MTEntryPermalink
I promised to talk about why I don’t like the placeholder <MTEntryPermalink>, and what I think should replace it. Let’s be clear: this is a markup-geek objection, and if you are not a markup geek you probably won’t care.
Off we go, then…
<MTEntryPermalink> is a concatenation of <MTEntryLink>, a pound sign, and <MTEntryID>. Comes out to something like http://blog.example.com/archive/2003/04/28.htm#000512. Fine, as far as it goes. Where’s the problem?
The problem is that in any flavor of HTML, X- or otherwise, you cannot use an unadorned number as the value of an id attribute. All id attributes must begin with a letter. I talked about this during AKMA’s first markover, so I won’t repeat myself.
If you want your permalinks to point to id attributes rather than a name attributes, you cannot use <MTEntryPermalink> in your template. It’s that simple.
This is what I recommend you do. Keep in mind that if you have a long-running blog, this will break your current permalinks, so proceed with caution.
On your archive pages, you probably surround each blog entry with a div. The default MT templates use <div class="blogbody">, which is fine. Add an id attribute, thus:
<div class="blogbody" id="e<MTEntryID pad="1">">
(The pad placeholder adds a bunch of extra zeroes to the beginning, just for neatness. It isn’t strictly necessary, but if you use it on <MTEntryID> in one place, use it on all other <MTEntryID> placeholders in all your templates as well.)
Note the letter at the beginning of the id attribute value. Can be any letter you like; I use e-for-entry.
Then, whenever you would otherwise use an a element with <MTEntryPermalink>, use this instead:
<a href="<MTEntryLink>#e<MTEntryID pad="1">"> (whatever you want as the text of the link)</a>
Again, it’s a markup-geek thing. If you’re setting up a new blog, however, keep it in mind.