Template Hammer
Want to simplify your templates to remove all of the includes? Just smash 'em with the Template Hammer, and you'll get flat HTML versions of your templates with just the basic MT Template Tags needed to output your site. It's a great way to learn what the default MT4 templates really look like, or to get versions of new templates that will look familiar to users of older versions of MT, such as 3.x or 2.x.
stavrosthewonderchicken
September 24, 2007 7:22 AM
What actually happens here? What does ‘register a list filter’ mean?
If I run this against a bunch of templates, does this create flat, include-less copies, or does it alter the templates? Or is it (I’m not clear on this ‘list filter’ thing) just a view of the templates, which remain unchanged? If if it changes the templates by replacing them with flattened ones, is there any way to go backwards (given the complexity of the originals)?
Beau Smith
September 28, 2007 11:53 AM
The Template Hammer plugin replaces the selected default modularized (with includes) templates with flattened (include-less) versions.
Template Hammer registers a filter in the “More actions…” menu at the top of the template listing which is used to perform the “hammering” or flattening of templates.
You can revert to the original template by choosing “Refresh templates” in the “More actions…” menu.
Applying a design (or skinning) Movable Type’s default templates will be much faster using the default modularized templates because each piece of shared code is one place. For example, if you want to edit the header of your blog, you edit the Header template module… or if you want to edit the layout of comments, there is only one place that you have to do this.
Flattening your templates will allow you to see the full template all at once. This is great when you are just starting to learn about the Movable Type, but when you begin to extend MT and create new templates it will take longer… you’ll have more code to manage overall, the redundant code in your templates will easily become out of sync and errors are easier to make.
I highly recommend climbing the small learning curve to understand the default modularized templates, you will quickly see the utility and efficiency they will bring to managing Movable Type templates.
Jesse Gardner has created a great visual diagram of how the abstracted templates are assembled together.