We Eat Bricks :: Web Development Blog

Note: This version has not been tested extensively. Use at your own risk. Tested on Movable Type 3.34 and 3.35. Does not work properly with Movable Type 4.

Scenario

I needed to set up 30+ users and blogs in Movable Type. I was faced with the prospect with spending all day doing this manually though the Movable Type interface. I would need to create the blog, then create the user than assign the user to that blog. Clicking and filling in several forms per user/blog. I would then need to repeat this 30 + times.

Instead I wanted to automate the creation of the bunches, batches or a multiple users and blogs in one go through PHP scripts. This is the result.

Conclusion

So if you have a group of user and blogs you would like to create in Movable Type 3.34 or 3.35 you can use this set of script to speed up the process. You can create up to 5 users/blogs per go in the current version of this script.

Backup

This is a mandatory step as the script inserts directly into the Movable Type database.
Back up your MySQL database. See here for instructions.
Back up you Movable Type files in the cgi-bin directory just in case.
Back up your Movable Type blog directories.

Install

Download files
Copy the MTBatchBlog directory to your web server.

Configure

Edit the config.php.

$dbhost = “localhost”;
$dbuser = “enter_your_mt_database_username”;
$dbpassword = “enter_your_database_password”;
$db = “Enter_name_of_your_mt_database”;
$sysadminemail = “enter_your_email_address”;

How to use

Go to http://your_url/MTBatchBlog/index.php
Log in with the username and password you put into the config.php
Next fill out the forms for each user/blog pair. It needs the same info as you would normally input when creating users and blogs through the normal Movable Type interface.

Warning

This set of scripts is provided as is. Use at your own risk. It has worked fine for me though.
I recommend you remove the MTBatchBlog directory from your web server when finished.

Good luck

Any comments, question or suggestions email me
If people would like to see additional features and support for newer versions of Movable Type please email me.

Having installed the XAMPP on your winXP machine followed by Movable Type you may come across the following issue:

The Movable Type Perl files look for the Perl interpreter located here:

Replace following line in all the MT cgi files

Movable type will not accept spaces in the Local Site Url to change the “Program Files” to “PROGRA~1″.

“PROGRA~1″ is the short name for “Program Files”, useful for software that does not accept names with spaces.

Viola!