Al-Muhajabah's Movable Type Tips

Mark Carey just came out with the Category Comment Count plugin. This is a very simple plugin that gives you one new template tag, <$MTCategoryCommentCount$>, which lists the number of comments on entries in a given category. You will have to use this in a category context, such as inside <MTCategories> container tags, or on your category archive pages. I'm making use of this in the "blog statistics" area on the left sidebar of the veiled4allah page (since veiled4allah, The Clipboard, and A Quranic Journal are actually categories of a blog called Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs rather than being independent blogs of their own).

Update: I have since removed the code described below from the main index of AMIB in order to decrease the amount of time needed for rebuilds. It's a neat trick, though

I also discovered that the latest version of the GlobalListings plugin offers global counts. I created an "Overall blog statistics" area on the Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs main index (scroll down towards the bottom). This makes use of the OtherBlog plugin and also the BlogPings plugin to display the total number of entries, comments, and pings for all four blogs combined as well as for each blog separately. The code is:

<$MTGlobalEntryCount include_blogs="1,10,11,12"$> entries<br>
<blockquote><$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogEntryCount$><br>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="10">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogEntryCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="11">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogEntryCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="12">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogEntryCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog></blockquote>
<br>
<$MTGlobalCommentCount include_blogs="1,10,11,12"$> comments<br>
<blockquote><$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogCommentCount$><br>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="10">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogCommentCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="11">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogCommentCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="12">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogCommentCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog></blockquote>
<br>
<$MTGlobalPingCount include_blogs="1,10,11,12"$> pings<br>
<blockquote><$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogPingCount$><br>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="10">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogPingCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="11">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogPingCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog>
<MTOtherBlog blog_id="12">
<$MTBlogName$>: <$MTBlogPingCount$><br>
</MTOtherBlog></blockquote>