Technology and design in plain language.

In the previous article, I explained how to set up Movable Type as a Fluid application to run on your desktop.

But Arvind suggested one better: why not install the iMT plugin and have Movable Type run as a MenuExtra? For those of you that don’t know, MenuExtras are the little icons on the right-hand side of your OS X menu. Putting Movable Type up there as a simple dropdown menu would make it almost as easy as… dare I say, Twitter?

See for yourself.

The Setup

First, make sure you’ve downloaded the iMT plugin for Movable Type and installed it on your server. This is what’s going to give us our slick iPhone-like interface perfect for a MenuExtra dropdown.

Next, follow the instructions from the previous article on setting up Movable Type as a Fluid application. After that’s done, you’ve only got just a few changes to make before you’re ready to go:

1. On your application menu, change your User Agent to Mobile Safari 1.13 — iPhone. This will trigger the display of the iMT interface for MT.

2. Set the Window Opacity (if you prefer) under Preferences » Appearance.

3. Again, on the application menu, select Convert to MenuExtra. Fluid will ask to relaunch your instance and when it does…

Suddenly, blogging is easy again!

Note: Fluid tries to use the large 256x256 pixel icon which is a mess. So I’ve created a smaller, desaturated version for those who are using Movable Type as a MenuExtra: