MT5

At this point, custom fields should be merged into the open source branch. There is enough to distinguish the Pro/Community versions from MTOS that custom fields can be added across the board.

I agree that custom fields should be available in MTOS.

As for suggestions for MT5 features, it'd be really nice to have full OpenID provider support built into the application. The only plugin available on the plugin page (last time I checked) had incomplete (though functional) support. Extra fields like username and real name are not passed by it, and rather than suggesting a new version of that plugin, I'd like to see it implemented directly by the application.

The thing with the plugin, by the way, is that most of what it does is based on a CPAN package for OpenID that doesn't support extra fields either, so adding that support is non-trivial and not at all related to MT.

Full OpenID support, and a more consistent editing interface. E.g.: when I do a search-and-replace, I'd love to be able to republish the "touched" articles w/o having to republish everything. I'd like to switch to dynamic publishing at some point, but I'm stuck using some older plugins that haven't been upgraded and have no support for dynamics.

(I've actually found Custom Fields to be very cumbersome and not very effective for many of the things I've been doing. I'd love to see an updated version of the KeyValues plugin, actually -- a way to do Custom Fields w/the flexibility of tagging, instead of having to define whole schemas.)

I am missing the permissions:

"Create Pages"
"Publish Pages"
"Edit All Pages"
"Manage Folders"

and Custom Fields in MTOS.

Here's another: stateful rebuilds. If your browser times out during a rebuild or the RPT script is killed on your host for one reason or another, it should be able to tell where it left off and resume (if asked to resume).

Off the top of my head, please...

-- Offer an easy upgrade process to enable newer features on existing blogs.

-- Permit rebuilding only a recent date range of entries and comments, and freezing earlier ones (no new comments or entry changes). As blogs (and comments and tags) grow, rebuilds and publishing take too long.

-- Extend MultiBlog to handle archives and custom fields, and to permit one or more selected categories of a blog to be included in another blog, rather than all entries.

-- Provide more optional fields on the comments form for titles or other uses.

-- Add a "Copy to other blog" option that gives an entry comments, tags, a category and permalink in the new blog.

-- Allow sorting on the dashboard listing of tags: by number of tags, and alphabetical as well as the current chronological listing. On group blogs, housekeeping these as they burgeon is a bear.

-- When someone has an entry open, can that be noted in Manage Entries? Can only one person have an entry open? Newsrooms have co-authors and editors overwriting each other.

you can focus on RTL languages like Persian, i am working on localization MT to Persian. we have first farsi plugin for mt 4.2 and you can find it here.

the biggest problem we have with mt are:
- mt-static contain many files, graphical files, like images and icons can convert to one file and making less http request and load pages faster, i think MT Design team is not thinking about making light web pages with small graphical usage and increase using css methods.

- lang file. if there is a way to making lang files read and write with other programs , it will be good and can help to localization mt for other langs.
the best example is Wordpress, look at localization methods for wp, we have programs to translate wp lang file and nice interface with less graphical items.

i think if mt wants to succeed in MT5, it must be redesign and using jquery for base js librery and use good and standard css methods.

these are important things for base and structures.

I would like to see:

* Global custom fields for assets

* Sharing of asset libraries between blogs. It is a pain on a large site loading assets into one blog and not being able to insert them on another.

* One-click update like Wordpress

* Better default templates as standard (the red default one is showing its age)

In random order:

- Performance, performance, performance. MT is slow.
- Rebuild in a memory cache and do burst writes on disk
- Make a light user interface. The current one has too many HTTP requests. It is very slow to manage stuff and makes updating the content harder.
- alphabetical access to tags
- Rebuild posts based on a date range
- Make the rebuild progress bar work on Firefox
- Easy way to setup a template scheduled rebuild (every hour/day)
- Multiblog should be more selective. Inserting all the entries from all external blogs isn't always an option
- Can MultiBlog ever work across different MT installs?
- Upload into a directory structure like /media/year/month/. Having all the images into a single directory doesn't work
- Easy update
- Facebook Connect login for authors
- Better pagination system (for static publishing).
- Better performance measurements (so that we can help you help us)

MT 5 would be greatest MT ever. I can imagine!

Please add these capabilities:
- Better WYSIWYG editor.
- Add "Rebuild all" button to rebuild all blogs together.
- Sharing asset libraries as Matt said.

And most important item is what Pouya said: easier localization capability with an eye to better lang files.

Best wishes for 6A team

Coming from the Enterprise edition and an application with thousands of users and blogs, here are some of our suggestions:

1. Restricted permission for non-administrators to change blog URL/path - as a university, we allow students to publish personal blogs, but they can easily overwrite departmental blogs simply by changing publishing path/URL. It would be nice if this were restricted to only system administrator or could be a specific permission assigned to a role.

