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May 18, 2004

Manage Your Projects with Movable Type - Part I

I debated doing this because there is a lot of discussion (and animosity) over Movable Type and their new pricing scheme right now. But project management is a necessity for any web designer, and hopefully this can help by providing an affordable tool.

First and foremost, this is for all the poor schmoes that need some sort of project management solution, and can't afford Basecamp (a very good online service provided by 37signals at a very reasonable price). Unfortunately, I'm left to my own devices because I work for a billion dollar company that asks me why I need pencil lead. If you've got cash, get Basecamp. If not, here's Plan B.

Overview

Basically, I've put together a system of weblogs that organizes entries according to project milestones. Also, with a little extra work I've devised a way to use MT to show files attached to each milestone (e.g. Design Documents, Diagrams, etc.) and date them for versioning. To tie it all together, I created an index file that grabs the data directly out of the MT SQL table and shows the link as well as the date of the last entry. The only thing missing is a gantt chart.

What You Will Need

You will need the following software for this:

• Movable Type (I use version 2.661, but it should work in 3.0D). You must use the MySQL install for this to work
• PHP installed on your webserver
• Brad Choate's MTSQL Plugin
• Brad Choate's IfEmpty Plugin
• Kevin Shay's Compare Plugin

I won't bother going through installation information here, since all are well documented. Got everything installed? Great, lets move on.

Folder Structure

The system uses multiple weblogs inside separate folders underneath a master "Projects" folder. Each project is in its own folder for easy maintenance. You will want to set-up a similar folder structure on your web sever.

Setup

Once you've created your folder structure, open up Movable Type and create a new weblog. Make sure that the Local Site Path is set to one of the sub-folders inside your new Projects folder. Once you've saved your new weblog, click over to Preferences.

Weblog Configuration

In the Preferences window, change the number of words in the Entry Excerpt to zero (see image below). Once you've done that, click over to Archiving.

In Archiving, make sure that Individual, Monthly, and Category archives are all selected. Set the Archive File Template for the Individual Archive to:

<$MTEntryCategory dirify="1" $>/<$MTEntryTitle dirify="1"$>_<$MTEntryDate format="%m-%d-%y"$>.html

This will allow us to organize all the individual entries in folders according to project milestone. It also removes cruft from the URL except for the extra date on the end, which allows for you to have multiple entries with the same title (e.g. "Meeting Notes") and not have any conflict. Next, set the file template for the Category Archive to:

<$MTArchiveCategory dirify="1" $>/index.html

This puts the index for the archive directly in the folder. If you've not set your own Archive File Templates before, Elise explains the whole process really well.

Note: Setting up folder structures and file naming conventions is really a personal choice for most people, but you will need to set your weblog up this way if you wish to use the Templates I'm providing without any tinkering.

Templates

First, remove all of the RSS feeds and the archive index so all that is left is the Main Index, Stylesheet, Category Archive, Date-Based Archive, and Individual Archive. RSS feeds could be really useful here, but I have yet to meet an executive with and RSS aggregator.

Once you're done deleting the extra files, download these templates and save them into a folder on your web server (this makes it much easier to set up multiple weblogs in the future).

Use the Link this template to a file box within each template to import them into MT (be sure to clear the existing template out of the box before hitting save or it won't import it). Each template is named clearly inside the .zip file:

• index.html - Main Index
• styles.css - Stylesheet
• category.html - Category Archive
• date.html - Date-Based Archive
• individual.html - Individual Archive

There is also a template file called header.html. Create a new Template Module titled "Header" using this template.

Categories

One more step to go before you can hit rebuild and get on with it. Create categories for the milestones in your project. I keep mine pretty simple and consistent to the development process I follow (hat tip to Jesse James Garret and his Elements of User Experience):

• Strategy
• Structure
• Visual
• Build
• Launch

If you want to show it, put the deadline for that milestone in the Category Description field (found by clicking on the Category Attributes link).

Note: Be sure to put them in order when entering them into the system or they won't show up in order on your weblog (more on this later).

Hit Rebuild All Files and you've got your first Project weblog. Repeat these steps for each project you have.

Next Time

Tomorrow I'll cover the details on using the system, and point out some of the hacks that make it work. After that, I'll walk through the setup of the index file that puts a nice little front on your new project management system.

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Design Tools, Working on the Inside