Action Streams basics with Movable Type (Open Source)

I first started with the README.txt that comes with Action Streams. Here, Mark, provides the basic installation instructions and some templating information. I haven't used Movable Type tags in years and was a bit confused by the new tag style (<mt:TagName> vs. <MTTagName>), but got over that quickly. Instead of trying to understand what he was implying in the readme, I did what I normally do: learn by doing. First problem I had was finding where the hell to define streams in the first place. The readme says: "5. Navigate to your profile, and click on 'Other Profiles.'" Thanks Mark, but this is a bit convoluted in Movable Type. It literally took me 30 minutes to find the last screen in this series:

Navigate to Users

Click on your Username

You will see:

Click on Other Profiles:

Click on Add Profiles as needed to add what you wish to your generic Action Stream.

After all of this, you would think easy enough... Just publish, right? Not so quickly, grasshopper. If you click on the Action Stream as in the image above, you will see a stream of your content, assuming the auto checking and updating has been done by the plugin (via the periodic tasks that are run via cron or other methods). See, all of this is actually quite complicated, but if you've been able to go so far as install Movable Type, then I am assuming you can figure this stuff out, too. I have a love/hate relationship with cron because every Unix-y OS seems to implement it slightly differently. If in doubt, always fall back on 'man cron' and 'man crontab.'

The 64 million Dollar question is how to integrate this stream into your blog 'consciousness.' Because I'm lazy and don't like delving too far into documentation (and the fact that documentation is... ahem... limited), I navigated to the example-templates directory that is packaged with the Action Streams zip download. I simply took the action-streams-index.mhtm content and created a new (separate from my running) index template via the templates dialogue in the manage portion of Movable Type.

(Simply click on Create Index template to create your new index)

What I ended up with is a very basic page that had "imported" and laid out all of the social network content I wanted added to my blog. So far, so good. The big question was how to actually create that flowing "master" page I mentioned at the beginning of this post. With some more help from Aaron, I took the information from the following links and ended up with a template below:

MyFeed from Yves Luther
Order and Action Streams from Nick O'Neill
Collating Action Streams from Richard Benson
Richard Benson's Main Index Template from Richard Benson

I had to install another plugin to achieve the date ordering I was hoping for. The plugin's name? Order... Very ... convenient (think Dr. Evil talking). Another Mark Paschal plugin. Thank you Mark! (again)

So, finally, with a lot of fiddling and tweaking, I ended up with this mess (find comments in the code to help - a little):

<mt:setvar name="mt_author_display_name" value="steven n fettig">
<mt:setvar name="mt_author_username" value="shortnameI'mhiding">
<mt:setvar name="author_short_name" value="shortnameI'mhiding">
<mt:setvar name="past_days" value="5">

<mt:setvar name="body_class" value="mt-main-index">
<mt:setvar name="main_template" value="1">
<mt:setvar name="main_index" value="1">
<mt:setvar name="sidebar" value="1">
<mt:setvarblock name="title"><$mt:blogname encode_html="1"$></mt:setvarblock>

<!-- the above block are for defining some variables used in Action Streams related items in the below blocks -->

<mt:Order limit="40">
<MTEntries lastn="5">

<mt:OrderItem>
<$MTEntryTrackbackData$>

<MTDateHeader><h2 class="date-header">Blog Entry for <$MTEntryDate format="%x"$></h2></MTDateHeader>

<div class="entry" id="entry-<$MTEntryID$>">
<h3 class="entry-header"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><$MTEntryTitle$></a></h3>
<div class="entry-content">
<div class="entry-body">
<$MTEntryBody$>
<MTIfNonEmpty tag="EntryMore" convert_breaks="0">
<p class="entry-more-link">
<a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#more">Continue reading "<$MTEntryTitle$>" &raquo;</a>
</p>
</MTIfNonEmpty>
<MTEntryIfTagged>
<div class="entry-tags">
<h4 class="entry-tags-header">Tags:</h4>
<ul class="entry-tags-list">
<MTEntryTags>
<li class="entry-tag"><a href="<$MTTagSearchLink$>" rel="tag"><$MTTagName$></a></li>
</MTEntryTags>
</ul>
</div>
</MTEntryIfTagged>
</div>
</div>

<p class="entry-footer">
<span class="post-footers">
<MTIfNonEmpty tag="EntryAuthorDisplayName">
Posted by <$MTEntryAuthorLink show_email="0"$> on <$MTEntryDate format="%x %X"$>
<MTElse>
Posted on <$MTEntryDate format="%x %X"$>
</MTElse>
</MTIfNonEmpty>
</span>
<span class="separator">|</span> <a class="permalink" href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>">Permalink</a>
<MTIfCommentsActive>| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#comments">Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>)</a></MTIfCommentsActive>
<MTIfPingsActive>| <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>#trackback">TrackBacks (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a></MTIfPingsActive>
</p>
</div>

<mt:setvarblock name="order_by"><mt:EntryDate utc="1" format="%Y%m%d%H%M%S"></mt:setvarblock>
</mt:OrderItem>

</MTEntries>

<!-- The above block is from my original blog main page. The Order plugin tags were added so that Order would calculate the dates and then order the entries as the main page was being built. -->

<mt:ActionStreams lastn="50">

<mt:OrderItem>
<div class="entry-content">
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_service"><mt:var name="service_type"></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:setvarblock name="thumb_url"><mt:StreamActionThumbnailURL></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_title"></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_description"></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:setvarblock name="entry_id"></mt:setvarblock>

<mt:if name="service_type" eq="steam">
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_title"><$MTStreamActionVar name="title"$></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_description"><$MTStreamActionVar name="description"$></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:elseif name="service_type" eq="googlereader">
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_description"><$MTStreamActionVar name="annotation"$></mt:setvarblock>
<mt:elseif name="service_type" eq="delicious">
<mt:setvarblock name="stream_description"><$MTStreamActionVar name="annotation"$></mt:setvarblock>
</mt:if>

<!-- Here we "divide" up the Action Stream services. This helps define the services for use below. This and some of the below code was taken directly from Richard Benson's instructions/recommendations. Below you have code that helps to show icon and titling for each entry. -->

<li class="hentry service-icon service-<mt:var name="service_type">">
<span class="stream-meta">@ <mt:StreamActionDate format="%H:%M"></span>
<mt:StreamAction regex_replace="$name_regex","">
<div class="stream-extra-description">
<mt:if name="thumb_url">
<div class="stream-extra-thumbnail">
<a href="<$MTStreamActionURL$>" target="_blank"><img src='<mt:var name='thumb_url'>' /></a>
</div>
</mt:if>
<mt:if name="stream_description">
<mt:if name="stream_title">
<h3><mt:var name='stream_title'></h3>
<br />
</mt:if>
<h5><mt:var name='stream_description'></h5>
</mt:if>
</div>
</li>
<br />
</div>
<mt:setvarblock name="order_by"><mt:StreamActionDate utc="1" format="%Y%m%d%H%M%S"></mt:setvarblock>
</mt:OrderItem>
</mt:ActionStreams>
</mt:Order>

Oh, what a mess it is! BUT, it comes very close to finally getting my main page to where I want it. It took hours (and days) to compile all of this and relies on the hard work and advice of the others listed in the links above. The mess still is such that I don't have a collation of the items within a given date - i.e. I can't figure out how to create a date header for a given grouping of items that fit within that date and/or time. As I get closer to solving some aesthetic issues, I'll post them here. I hope that the above helps those struggling through what I didn't understand... These are just my notes on what I struggled with anyway.