Well, I'm running MT4

So, I took the plunge and decided to just upgrade to MT4 (Movable Type 4, the software that powers this blog) today during Sixapart's conference call [upgradeathon](http://www.movabletype.org/2007/08/todays_events.html). I've done a number of clean installs but not an upgrade to this new version. I figured this blog would be a worthy target for such an effort since I started it back in the 3.0D days that [Anil Dash](http://www.dashes.com/anil/) has recently mentioned on the [Pronet mailing list](http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/). I have a few observations: * In the old days of MT (right up through version 3.3, the most recent prior version), all you needed to run MT was Perl and a web server. Now, you also need a program called ImageMagick, and it's part of the core application. ImageMagick allows MT to produce [CAPTCHA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha)s, a fairly effective SPAM fighting technique. The problem is that MT seems particular about the specific version of ImageMagick and how it's configured, and [none of these particulars are documented](http://movabletype.org/documentation/installation/before-you-begin.html). I've installed MT on two different systems, and in both cases, it has told me the systems were set to go, but in fact they were not. The systems were stock installs, no monkeying by me. I've found this to be a rather irritating rough edge. * To get the most out of MT4, you really need to use the new templates. Templates are what produce the web pages you see for entries published on this blog. However, upgrading to the new templates is hard to do, even if you are willing to do a devil-may-care wholesale replacement of your current templates, there's no way to do that. Here's why templates are important: At the very beginning of my experience with MT3, the application performed like a traditional web application. Basically, a server side program produced web pages in html. If you wanted additional information, you would access a completely new web page. Since, there has been a slow creep of a technology called AJAX into the application. AJAX basically uses javascript to load new information into parts of pages. Originally, AJAX was considered by many as a way of adding optional interactivity to web pages, sort of like interface sugar. However, that view was always overly simplistic, and it's really so now. Many of MT's functions are based on the assumption that AJAX is there. For instance, comment registration requires AJAX. To get this feature, you could write code for it yourself, but why not just use what sixapart gives you in its templates. MT4 has some new functionality that requires templates, like the ability to create standalone pages, not found in previous versions. Of course, these require completely new templates to work. MT4 has a nifty new way to flip back and forth between blog designs. Using this functionality, you can go from a two column to a three column blog at the flick of a switch. Of course, this requires the new templates. So, what's my verdict on this new version? Well, I still like the aggregation features [I've mentioned before ](http://budgibson.com/home/archives/2007/06/open_source_movable_type_and_community_rebirth.shtml)for multiple blogs and particularly class blogs. I like the interface for managing the blog. I'd like to see a fix for this CAPTCHA issue or at least more documentation. Personally, I'd move CAPTCHA out of the core and just make it a pluggable interface for people to use their favorite service, be it their own ImageMagick install or a third party like [reCaptcha](http://recaptcha.net/).