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Movable Type 9.0.1 Developer Preview Release Notes

This version of Movable Type was released May 1, 2025.

Movable Type 9 (MT9) is currently under development, with GA (General Availability) release scheduled for this fall.
Today, we have released the Developer Preview. You can download it from the page for upcoming versions of Movable Type:

Movable Type BETA – Upcoming Version in Development

Note: This developer preview is an in-development version and might not be used in any live production environment. Please install it in a separate environment using a different database from your production environment, and import existing data as needed.

Movable Type 9.0.10 (Developer Preview 1) includes new features, improvements, and numerous fixes for issues that have been previously identified or reported.

New and improved features

Admin Screen User Interface Improvements

To enhance usability, improvements have been made to the admin screen user interface.
*The configuration directive AdminThemeId now supports the value admin2025, allowing users to switch between the Movable Type 8.0 admin interface (admin2023) and the new one. In Movable Type 9, the default value is admin2025, which is based on Bootstrap 5.3.3.

Added a new header menu for quicker access to primary navigation items

rn9dp1_01.png

Added a fixed header menu to provide quick access to features such as search, site list, and system settings

Quickly search for the content you need

rn9dp1_02.png Clicking the search button automatically selects the appropriate target based on the current context, allowing users to quickly search by entering a keyword into the input field

rn9dp1_03.png Clicking the site list icon now displays the list of sites, allowing quick navigation to other sites. The list can be filtered by “All Sites” or “Child Sites Only,” and sites can also be searched by name

Made the left sidebar collapsible to provide more space for the content area

rn9dp1_04.png To make the content editing screen easier to use, the left sidebar can now be collapsed. Even when collapsed, the left sidebar will temporarily appear on mouseover, allowing convenient access without needing to keep it open

rn9dp1_05.png Can now pin the expanded sidebar for continuous display, allowing users to flexibly adjust the layout to match their screen size

Enable quick creation of new content

rn9dp1_06.png
Aligned the “Create New,” “Rebuild,” and “View Site” buttons horizontally at the top of the left sidebar
This allows users to quickly start creating ContentData, Entry, or Web Page items from the “Create New” menu

rn9dp1_07.png

Limitations of the Developer Preview

  • Support for the Admin screen on smartphones, including the header menu, is scheduled for Developer Preview 2
  • Some icon updates are also planned for Developer Preview 2

Changes and Enhancements to the Rich Text Editor

Changed the rich text editor from the previous TinyMCE-based implementation to a new Tiptap-based one and expanded its functionality

Rich Text Editor Configuration

rn9dp1_08.png Now allows control over the display and visibility of buttons in the editor from System Settings > Rich Text Editor

  • Enabled drag-and-drop reordering and selection of buttons to display on the toolbar
  • Enabled drag-and-drop reordering and selection of formats such as headings and paragraphs
  • Enabled customization of text color and background color options
  • Enabled configuration of default parameters (maximum width and height) for oEmbed embeds

Support for Various Paste Formats

rn9dp1_09.gif

Now supports a variety of paste formats. For example, pasting a website URL will display a card preview, and pasting a YouTube URL will embed the video player

  • Paste as text
  • Paste as HTML
  • Paste as link
  • Paste using oEmbed
  • Paste as a card using OGP data from the page (customizable via system templates)
  • Paste as an inline link using OGP data from the page (customizable via system templates)
  • Convert and paste Markdown

After pasting a website link, you can choose how it is displayed from four options

  • Inline embed
  • Embed object
  • Paste as link
  • Paste as text

rn9dp1_10.png

Context toolbar

rn9dp1_11.png When focusing on an image or link, a context-sensitive toolbar appears, allowing you to quickly edit or check the URL

Support for Markdown Syntax Shortcuts

Enabled support for Markdown syntax shortcuts in the editing area
Examples:

  • * List
  • ## Heading 2
  • *** Horizontal rule
  • ** ** Bold text

Insert blocks starting with a /

rn9dp1_12.png

Typing / at the beginning of a new line allows users to quickly bring up toolbar formats (such as headings) and registered snippets

HTML Structure Editing

rn9dp1_13.png

A new feature that allows you to check the structure of each element and edit its id, class, and style
Click the icon at the top right that looks like stacked layers to start editing

Other

  • Enabled the use of the JavaScript library Svelte by default on the Admin screen list page and ContentType edit screen (MTC-30213)
  • Renamed MT tags MTScript and MTStylesheet to MTApp:Script and MTApp:Stylesheet, respectively (MTC-30323)
  • Introduced composer autoload as part of the Smarty 5 upgrade (MTC-30050)

