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Coming soon to a Beta near you!

By Byrne Reese
Posted June 9, 2007.

Every time I think Movable Type couldn't get any better, I update to the most recent development version of MT4 and I see all of the latest enhancements. Most of the time I can predict what those will be; as the Product Manager of Movable Type I have a pretty good idea of what everyone is working on.

But then sometimes one of the engineers will throw a curve ball. Like today, when I saw that Brad Choate, MT's lead engineer, created an honest-to-god real live preview feature for entries you are editing.

Yep, you heard me.

So now, when you click the "Preview" button from the entry editing screen, you will get to see what your post will actually look like on your blog. Awesome.

The feature was never scoped for 4.0. It was actually specifically scoped out of the release because of time constraints. In fact, I remember the day I crossed it off the 4.0 feature list, saying quietly to myself, "one day my dear feature, one day you will find a home... but not today." And then I shed a tear.

When I talked to Brad about this sneaking in, he said, "I just could let another release of MT go by without a real preview."

And that to me pretty much sums up why I am loving, loving, loving MT4. Virtually all of those features I always wished I had are finding their way into this release. Brad and the entire engineering team is making sure of it. Thank you Brad, Beau and David. Thank you!
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12 Comments

http://openid.aol.com/cowsandmilk

http://openid.aol.com/cowsandmilk on June 10, 2007, 3:13 a.m. Reply

Being the author of the plugin that currently providers this functionality this is bittersweet. I’m simultaneously ecstatic that (a) the functionality my plugin provided - which was long overdue - finally found its way into the core and is probably far better executed and (b) I can kiss yet another plugin goodbye which frees me up even more. But I will miss LivePreview, it was one of my favourite plugins :)

Jay Allen

Jay Allen on June 10, 2007, 4:33 p.m. Reply

Awesome work MT team AND Arvind. She was a fantastic plugin but now you get to move onto bigger and better things.

LivePreview is dead! Long live LivePreview!

Toni Hambilton

Toni Hambilton on June 11, 2007, 4:03 a.m. Reply

Live Preview is one of my favourite plugins and I’m so happy it’s going to be finally incorporated into MT4. This is the first time I’ve been excited about an MT release for a long time. New plugins and tutorials had slowed for MT because nearly everything was written that could have been written. Now we can also look forward to an extended user experience, figuring out how to tweak templates, create pages, etc. Elise, etal, will have their work cut out for them.

Gertie

Gertie on September 1, 2012, 6:11 a.m. Reply

“Every time I think Movable Type couldn’t get any better” we the users of MT are quite sure you could do even better.

Melinda Gardner

Melinda Gardner on September 23, 2012, 7:41 a.m. Reply

Yeap, the Brad’s tool is very handy.

John Newton

John Newton on October 2, 2012, 2:27 a.m. Reply

Don’t regret at all Arvind. The most important from your work is the appreciations of the people and you have it with no doubt at all. Keep up with the good work you’ve done, so the boys from MT too.

Dan Thompson

Dan Thompson on October 18, 2012, 12:51 a.m. Reply

I just googled Brad Choate and I saw his website. The Moveable part of his blog is removed. Is he still working with MT?

Alan

Alan on November 2, 2012, 2:27 a.m. Reply

It is absolutely correct, it is not possible these days to be a blog platform as Moveable Type without so handy trick as Live Preview. Great to have it even as a plugin, not as part of the core.

Margaret Thompson

Margaret Thompson on November 7, 2012, 5:31 a.m. Reply

Moveable Type live preview is really cool, but such feature is must have for every CMS so it is not something you should be so proud of :)

Kim Strosky

Kim Strosky on November 18, 2012, 11:28 p.m. Reply

Why do you call the platform Moveable Type instead of Movable Type?

Sally

Sally on November 28, 2012, 1:54 a.m. Reply

“I shed a tear” :) LOL Byrne, you rock. This was the sentence of the year :)

I also like this plugin, but I can’t remember to be so involved of waiting for it.

Ivan Petroff

Ivan Petroff on December 22, 2012, 4:28 a.m. Reply

Hey Byrne, I am sure you still read movabletype.org and your are reading all the comments. Even, the fact your are no longer part of the team behind this product. So, can I ask you what were the reasons that pushed you to leave Six Apart? Thank you in advance if you answer my question.

Byrne Reese

Byrne Reese was previously the Product Manager of Movable Type at Six Apart, where he had also held positions as the Manager of Platform Technology and Product Manager for TypePad. Byrne is a huge supporter of the Movable Type user and developer community. He dedicates much of his time to promoting and educating people about Movable Type as well as building the tools and plugins for Movable Type that are showcased on Majordojo. He contributes regularly to open source; and he is an advocate for open protocols and standards like Atom and OpenID.

Website: http://profile.typekey.com/byrnereese