Live Journal Moods/Emoticons for Movable Type
Mood
Accomplished
So, you like Live Journal Moods (or Emoticons), but not enough to part with Movable Type's varied and incredibly cool features just to play around with that cool "currently feeling" thing.
Well quell those feelings of jealous rage, for I have come up with a (relatively) simple, but not fool proof solution.
First you must ask yourself three questions.
One, do you want an icon to represent how you feel for each (but not necessarily every) post that you publish to MT? If yes, then continue on.
Two, do you feel particularly partial to your MT Keywords, because if you do then you must find another solution to this. If you are aren't using them for much right now, or don't know what they are (and have answered yes to question one) then you have come to the right place. Please, read on.
Three, do you feel comfortable hacking files in your MT install? If yes, then lets begin.
STEP ONE: Downloading EditEntry.Tmpl
Your Edit Entry file that you will need is located under: your mt install > tmpl > cms. Make sure you back up your copy, in case you mess up.
We are going to be altering MT Keywords to display a list of preset emotions, using the list already provided by LiveJournal.
STEP TWO: Editing EditEntry.Tmpl
The line you are looking for to begin is:
206 in MT 3.0
422 in MT 2.6
The text looks like this:
You want it to look like this:
Reupload EditEntry.tmpl in ASCII mode in your: mt install > tmpl > cms directory.
Now if you go into your MT interface (and change your viewing options so that you can see MT Keywords) you should have a drop down menu with a list of all the LiveJournal sanctioned emotions.
STEP THREE: Uploading Your Emoticons
Next pick a set of emoticons off of LiveJournal, or do a search for some, there are plenty on the internet.
When you download them make sure you save each image as the name of the emotion itself in lowercase (example happy.gif).
It is a pain to download each one by one, so I have four zip files of four different emoticons sets I have downloaded for myself here for you. They are all star sets each a different color.
Download
Download
Download
Download
Now upload them all into a common directory, like: yoursite.com > images > emoticons. If you are skinning your site, you might want to peak ahead at how I skinned my emoticons.
TIP: If you want the option to not have an emotion for a particular entry create a transparent 1x1 pixel gif, name it "nothing.gif", and upload it with your other emoticons. When you select Nothing from the drop down menu that graphic will display instead of a regular emoticon.
STEP FOUR: Calling Your Feelings Into Your Template
Simply write into your template, wherever you want your current emotion to display:
<img src="http://www.yoursite.
com/images/emoticons/<MTEntryKeywords>.gif"
title="currently feeling: <MTEntryKeywords>">
Yay! All done!
TIP: If you are a compulsive editor make sure you save assigning your emotion for last, it will default back to "Nothing" when you visit the entry again to edit it and you will have to re-select your emotion each time.
STEP FIVE: Skinning Your Emoticons
If you have a skinned site and wish to skin your Emoticons as well follow these steps.
Let's begin by creating as many folders as you have skins under your skins directory (you do have one don't you?) and number them off (1, 2, 3, 4...).
Your directory should now look like this:
- Skins
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
In folder one put the set of emoticons you want to go with your first skin, in folder two put the set of emoticons you want to go with your second skin, and so on.
In your template your html will look like this:
<img src="http://www.yoursite.com/
skins/<?php echo "$skin" ;?>/
<MTEntryKeywords>.gif" title="currently feeling:
<MTEntryKeywords>">
And now you have skinned emoticons. Aren't you glad?
Posted by Bitsy at 11:37 PM Comments
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