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Mark
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Posted: January 16, 2007 6:28 PM |
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Entry Post is a plugin for Movable Type that enables visitors to your site to submit entries using a form. Visitors do not need a user account and they do not need to login. Similar to posting a comment, they can simply fill in a form and submit.
Update 1/23/07: Entry Post now works with MT 3.2 as well as MT 3.3.
I have been using external forms and scripts to do this for several years. Examples include Mars Rover Forum and Seinfeld Forum. These MT-powered forums enable forum members to post new topics (entries) using an external form. Based on this experience, I have converted the entry posting script into a plugin -- and added a bunch of additional features.
Basic Features
- enable visitors to post entries to your blog
- new entries can be set to "Published" or "Unpublished" (pending admin/moderator review)
- supports TypeKey authentication (optional)
- entries can be scanned against MT's Junk Filters
- entries can be previewed before posting
- email notifications of new entry submissions
- entries can be added to a category (set a default or allow poster to choose)
- entries can be tagged (default list of tags, or specified by the poster)
- included default templates include spam-protected form
Advanced Features
- enable posters to upload an image with the entry
- other entry fields supported (Extended Entry, Excerpt, Keywords)
- option to disable rebuilds when an entry is posted
- option to disable entry creation (makes the form work as a 'contact me' form with email notification turned on.)
- xml response option
Try Entry Post Now
I have setup an Entry Post test blog that you can use to submit test entries. You can use one of two forms:
- Basic Form (default form installed with Entry Post)
- Advanced Form (and example form to demonstrate advanced features)
By using the forms above, you will quickly get an idea of the visitor experience with Entry Post. In its simplest form, it is very similar to posting a comment.
The Administrator Experience
Entry Post has been designed to be easy to install and configure. Simply upload the files, change some file permissions, then configure the plugin via the Plugin Settings for each blog. Required templates are installed with a single click (which can then be customized, if desired).
The settings area for Entry Post looks like this:
By using the above settings, you can configure most of the features of Entry Post.
Requirements
- MT 3.2+ (Note: The tags and TypeKey login features require MT 3.3+)
- CustomFields Plugin - Version 1.22 - To store and display information about entry posters, the CustomFields plugin (from Movalog) is required. Using this plugin, the Name, Email, URL, and IP address of the poster will be visible on the "Edit Entry" screens, and template tags can be used to display these values on your site. In the unlikely case that you don't want either of these features, then EntryPost will still work (entries will be posted, email notifications sent, etc.) A portion of all sales of Entry Post will be donated to Movalog. Note that CustomFields version 2.x is not currently supported.
Installation
- Download the zip file and extract the contents.
- Upload the "EntryPost" directory (and all its sub-directories and files) to your MT 'plugins' directory.
- Change the file permissions to 755 (CHMOD 755) for the EntryPost/mt-entrypost.cgi and EntryPost/signin.cgi files.
- Login to MT and go to the 'Settings' area of a blog and choose the 'Plugins' tab. Then click the "Settings" link for EntryPost. You should now see the available settings for EntryPost, as shown above.
- Enable the plugin by checking the Enable checkbox, choose other settings, and the save the settings.
- Return to the EntryPost settings and install the templates by clicking the provided link. After the templates have been created, you can customize them, if desired, to suit your needs or match your site design. The primary template is an index template called "EntryPost Submit Page" - this page includes the form to post entries.
- You will probably now want to provide a link to the Submit Page from your main index. One way to do this is to use the provided "EntryPost Submit Link" widget (using WidgetManager). Alternatively, you can manually create a link such as <a href="<MTEntryPostSubmitPage>">Submit an Entry</a>.
Get Entry Post
Commercial License - $97
If you site or blog is for-profit, a commercial license is required. The license includes all future updates to Entry Post and priority feature requests.
Personal License - $19
For use on a personal site or blog, a personal license is required. The license includes all future updates to Entry Post.
If you would like to use Entry Post on a non-profit or charity site, please contact me.
Live Demo
If you are interested in purchasing EntryPost, but would like to try it first, that can be arranged. To experience the poster side of things, visit the Entry Post test blog using the links provided above. If you would like to login to see the admin interface, please contact me.
As always, feedback, suggestions, and product questions are appreciated. Please reply to this entry.
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Ant
Posts: 1
Reply: 1
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Posted: January 18, 2007 4:30 AM |
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Good idea! Does this also support the extra fields created by the Custom Fields/Extra Fields plugins?
I have a entry form with three image uploads, checkboxes and radio buttons, and could do with using this script allowing users to post to it. |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 2
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Posted: January 18, 2007 10:48 AM |
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Ant, Entry Post currently uses CustomFields to store the Name, IP Address, Email, Image Path, and URL of the person posting the entry. I am not sure exactly what you are asking, but I can tell you still have additional CustomFields configured for your blog, but you won't be able to use EntryPost to populate those fields (at least not without altering the code). You could, of course, populate those fields manually after the entries have been received. |
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roderick
Posts: 4
Reply: 3
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Posted: January 18, 2007 12:22 PM |
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Hi Mark,
Great plugin. One question: since I'm using Tim Appnel's Tags.App to handle my tags, I would need the "tags" field to actually be the "keywords" field (which is how that plugin handles tags). Does your plugin allow me to do this? Thanks!
