenient to clone blogs than before. I used to delete or change lots of functions which I don’t need to now. +1 for this improvement.

Russell

Russell on November 16, 2012, 1:00 a.m. Reply

Hello, I have some difficulties of cloning some of my sites. I don’t want to clone nothing more than just the template. How can I do that?

Ebenezer

Ebenezer on December 18, 2012, 4:52 a.m. Reply

Mina, on the picture about you can seen some buttons. If you want to omit something from cloning you simply uncheck the desired thing and you are ready. That is. As Matt said above it has never been easier to do it :)

Martha Lie

Martha Lie on December 21, 2012, 11:48 p.m. Reply

The process of blog cloning made by Movable Type is great and smart enough. However, it is a bit annoying to confirm so many times that you really want to clone that blog.