Customize MT4 Commenter Sign In Tenplates (MT Hacks)

Customize MT4 Commenter Sign In Tenplates

The Customized Sign In Templates plugin enables MT4 sites to customize the commenter sign in and registration screens. MT4 include built-in support for commenter registration and login. By default, the screens where commenters login and register are system templates that bear the Movable Type logo -- they can't easily be customized to reflect the look and feel of your site. This plugin makes it easier to customize these screens.

Before and After Screensnaps

Live Demo

Try it out now on my MT4 Test Blog. Click here and then click the sign in link to post a comment.

How it Works

When someone clicks the "sign in" (or to sign up) link for a particular blog, the plugin looks for template modules in that blog with the following names:

Member Login
Member Signup
Member Signup Thanks

If the module is not found, the system default will be displayed (same as without the plugin). If a match is found, the template module will be used instead of the system default.

Note that these template modules are special, because they are a hybrid of an "application template" and a "blog template". What this means is that you will see some different template tags, some that begin with <mtapp:. Its best not to mess with those too much, unless you really know what you are doing.

Template Sets

As a separate download, I have created two template sets to get you started:

System Default Sign In Templates - these are identical to the ones that ship with MT, but installing this set (using the Template Installer plugin) will create Template Modules in your blog, so you can start customizing from there.
Blog Style Sign In Templates - This set has already been customized to use your blog's style, header, and footer.

Requirements

Installation

Download and extract the zip file. Upload the contents of the 'plugins' folder to the 'plugins' directory of your Movable Type installation.
For each blog that you want to customize, install template Modules to be used. Download the template sets and install them using Template Installer. (Advanced users can create these manually, but they must be named "Member Login", "Member Signup", and "Member Signup Thanks".)

Get Customized Sign In Templates

Commercial License - $97.00

Bonus: Those who purchase a commercial license will subsequently receive a version that enables customization of the password recovery screens. For technical reasons, this part was not as easy to accomplish, but I will create a solution and make it available to those who buy a license.

Personal License - Free

Customized Sign In Templates is free for personal, non-commercial use.

Download Now

Membership required, please sign-in or register:

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

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Comments (9)

rhino

Mark,

I've tried installing this and am getting an error after installing the Blog Style login pages:

Can't call method "id" on an undefined value at lib/MT/Template/ContextHandlers.pm line 1996.

Also I notice on the system plugin page...the info about the plugin isn't showing up (at least on my install)..ie the link to your site, author name, etc.

thanks,
Ryan

Posted by rhino | September 4, 2007 10:18 PM

Posted on September 4, 2007 22:18

Mark Carey

rhino, a few questions:

-when specifically you get the error, during installation of the templates, or when you try to login or register?

-what version of MT are you running?

-have you customized the template yourself after install the blog style templates?

-have you customized the header/footer templates at all, through the theme chooser or manual edits?

Posted by Mark Carey | September 6, 2007 7:41 PM

Posted on September 6, 2007 19:41

rhino

mark,

the error occurs when you go to the sign in/register page. but only when i've "installed" the blog style templates...not the system style template set

i'm using MT 4.01rc1

i haven't customized the sign in templates at all.

the footer template has been updated to add a widget set and make it two column. i've also picked a different style from the mt4 style library.

Thanks

Posted by rhino | September 7, 2007 4:20 AM

Posted on September 7, 2007 04:20

Mark Carey

rhino,

Thanks for the detail. I am not 100% what the problem is but I just released a new version (1.01) that may help. Please download it using the Download link above and let me know if it fixes your issue.

Posted by Mark Carey | September 7, 2007 11:45 AM

Posted on September 7, 2007 11:45

JPeter

it will be a good idea to use the
__trans phrase="xx" for the templates. :)

Posted by JPeter | September 7, 2007 11:47 AM

Posted on September 7, 2007 11:47

Mark Carey

JPeter,

The system default templates do indeed use this for the tmeplates, but the blog style templates do not. If you are volunteering to modify them with __trans, then great! Send them over. ;)

Posted by Mark Carey | September 7, 2007 12:31 PM

Posted on September 7, 2007 12:31

rhino

Mark,

It seems to work now...

thanks :D

Posted by rhino | September 7, 2007 12:53 PM

Posted on September 7, 2007 12:53

Shane:

Navigating through the process from Signing up or in, to registering etc seems to be a lot slower than it was without the template install. Anyone know any tricks to make this faster?

Thanks!

Posted by Shane | October 31, 2007 2:38 PM

Posted on October 31, 2007 14:38

Anonymous:

thans

http://www.tatlimekan.net/
http://www.tatlimekan.net/

Posted by Anonymous | July 28, 2008 7:39 PM

Posted on July 28, 2008 19:39