Alternatively, I could just bite the bullet and use MT's internal tag interface, but using two tag management systems would prove to be a little confusing. |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 4
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Posted: January 18, 2007 1:02 PM |
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Hi roderick,
Yes, you can do that. Entry Post supports the Keywords field. Instead of a adding a field to your form called tags (such as <input type="text" name="tags") -- simply name the field keywords (<input type="text" name="keywords") and the contents of the Keywords field will be populated.
Note that the "Default Tags" setting would not work with the Keywords field, but you can simulate that by adding a hidden field to your form (such as <input type="hidden" name="keywords" value="books, new toys">) |
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Kevin
Posts: 8
Reply: 5
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Posted: January 18, 2007 1:48 PM |
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Questions:
1) Image file upload. Are the images resized, or accepted as uploaded?
2) Authentication. What's the check? Typekey? Others?
3) The template for the advanced posting screen is not included. Perhaps having that would make understanding how to use the other features easier. Can you make that available as a text file?
Notes: When submitting or getting an error, the screen displayed is just the basic information message. Since this is controlled out of the cgi file, perhaps it could use it's own template with a "Continue" and/or "Back" button. |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 6
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Posted: January 18, 2007 2:27 PM |
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Kevin, here are the answers to your questions:
1) Images are accepted as uploaded. Images are renamed in the format of *entry_id*.jpg to ensure that all image submissions have unique filenames. Image upload functionality is very basic at this point, and could be enhanced in future if there is enough interest.
2) TypeKey is currently supported by the authentication feature. Others may be considered for future versions.
3) Yes, linking to a text file for the advanced form example sounds like a good idea. This is an example I created for demonstration, but I like your idea to make the template code available as a sample.
Thanks for the suggestion on the error screens. There is some room for improvement in those areas. |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 7
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Darsh
Posts: 3
Reply: 8
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Posted: January 23, 2007 5:31 AM |
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I run on MT 3.2. I know the requirements says 3.3+, but still, will this work on MT 3.2? I really need this but cannot go for upgrade for a very large blog I manage. Can you kindly let me know? |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 9
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Posted: January 23, 2007 6:38 AM |
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Darsh,
Yes, you can, but there are 2 things you need to do:
1. There is a module in 3.3 that is not included with 3.2. It is MT::I18N and this plugin uses two utility functions from this module. If you upload this to your 3.2 install, the plugin will work. Since this MT 3.2 does not look for this module, it won't break or otherwise affect your MT3.2. The required files can be found here and here, or from the 3.3 zip file.
2. Since 3.2 does not have tags, this feature of the plugin will not work. To avoid errors, you should be sure not have a form field named 'tags' and be sure to leave the "Default tags" setting blank. Otherwise, the plugin will try to add 3.3-style tags and may throw an error.
What are your thoughts? The more I think about it, I might be able to update the plugin to support 3.2 out-of-the-box, hiding the tags feature from 3.2 systems. If there is enough interest, I might do this. |
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Darsh
Posts: 3
Reply: 10
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Posted: January 23, 2007 7:08 AM |
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Thanks Mark for your reply.
1. Can you ps. explanin when you say, you can upload this to your install - where do we need to put the code/files now?
2. Somewhere on this blog, I read that the keywords feature used as tags - I already have a plugin which does that. Do you think the entry post can work with it? |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 11
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Posted: January 23, 2007 9:55 AM |
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Darsh, you can disregard what I said in my previous comment. I have just updated the plugin to work with MT 3.2. No need to upload extra files, etc., it just works.
Regarding you questions about using the keywords field as tags: yes you can do that. Just add a field like the following to your form:
<input type="text" name="keywords">
When you have a field named 'keywords' like the one above, the contents of that field will get placed in the Keywords field for that entry. I can't comment specifically on the plugin you are using, but Entry Post can be used to submit text into MT's Keywords field, which should do the trick. |
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Darsh
Posts: 3
Reply: 12
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Posted: January 30, 2007 5:58 AM |
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Thank you very much Mark. I was away and just read this today. Will I have to buy the plugin or is a trial version offered? Once again, thank you very much for your help. |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 13
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Posted: January 31, 2007 8:56 AM |
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Hi Darsh, there is no trial version for this plugin. If you want to try it out, I can provide access to the test blog on my server. |
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Ton
Posts: no
Reply: 14
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Posted: February 3, 2007 3:18 PM |
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Hi Mark,
I'm thinking of using this impressive plugin for a non-profit blog I'm running. The info tells me about all I need to know, except for one thing. Would it be possible that the author of the entry not only publishes the entry but can delete the entry as well, after publication? Maybe with the help of a 'retrieve entries by author/ with email as password' functionality?
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Mark Carey
Posts: 44
Reply: 15
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Posted: February 3, 2007 7:42 PM |
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Ton, in the current version, that is not possible. Posters don't have the ability to delete the entries that they submit. They would need to request a blog administrator delete the message for them. |
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tim
Posts: 1
Reply: 16
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Posted: June 9, 2007 12:14 PM |
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I'm wondering if this plugin is active - i tried to test it but after logging in usin typekey was not given an option to post.
thx |
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Mark Carey
Posts: 150
Reply: 17
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Posted: August 14, 2007 9:23 AM |
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tim, I have fixed that problem. It should work now. |
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