I am using MT as a CMS for a site that will not be a blog (in other words, once I create the site there should be no new posts). I'd like some feedback about the way to best create files via MT.

This site will be a photo site for a photo documentary I did. I will have a number of essays and other texts (about file, etc.). At the moment I have created most of these static pages as index templates. I'm thinking I will create the photo pages using an individual entry template for two reasons: 1) the template for each photo page will be the same and 2) I would like to enable comments on each of these pages.

I would like to have comments at the bottom of my essay page. But I've created this page as a static index template. Can I just copy the comment form code from the individual template and put it in the essay index template?

Have any of you used MT for a non-blog site? If so, I'd love to hear how you've approached this.

No, that won't work. The way I would do this is to put the photos in entries--as you're planning--and put essays in Pages (which can have comments), or use two different blogs for this--one for entries and one for essays.

I should have mentioned I'm using MT 3.36. Are Pages part of this build? If so, can you give me a link to where it talks about it in the documentation? If not, would my idea to make the essay an index template be the best way to resolve this? (Since posting this question, initially, MT Support said I could put a comment form at the bottom of an index template as long as I put the javascript link in the head element.)

Ah. No, you need to move to MT4 for that--you could try MTOS.



Commenting functionality requires entries to work. I'm sure what support was saying is that you could display your entries on an index page--along with the commenting form--if you included the JS.

Can't. My ISP doesn't support the minimum version of perl as of yet. But thanks.




I'm not sure I understand. I thought I was being told I could enable comments on an index page if I included the form and the js. Is that not correct?

No, that's not correct. Commenting is tied to entries.

Since you'll be using MT3, how about another approach: two categories, Essays and Photos. You can use different HTML/CSS for each with some mild trickery:

Could you explain in a bit more detail, first why and then how I need to trick MT3 for the two different categories? Thx.

are you sure you have included the javascript file?