Archive Template Variables
During the template modularization in MT4 we realized that we could combine the Date-Based Archive and the Category Archive templates because they essentially provided the same functionality, they output a list of entries, and thus the Entry Listing template was created.
In addition to category and date-based archives we added the ability to create author archives. To make sure that author and category archives didn’t get too big, we updated each of them to only show the most recent entries (of course this default behaviour can easily be changed).
Because the author and category archives now only displayed recent entries we needed a way to display the older entries. To do this we combined the date-based template with author and category to offer the following template mappings:
Movable Type 4 Template Mappings
- Daily
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Yearly
- Category
New in Movable Type 4.0
- Category-Daily
- Category-Weekly
- Category-Monthly
- Category-Yearly
- Author
- Author-Daily
- Author-Weekly
- Author-Monthly
- Author-Yearly
One Template, Many Mappings
Although you can have a separate template for each archive mapping (e.g. for category archives, monthly archives, author-monthly archives, etc) it’s far more maintainable, if there’s little differentiation between them, to use a single template — the Entry Listing template — with portions of the page conditionalized to display content differentially based on the archive type being produced
Movable Type makes this possible by populating one or more of a standard set of variables for each page which indicate what type of page is being published. These variables (which are listed and documented in full below) can be used as conditional flags (i.e. in mt:If or mt:Unless blocks) to control any portion of the published page.
For example, let’s say you are publishing the following archive types with the Entry Listing template:
- monthly
- category
- category-monthly
- author
- author-monthly
Your goal is to place a link to the home page of your site on all the pages that are date-based: monthly, category-monthly, and author-monthly. Here’s the code you would place in the entry listing template:
<mt:if name="datebased_archive">
<a href="http://www.example.com">home page</a>
</mt:if>
If you want add a link for category-monthly and author-monthly you could do this:
<mt:if name="category_monthly_archive">
<$mt:setvar name="foo" value="1"$>
<mt:else name="author_monthly_archive">
<$mt:setvar name="foo" value="1"$>
</mt:if>
<mt:if name="foo">
<a href="http://www.example.com">home page</a>
</mt:if>
So that’s basically how it works. Should you wish to dig deeper, the archive variables are set in $MT_DIR/lib/MT/WeblogPublisher.pm.
Below is a summary of the auto-created variables in archive and system templates, as well as the manually created variables in system and index templates.
Template Variables (table)
This table describes the relationship between Archive Types (across top) and Archive Template Variables (down the sides).
- Use the scrollbar at the bottom to see all the Archive Types.
- Click a cell of the table to mark it.
| variable | Entry | Page | Daily | Weekly | Monthly | Yearly | Category | Category-Daily | Category-Weekly | Category-Monthly | Category-Yearly | Author | Author-Daily | Author-Weekly | Author-Monthly | Author-Yearly | variable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| archive_class | entry-archive | page-archive | datebased-daily-archive | datebased-weekly-archive | datebased-monthly-archive | datebased-yearly-archive | category-archive | category-daily-archive | category-weekly-archive | category-monthly-archive | category-yearly-archive | author-archive | author-daily-archive | author-weekly-archive | author-monthly-archive | author-yearly-archive | archive_class |
| entry_archive | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | entry_archive |
| page_archive | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | page_archive |
| archive_template | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | archive_template |
| preview_template | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | preview_template |
| entry_template | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | entry_template |
| page_template | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | page_template |
| feedback_template | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | feedback_template |
| datebased_archive | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | datebased_archive |
| datebased_only | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | datebased_only |
| datebased_daily_archive | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | datebased_daily_archive |
| datebased_weekly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | datebased_weekly_archive |
| datebased_monthly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | datebased_monthly_archive |
| datebased_yearly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | datebased_yearly_archive |
| category_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | category_archive |
| category_daily_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | category_daily_archive |
| category_weekly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | category_weekly_archive |
| category_monthly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | category_monthly_archive |
| category_yearly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | category_yearly_archive |
| author_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | author_archive |
| author_daily_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | author_daily_archive |
| author_weekly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | author_weekly_archive |
| author_monthly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | author_monthly_archive |
| author_yearly_archive | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | author_yearly_archive |
Template Variables (list)
All Archives
- archive_template: 1
- preview_template: 1 (This var is true when a template is being displayed in preview mode.)
preview_template is useful for situations when rich media ads are embedded in Movable Type templates that interact badly with the template, entry, and page preview modes. Poorly-behaved rich media ads can otherwise make working within the entry, page, and template editors in the CMS difficult.
Depending on what is intended, you can use mt:If var or mt:Unless var tags to selectively display or hide markup.
Examples:
<mt:If var="preview_template">
<p><strong>This is entry preview mode!</strong></p>
</mt:If>
<mt:Unless var="preview_template">
<p><strong>This is not entry preview mode!</strong></p>
</mt:Unless>
Entry & Page Archives
Note: The “Entry” archive type is referred to as “Individual” due to legacy usage.
Individual
- archive_class: entry-archive
- entry_archive: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- entry_template: 1
- feedback_template: 1
Page
- archive_class: page-archive
- page_archive: 1
- page_template: 1
- feedback_template: 1
Datebased Archives
Daily
- archive_class: datebased-daily-archive
- datebased_archive: 1
- datebased_only_archive: 1
- datebased_daily_archive: 1
Weekly
- archive_class: datebased-weekly-archive
- datebased_archive: 1
- datebased_only_archive: 1
- datebased_weekly_archive: 1
Monthly
- archive_class: datebased-monthly-archive
- datebased_archive: 1
- datebased_only_archive: 1
- datebased_monthly_archive: 1
- module_monthly_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
Yearly
- archive_class: datebased-yearly-archive
- datebased_archive: 1
- datebased_only_archive: 1
- datebased_yearly_archive: 1
- module_yearly_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
Category Archives
Category
- archive_class: category-archive
- category_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 0
- module_category-monthly_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
- module_category_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
Category-Daily
- archive_class: category-daily-archive
- category_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- category_daily_archive: 1
Category-Weekly
- archive_class: category-weekly-archive
- category_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- category_weekly_archive: 1
Category-Monthly
- archive_class: category-monthly-archive
- category_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- category_monthly_archive: 1
- module_category-monthly_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
- module_category_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
Category-Yearly
- archive_class: category-yearly-archive
- category_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- category_yearly_archive: 1
Author Archives
Author
- archive_class: author-archive
- author_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 0
- module_author-monthly_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
- module_author_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
Author-Daily
- archive_class: author-daily-archive
- author_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- author_daily_archive: 1
Author-Weekly
- archive_class: author-weekly-archive
- author_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- author_weekly_archive: 1
Author-Monthly
- archive_class: author-monthly-archive
- author_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- author_monthly_archive: 1
- module_author-monthly_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
- module_author_archives: 1 (Deprecated in MT4.1)
Author-Yearly
- archive_class: author-yearly-archive
- author_archive: 1
- datebased_archive: 1
- author_yearly_archive: 1
Index Templates
Main Index
- main_index: 1
Archive Index
- archive_index: 1
System Templates
Comment Response
- system_template: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- comment_response_template: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- body_class has three variations based upon response type:
- mt-comment-confirmation
- mt-comment-pending
- mt-comment-error
Comment Preview
- system_template: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- comment_preview_template: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- body_class: mt-comment-preview
Dynamic Error
- system_template: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- dynamic_error_template: 1
- body_class: mt-dynamic-error
Search Results
- system_template: 1 (this var added in 4.2)
- search_template: 1
- search_results: 1
- body_class: mt-search-results
