Sphere Related Content Plugin for MT4

When a visitor to your site clicks on the Sphere Related Content link, Sphere finds blog posts and media articles related to your content, and displays them in a pop-up window, providing easy access to similar content across the 'Sphere. See the widget in action on media sites and blogs like MarketWatch, Real Clear Politics and The Ag. The Sphere widget works best on English language blog posts and topics that are being actively discussed in the blogosphere.

Politically minded bloggers can adapt the plugin to show Left, Right, Balanced items ... If you're a political blogger, this is an informative and fun way to add to your site's user experience. Just go to the "Settings" for the plugin at the blog level in Movable Type, and you'll see a section allowing you to change the type of widget that displays. As more types become available, the plugin can easily be adapted to handle them.

 

Installation

The plugin installation into your Movable Type system requires the following software of your server system:

  • Working instance of Movable Type version 4.0 or greater.
  • WinZip or similar decompression utility.
  • File transfer capabilities from your local computer to your server (ex: FTP, SFTP, etc...)

It is also recommended that you ensure you are running a browser that is capable of supporting JavaScript 1.3 or greater.

The installation process is outlined in the following list of steps. Note that each step must be followed for the installation to have a successful outcome.

  • Extract the plugin from the archive named MT-SphereIt_1.1.0.zip into your Movable Type home directory.
    This archive can be downloaded from Sphere if you do not have a copy.
  • The archive will create a directory named "MT-SphereIt_1.1.0" and in this directory reside subdirectories containing the files that you will need in order to install the plugin in your existing Movable Type instance. The directory structure/file names mirror that of a default Movable Type installation. The structure is shown below starting from inside of the MT-SphereIt_1.1.0 directory:
    • /plugins/SphereIt/SphereIt.pl
    • /php/plugins/function.MTSphereItHeader.php
    • /php/plugins/function.MTSphereItWidget.php
    The above directories and files should be copied into your existing Movable Type directory structure. Note that you should not replace your /plugins/ or /php/plugins/ directories; the files for this plugin are in addition to these directories.
  • Next, login to Movable Type.
  • Go to the Blog Plugin Settings screen (Handy Shortcuts -> Plugins or Preferences -> Blog Settings -> Plugins).
  • Check the box to enable MT-SphereIt.
  • Next, choose the type of widget to display. The default is the standard Sphere widget. You may also choose one of the political designs if that is the focus of your site.

 

Template Tag Configuration of the SphereIt plugin

Once the plugin has been activated, then the templates used in your Movable Type site need to be modified as follows:

  • The <$MTSphereItHeader$> template tag is required in order to make use of the plugin. The modular design of the MT4 templates makes it easy to include this tag in all templates, even if you are not going to use the widget in every template.
    1. Locate the Header template module (Design -> Templates -> Template Modules -> Header).
    2. The suggested placement is just above the </head> (line 50 in the default template module). Type "<$MTSphereItHeader$>" (without quotes) and press ENTER.

      3. Note: The template tag can go anywhere inside the <head></head> tags, but make sure it is not inside an <MTIf> block.
    3. Click Save.
  • The <$MTSphereItWidget$> template tag is used to indicate where you would like to display the widget itself. As such, it can go into just about any template you like, and it will display in that location. Here is on suggestion.
    1. Locate the Entry Metadata template module (Design -> Templates -> Template Modules -> Entry Metadata).
    2. The suggested placement is at the end of the module, just above the closing </div> (line 12 in the default template module). Type "| <$MTSphereItWidget$>" (without quotes) and press ENTER.
      Note: The template tag can go anywhere inside this, or any other, module. But it looks good here.
    3. Click Save.
  • Rebuild (Static Archives Only): Now that you have inserted the template tags, you may need to rebuild your archives. If you are using dynamic publishing, then you are done. But if you use static publishing, there is one more step. Simply click the "Rebuild Site" icon (the next to the last one on the menu bar as of this writing), and in the pop-up window, make sure that "All Files" is selected in the drop-down list, then click "Publish". When the process completes, your site will be ready to roll!
  • Next, you can view your site and you will see the Sphere Related Content icon at the bottom of your blog entries. Clicking this icon will display the results from Sphere that match your blog content.

 

Styling the Widget

The widget uses a style of .iconsphere (that's a class of "iconsphere"), so if you'd like, you should be able to add additional styling to it, or perhaps even override it by providing a more specific DOM location than the one that is provided in the header (which is just .iconsphere). Using this, you should be able to style to your heart's content.

 

Threshold Tuning for Content

The plugin supports a threshold setting that allows the widget to skip entries that may return poor results.

  • The default threshold settings are already set to recommended values, but you can change them if you would like.
    Some notes about threshold settings:
    • To disable threshold checking entirely, uncheck the box. To change character or word checking, set the appropriate value.
    • An entry must fail both thresholds in order to be skipped. In other words, if you have a high character count, but a low word count, the threshold may still be met. This is by design.
    • The default values of 500 (characters) and 30 (words) are chosen for their optimization values, so you should try to use this at the outset if at all possible to ensure the best results.
    • All threshold values are counted based on the total found in the entry body and the extended entry.