Announcing Movable Type 3.2

Announcing Movable Type 3.2

Jay Allen | August 25, 2005

We're proud to announce that Movable Type 3.2 is now available. This release improves upon what is already the most powerful blogging platform by offering a better experience at every step. This new version combines the strengths and innovations you have come to expect from Movable Type over the past four years, boosted by the addition of over 100 unique new features that will help your blogs truly shine.

Best of all, it's a free update for any licensed user of Movable Type 3.x. Personal users will be happy to find that the Free edition now offers unlimited blogs. And personal users who want a multi-user license and access to our famed technical support can now take advantage of a special $30 discount on our Basic and Unlimited editions.

Highlights of New Movable Type 3.2 Features:

Vastly improved installation and upgrade
Unlimited blogs for all
Special $30 discount for Personal Edition
All your blogs in one place
The best community management
Find what you need
Smart new styles
A new generation of plugins
The best support in the business
Professional backing

In addition to the features listed above, we've made enormous improvements in usability for every common task you perform while blogging, many of which we've described in our list of our 32 favorite features of Movable Type 3.2. What's more, the features that have made Movable Type the platform by which all blog tools are judged are better than ever: Static or Dynamic Publishing (no rebuilds!); Built-in support for multiple authors, blogs, categories, and templates; Automatic archiving and publishing of XML feeds; and better platform support for almost any common operating system or database.

So, how to get started? If you already purchased Movable Type, or downloaded the free version, you'll be able to download the new release for free from your Movable Type account. Otherwise, you can find it on the Pricing and Licensing page. As always, there is a free, unsupported personal version (did we mention unlimited weblogs?) which will satisfy the needs of a large number of personal users.

After that, make sure to follow the the installation and upgrade instructions in the user manual as there have been some significant changes and improvements to the process.

Want some more details on the features we've added, or need one of our cool new badges to tell the world you've stepped up to Movable Type 3.2? Keep reading for details...

Better Installation and Upgrade: Get off to a good start with your upgrade or new installation of Movable Type. Once your files and your configuration settings are in place, all you need to do is log in to the system to automatically configure the application.
Unlimited Blogs for all: Not only can you have an unlimited number of blogs, but version 3.2 contains powerful new tools which make it easier than ever for you to create and manage them all. Whether you need one blog per person in your workgroup, one blog per project in your company, or just one blog for each of your cats, there's no limit.
Special $30 Discount for Personal Edition: Basic and Unlimited Personal Editions are now available for as little as $39.95, giving you access to more authors and our professional technical support. (If you've bought a personal license in the last 30 days, see our FAQ.)
All Your Blogs in one Place: Manageability and simplicity in administration were key goals for this new update to Movable Type. Administrators now have a home in the system, offering a high-level overview of all the weblogs, entries, feedback, authors and plugins supported by the platform. In addition, every significant action in the system is logged to a detailed, searchable activity log that can be exported for reporting or for future reference.
The Best Community Management: Rich comment and TrackBack management features ensure that you can build your community by encouraging constructive feedback while preventing spam from disrupting your blogs or workflow. The set-it-and-forget-it spam prevention is based upon a customizable feedback scoring system which automatically rates your feedback as it is submitted. The scores can be used to highlight meaningful contributions to the community or to filter spam into a junk folder where it can be automatically deleted. This provides a major evolution from current anti-spam techniques which can cause silent data loss if feedback results in a false-positive detection as spam.
Find What You Need: A powerful new search-based interface lets you easily find (and optionally replace) information throughout your blogs, not only in entries, but comments, TrackBacks, templates, commenters and the activity log. Search is context-aware everywhere in the system, letting you jump directly to the items you're interested in. And new tools for performing bulk actions let you easily act on all of your weblogs’ content.
Smart New Styles: We've provided a library of dozens of elegant new styles for Movable Type blogs, with a shared design that lets you trade themes with millions of other bloggers on Six Apart platforms.
A New Generation of Plugins: Movable Type has always offered a powerful plugin architecture, with hundreds of plugins available for adding features and functionality to your blog. Version 3.2 introduces a range of new plugins that are "Built for Movable Type 3.2" to more tightly integrate into the application and perform a much wider range of actions.
The Best Support In the Business: Six Apart's support team consistently earns rave reviews from our customers. Movable Type support offerings include our fast-response help ticket system, an updated free Knowledge Base, a completely revamped task-oriented user manual with live feedback from our community, and a user-to-user support forum. With Movable Type, you get a real person providing you with a real answer in plain language.
Professional Backing: In addition to our own professional support, the Six Apart Professional Network is the core of a community of thousands of members around the world who offer consulting, customization, design, development, and integration services. Members ranging from IT managers at Fortune 500 companies to innovative independent developers provide rich support for even the most advanced or creative uses of blogs. And they're all backed by Six Apart, which focuses exclusively on powering the best blog platforms around the world.