2. Better URL/path options for automatically created personal blogs - currently personal blogs are created with default site URL/root + display name dirified. We'd rather use the username field to determine default URL/path; currently have to set display name to username from LDAP, which is not optimal.

3. Granular permissions for Global Templates: Currently checking the box next to "Manage Templates" means user can edit or delete ALL global templates; would be nice if global templates were assignable to users so that one department can have one set of global templates (if they have multiple blogs) and another can have their own without fear of meddling between template sets.

4. Better role management - currently, in order to change a user's role on a blog, you have to delete them entirely as a user for that blog then readd them with the new role. Should be able to just click role and choose a new one.

5. One-click template upgrades - if a blog is using default old (MT3) templates, it would be nice to be able to easily upgrade the templates to MT4 (or 5) templates. Currently the easiest way to do this is clone an existing (empty) blog (or create a new one) then import the entries from the other blog.

6. Better/simpler system for setting up global default templates. (We'd like to provide university-themed templates as the default for new users.) We would also like to continue using index.xml as a default as we have scripts that assume its existence for all blogs.

7. Upload assets directly from the Manage > Assets page.

8. Rebuild connected blogs from global templates. Would be nice to be able to make a change to a global template and rebuild all blogs which use that template.

9. Integration with Central Authentication Service (CAS) in addition to LDAP. We are attempting to unify our login process so that ALL university logins go through the same interface - this improves usability and security for users.

I would upgrade to MT5 in a heartbeat if theses features were included...

* Sharing of asset libraries between blogs. (Need global asset directory of some sort)

* One-click update like Wordpress!

* Batch importing of files to the asset directory.

* Sharing of entry archives between blogs. (ex. I would like to publish the same entry to two different directories http://www.website.com/pc/ and http://www.website.com/mobile/)

* Template tags for cropping images (there are only resizing for now)

* Automatic incremental backup feature.

* Be able to search custom field data.

Best wishes for 6A team. Looking forward to the next version!

please.. please... please..

Include it in MT5

:: Entry archive sharing between blogs
:: Use of ajax in control panel for more lighter experience
:: Pagination, pagination, pagination
:: Easy customization of the layout in the entry page

- post via email, like typepad, but with with image resize.

This can't be stressed enough: Pagination!

Sensible docs - they've always had too many gaps, or assume too-high a level of competence.

Author entry count. That data is already available in the UI, it should be able to be included in the public pages.

Sensible pagination, and also of individual entries. MTPaginate has worked well for years, even though it now shows invalid tags.

Someone as SA to get their head out their ass and recognize that much of this stuff has been required for eons - we shouldn't have to be asking.

- More control over module caching. For example, option to cache a module at a system level rather than blog.
- Optimisation of MT interface (styles, js, etc)
- Blog custom fields, for example to add additional meta data or logo image.

The stuff I posted at http://forums.movabletype.org/2009/07/the-tech-shortfalls-of-this-forum.html.

A sensible search function.

I very much would wish see the following in the Assets Manager:

System Level
— Allowed upload extensions
— Uploads rules for all users and blogs
— Ability to select "override blog and user specific settings with system-wide settings"

Blog Level
— Allowed upload extensions
— Default upload directory

User Level
— Allowed upload extensions

I like a lot of waiting for support for sending e-mail alerts users registered by a third-party services like openid or livejournal. This is the expected functions!

Processing ping notifications and trackbacks in the background would be great too.

SA should just buyout MTPaginate plugin and support it officially. Like MultiBlog plugin.

As you want to make MT simpler, it will be cool to rebiuld StyleCatcher:
— allow to manage Template Sets
— allow to upload Themes and etc.
— allow selection of a Theme (package of Template Set and Style)
— filter available Styles based upon installed Template Sets, only let certain styles be applied when a certain template set is installed
— install a template set as part of choosing a theme
— allow a Style to define the code that should be included in the Stylesheet index template (base theme css, layout css, print styles, mobile styles, etc.)

By the way, it'll be incredible to see in MT5 multilanguage support.

1- please convert MT's core to php. therefor we will be able to help you in developing the system
2- Iranians, like other people all around world need their language being supported by MT . we are ready to help you in this way and expect you to be more active and make Persian in MT as a default language.
3- Movable Type's basename do not support Unicode languages, For example Persian, but we can see that WordPress does and is very successful in this way.
You can see this same post in two different basenames in these tow addresses:
yoursite.com/پست.php
yoursite.com/post.php

4- many of MT's plugins do not working properly, please look into the matter accordingly.
5- Movable Type's search impose high pressure on CPU and the fastsearch does not support Persian language.
6- You can put into action a free weblogging system with MT similar to WordPress
This will be an interesting and propaganda for MT and bring about more user for your organisation.

