TypePad Hacks

It was way cool to meet the Design Team and see the place where the magic happens. After touring the office, Michael Sippey, Harold Check (of TypePad Featured Blogs), and I went out to lunch at a nearby Thai place. I'll have to ask them the name of the place, because it was the best Thai food I've ever had. We talked about some of the things they're working on for the future, my plans for TypePad Hacks, and ideas about how to improve the user experience for TypePad bloggers.... We really hit it off and found that we have a lot of the same ideas.

Posts have been extremely minimal here since I started weaning myself off nicotine and I apologize for that… I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to get back to more regular posting. I've had to avoid the laptop the last two weeks because I'm pretty much used to chain smoking when I blog, code, etc. I needed to get a bit of distance from that for a while.... If you emailed or commented in the last couple weeks and I haven't replied, please remind me and I'll do my best to get back to you.... I'm working on finding some other ways to do that, but it's taking longer than I'd like (Hey, anything that takes more than five minutes is longer than I like—thats what ADD is all about).... I'm going to be in Chicago all next week and I should have a bunch of idle time while I'm there to try to finish up some of the hacks in progress.

Yesterday we added a few new features to TypePad that also came straight off the Most Wanted list. Even if these new features weren't on your personal list, we think you'll find them useful...... You can set comment status (open or closed), TrackBack status (accept or don't accept) or assign categories on multiple posts at once.... Starting a new blog and want to introduce first time readers to your topic?... (And for those of you taking advantage of Custom CSS, we assign a special classname to that post, so that you can style it differently from the rest of your posts...)

There are four things you can do to help make this blog a better resource for everyone: Leave comments on the posts to let me know more about what you need. This blog aims to become the best resource possible, and I do take reqests. Link to this blog from your own blog, so other Typepad bloggers can get involved in the conversation. Subscribe to the feed, so that you won't miss any of the excitement to come. Submit hacks, links to third party tools or blogging news, or request a feature that would make TypePad even better.

They had some really nice things to say: You might think that Six Apart, as a company, would be embarrassed by Unger's focus on explaining tricks to extend TypePad's functionality, or chagrined that he polls his readers about what features we should implement next, but the truth is: We're thrilled. Not only is TypePad Hacks a tremendous benefit to all TypePad customers, especially those who want to ask unique questions or try to "push the envelope," but it's also incredibly useful for us to look over Unger's shoulder and absorb the feedback his readers are giving.... Finally, we think it's an amazing testament to blogging and to TypePad that Unger thought the best solution for his effort was to start a blog and to use TypePad.... While no formal relationship exists between TypePad Hacks and TypePad, we have talked with Unger and consider him a wonderful asset to the community.... Those of you who read TypePad Hacks regularly and/or comment on posts are the ones who have really made this possible, though.

Hi Adena, No problem. What you want to do to get rid of the original category and datebased archives is: Go to the template for your sidebar (where you pasted the dropdown menu code). </div> </MTBlogIfArchives> Then follow the directions above to reinsert the drop down menu version and click save and republish. Everything should be rosy!

I've added a new category called "Basic Templates" that I'll use to tag all the hacks that Do Not require a Pro level account or access to advanced templates. I've had a number of readers request more hacks for Basic and Plus accounts, so I'll do my best to at least make material easier for them to find. Most hacks really do require editing templates, but I've been surprised at some of the workarounds people have suggested which don't. I've posted a few already, and will go back through the archives and retroactively tag them with the Basic Templates category when i get a chance.