The PurplePlugin for MovableType is a collection of Perl code that
adds several features to a weblog that uses MovableType as its content
management system:

1. An optional wiki backend that links WikiWords in blog entries to a
   personal Wiki. See WikiBlog.

2. WikiFormatting of either blog entries or comments, or both.

3. PurpleNumbers that allow granular addressability and TransClusion
   of blog and wiki content at the paragraph, header and list levels.

The PurplePlugin is built on top of the PurpleWiki system by using the
PurpleWiki API in combination with the MovableType API. It is partly a
MovableType text formatting plugin and partly an override of existing
MovableType data management functions. The plugin can be turned on and
off in the configuration for individual blogs.

If you have problems installing this plugin please contact the author:
ChrisDent <cdent@blueoxen.org> or leave comments here. Your questions
will help me improve the documentation.

INSTALLATION

1. Make sure you are running MovableType version 2.62 or greater.

2. If you want to be extra safe, export a copy of all your blog
   entries to a text file using the IMPORT/EXPORT feature in your blog
   configuration.

3. Retrieve, install and configure PurpleWiki according to
   PurpleWikiInstructions. Even if you will not be using the wiki word
   linking, you must install the PurpleWiki modules and create a
   configuration directory (this is where the PurpleNumbers
   information is stored). If you intend to do wiki word linking you
   must install the wiki.pl CGI script. '''The wiki CGI scripts and
   the MovableType CGI scripts must be running as the same user as
   there are files they both need to be able to write.'''

4. Note the pathname of the configuration directory that you create.

5. From the extras/mt directory in the PurpleWiki distribution, copy
   the file purple.pl to the plugins directory in your MovableType
   installation. This is usually in the same place as your mt.cgi
   file.

6. Edit mt_purple.pl

  a. Set $CONFIG_DIR to the pathname of the configuration directory
     you noted in step 3.

  b. If you do not want to parse your entries for wiki word links to
     the wiki, set $WIKIWORDS to 0.

7. Run your blog configuration. In the "General Settings" section of
   "Preferences" you should see PurpleWiki as an option for "Default
   Text Formatting". If you do not, something has gone wrong. Check
   your web server error log for more information and check over the
   steps so far to make sure everything is correct.

8. Create a test posting to the blog that uses PurpleWiki as its text
   formatting.

  a. See WikiFormatting to see the sort of formatting you can do in
     the entry.

  b. If things are working, your post should be presented with "#"
     marks at the end of sections. These marks are links to that item
     of content at the PermaLink address.

If you've made it this far and things have worked, good for you. If
things aren't working, contact the author (adddress above). The rest
of these instructions describe how to tune up the use and presentation
of the PurpleNumbers and other features.

1. Decide if you want all entries to use PurpleWiki formatting. If you
   do, you can turn it on in the "Default Text Formatting" section of
   the weblog configuration. If you don't, you can choose to use it
   per entry. If PurpleWiki formatting is on by default, some
   features, such as image uploading, and automatic insertion of
   highlighted text when creating a new post will not work as
   expected. Those features generate HTML and PurpleWiki formatting
   does not work with HTML.

2. You may use PurpleWiki formatting in comments to entries if you
   like, but it is an all or nothing choice. If you want to use them,
   it is on for all comments and you must make some adjustments to
   stylesheets. To make it go:

  a. In the "Comment Configuration" section of your weblog
     "Preferences":

     i. Set "Text Formatting for Comments" to PurpleWiki

     ii. Turn off "Allow HTML in Comments"

     iii. Turn off "Auto-link URLs"

  b. Adjust two comment related templates to turn off the Sanitize
     feature. Sanitize and PurpleWiki confuse one another.

     i. Change the $MTCommentBody and MTCommentPreviewBody tags in the
        individual archive, comment listing and comment preview
        templates so they include a sanitize="0" attribute. For the
        preview template, change only the first instance of
        MTCommentPreviewBody

3. Adjust your style sheets so that the purple number tags appear
   pleasant to you. The tags have a class of "nid" (for node
   identifier). Transcluded content is in a span with a class of
   "transclusion". This is what I use for nid:

     a.nid {
         font-family: "Helvetica", "Arial", sans-serif;
         font-style: normal;
         font-weight: bold;
         font-size: x-small;
         text-decoration: none;
         color: #C8A8FF;  /* light purple */
     }

BUT WHAT CAN I DO WITH IT?

If you've made it this far you probably already know what you can do
with it, but in case you don't, here's what I do with it:

* I do easy formatting, especially lists, using WikiFormatting rather
  than noisy HTML.

* I make reference to header, paragraph and list items in my sometimes
  very long blog entries without having to be all crufty and say
  things like, "it's the 5th paragraph". See also:

  http://www.burningchrome.com:8000/~cdent/mt/archives/000172.html

* I automatically make links into my wiki, which provides context for
  some of the concepts I'm discussing in my blog.

* I can transclude content amongst blog entries, comments and wiki
  pages. How this has proven most handy is with comments. If someone
  makes a particularly interesting statement in their comments I can
  transclude it into a new entry very easily, raising it up into the
  main thread of discussion.

See also a blog entry entitled, "Purple Number Coolness":

  http://www.burningchrome.com:8000/~cdent/mt/archives/000154.html

for more general comments on why PurpleNumbers are cool.