Resolved issue

  • Changed the value of endpointVersion returned by the /version endpoint of the Data API from a default value to reflect the version of the endpoint (MTC-30297)
    • In Movable Type 8.4.x, accessing /v1/version returned v6; now /v1/version correctly returns v1
  • Changed the list field of ContentType from mt_cf_idx.value_varchar to mt_cf_idx.value_text (MTC-30251)
  • Fixed an issue where importing export data with list fields containing strings longer than 255 characters resulted in an error (MTC-30176)
  • Changed the default editor used by default (Configuration Directive Editor) to the new rich text editor (MTC-30184)
  • Fixed an issue where older entries or ContentData were not included in search results when the number of items exceeded the value of the Configuration Directive CMSSearchLimit (default: 125) (MTC-26347)
  • Fixed an issue where the Admin screen could not be displayed when a nonexistent AdminThemeId was set (MTC-30171)
    • Added a new Configuration Directive FallbackAdminThemeIds
  • Added the template tag MTApp:EmbedJsonResponse for use in the Admin screen (MTC-30222)
  • Repositioned the close button to the top right in various modals, including the image button in the Entry editor, the image field of the ContentType, and the modal for creating Rebuild Triggers (MTC-30203)
  • Fixed the issue where using Svelte as the JavaScript library in the Admin screen affected the window object (MTC-29920)
  • Changed the type of the upload_destination column defined in the metadata of MT::Blog from boolean meta to text meta (MTC-9149)

  • Set cookie attributes HttpOnly and SameSite. The default value of HttpOnly is on, and the default value of SameSite is Lax (MTC-30195)

    • Added configuration directives CookieHttpOnly and CookieSameSite
  • Restricted acceptable paths available in the Data API (MTC-29988)
  • Changed MT::ContentType::UniqueID to use MT::Util::UniqueID when generating IDs (MTC-30075)
  • Changed how the cache is maintained for the site information widget on the website dashboard (MTC-29768)
  • Fixed error messages shown when uploading a file via an asset custom field or asset ContentType field (MTC-30175)
  • Improved parameter parsing for HTTP requests to the Admin screen (MTC-30004)
    • Bundled the module WWW::Form::UrlEncoded in extlib
    • Added the configuration directive UseWWWFormUrlEncoded
  • Fixed an issue where uploaded WebP files were not correctly recognized as image files (MTC-30178)
  • Changed the file format validation method during file uploads (MTC-29247)
  • Moved archetype editor-related files to the mt-static/archetype directory (MTC-30086)
  • Removed unnecessary code from the replaceWithHTML function in DOM.js (MTC-29889)
  • Fixed an issue where conditional tags such as MTAssets and MTContentField did not work correctly inside MTElse (MTC-27950)
  • Added access_to_role_list to the permitted_action of the system administrator (no change in existing behavior) (MTC-29868)
  • Fixed an issue where List::Util::uniq would cause an error and fail to work in edit screens when using Perl 5.16 - Perl 5.24. (MTC-30389)

Dynamic Publishing

Prevented PHP from being evaluated in the following MT tags and modifier regardless of the DynamicTemplateAllowPHP configuration directive setting (MTC-29990)

  • MTFileTemplate tag
  • MTUserSessionCookieDomain tag
  • MTUserSessionCookiePath tag
  • mteval modifier

Security fixes and improvements

  • Improved the generating method of the value stored to the configuration directive SecretToken (MTC-30210)

Deprecated features

  • Removed unused mtcache_*.php (MTC-30266)
  • Obsoleted configuration directives WYSIWYGEditor and SourceEditor (MTC-30260)
  • Unbundled mt-data-api.js (MTC-30240)
  • Removed code related to mt:persist-tab-cookie from mt.js (MTC-30239)
  • Removed the implementation of tags_entry_count for dynamic publishing (MTC-29547)
  • Removed unused processing from archive templates for dynamic publishing (MTC-29819)
  • Removed code related to the following previously deprecated configuration directives (MTC-28987)
  • Removed the definition of the meta columns image_width and image_height.This change does not affect the width or height of images (MTC-30041)
  • Return an empty string from deprecated Creative Commons-related tags (MTC-30090)
  • Removed references to Creative Commons and OpenID from themes and default templates (MTC-30092)
  • Removed methods and functions declared deprecated in MT::Util::Deprecated up to Movable Type 8 (MTC-30089)
  • Unbundled TinyMCE5 plugin (MTC-30040)
  • Removed the ct_unique_id column from MT::RebuildTrigger used in the rebuild builder; no change in behavior (MTC-29905)
  • Removed unused legacy JavaScript and CSS libraries and related files (MTC-29201)
  • Removed the following directories that were present in a fresh installation (MTC-28426)
    • alt-tmpl
    • extlib/MT/L10N
    • import
    • php/plugins
  • Removed code related to mod_perl (MTC-30039)
  • Removed the variable (max_image_dimension) for display area during image upload, which is no longer in use (MTC-28274)
  • Removed the following unused modules bundled in extlib (MTC-30061)
    • AutoLoader
    • Class::Inspector
    • HTML::Template
    • HTTP::Daemon
    • Net::OAuth
    • UNIVERSAL::require
    • URI::Fetch
  • Removed NetPBM-related processing and the configuration directive NetPBMPath (MTC-29244)
  • Removed the admin theme for Movable Type 7 (MTC-30053)

In addition to the above, Movable Type 9.0.0 (Developer Preview 1) also includes the version released internally after 8.4.0.

Movable Type 8.4.0 Release Notes

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