7- The lack of free frame and style is greatest weakness of the MT. It is necessary to install ready-to use and simple templates. Then the users could help and more frames would be available.

I was thinking it is going to be difficult to track how much demand there are for some of these request, a few of them overlap. I've set up a Google Moderator series for Movable Type at: http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=a4a86

Perhaps we could submit our ideas there and vote them up if they have already been mentioned? Easier to gauge the demand. :)

Improvement of deactivation of plugins

I would like that when you disable the plugin, Movable Type searched in templates for tags of a plugin and if they were found, the output would be about this.

Most of these are mine, some from above. Starred ones are particular important to me.

Custom Fields:
*** One of the "types" of Custom Fields should be selecting a Widget Set ***
*** Fieldday integration ***

Assets:
*** SORT ASSETS BY THE FOLDER THEY'RE IN ***
*** Better file upload (multiple files) ***
- Robust photo gallery features.
- Sharing of assets between blogs.

Additional:
*** More specific permissions (can edit certain categories and not others, or can edit widgets, but not templates) ***
*** Navigation management! (As well as sub-navigation management) Should be able to be selected by page/category/etc. ***
- Better sharing Entries/Pages between blogs.
- Better pagination system (for static publishing).
- Better WYSIWYG editor.
- Easier-to-customize experience for the front-page of the back-end, for all users, if you have permissions to do so.

First thing that comes to mind:

Better tutorials, user guides/pages, etc.

Trying to figure out template tags, for instance -- especially new ones or using the "Logic" tags -- is nearly impossible without spending an hour or two per tag. (Trial and error).

For instance, if I check out the Feed tag @ http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/appendices/tags/feed.html , all I get is,

Type: block

Example

<mt:Feed>
  <!-- do something -->
</mt:Feed>

• block,
• New in MT4,
• template tag

--so I'm like, Huh?

There are pages and pages of similarly useless (because utterly bare) "help pages".

Why can't we have detailed instructions, examples, etc. for these things? The instructions and examples and detailed descriptions would only need to be written once per version, at most.

- Better Global Templates (using tripled my rebuild times)

- Better documentation

- Ability to Export and Import Widget Sets

- Better WYSIWYG support for Authors

-

Pagination...
Pagination....

Beta 1 has been released: http://www.movabletype.org/2009/09/mt5_beta.html

Now listen up...

-This is a beta
-Don't install it over your copy of 4.X or 3.X
-Don't point it at your 3.X or 4.X database
-Don't use it as your main CMS

That had to be said because even well after 4.2 was stable, there were uses complaining about how a 4.2 beta broke their main blog. That's why it's called a beta, not a final release.

Thanks because unicode basename.now mt5 support utf-8 base name

I'd definitely like to see the whole theme templating system rebuilt from the ground up to make it easier for the end user. It's designed right now with a steep learning curve for many. Going to the Design section you click on Styles and you see:

Default
MT 4 Style library
Professional Website (commercial version)

Then you go to the templates...it's crazy. There should be just one method to work with the themes, plus, the themes that show in these options - putting it blunty - really suck. Not to mention there's just too many styles uploaded. Frontpage websites look better!

Joking aside, the theme and template system needs to be simplified for the non-developer user. Perhaps take a page from WordPress as this is a lot easier to manage...although designing for WP is more complicated to design for because of their coding skill requirements with their templates and functions and I find MT is better here.

I'd like to have total control over a theme package where I can create my own template set and theme style, all as one group and placed in "one" location only, not multiple directories. One example structure to consider is:

1. themes/themeName/templates/
2. themes/themeName/images/
3. themes/themeName/style.css

:)

Another one that I may have missed from the list above :

- Improve update options for Motion

I was very excited about MT Motion until I found out it requires a background script to update. At least, allow a manual refresh option so that it can be updated just like any other blog in MT.

Not everybody has access to script level jobs from their ISP.

Native multiple file upload is very important!

Full OpenID support, and a more consistent editing interface. E.g.: when I do a search-and-replace, I'd love to be able to republish the "touched" articles w/o having to republish everything. I'd like to switch to dynamic publishing at some point, but I'm stuck using some older plugins that haven't been upgraded and have no support for dynamics.

(I've actually found Custom Fields to be very cumbersome and not very effective for many of the things I've been doing. I'd love to see an updated version of the KeyValues plugin, actually -- a way to do Custom Fields w/the flexibility of tagging, instead of having to define whole schemas.)