I love Movable Type. I use it to run this site. When I got my lovely Powerbook, I decided to try installing it under the Apache webserver that comes with OS X. I've had enough people ask me how I did it, that I figured it was time to write a tutorial. I left out a lot of the why on all the Unix commands used because hey, why fill your head with stuff you'll probably never use again? If you really want to know, you can go look them up, or post a comment, and I'll answer it. Why install Movable Type on a Mac? If you're new to it, it's a good way to get used to the software and "test drive" it before you try to install it on your real site. If you're already using Movable Type, it provides a great test platform for trying out new ideas and designs before inflicting them on your readers. For example, I built my photos site on my Powerbook first before launching it on my site. It went through several versions and incarnations before I figured out how I wanted to do it. You could also use it to keep your personal journal somewhere you know no one will see it. Oh, and it's fun.

UPDATE: You no longer have to enable root access in order to install Movable Type. I was wrong before, and this tutorial has been updated to reflect my new "knowledge". If you find bugs or have problems with this tutorial, please post a comment. Instead of using su, the tutorial now makes use of "sudo", which will require you to enter the administration password (probably your user password) in order to run the command. You shouldn't have to enter the password for every command, but will have to from time to time during this process.

1. Download the Full Version, with Libraries from the Movable Type Download page.
2. Unpack the downloaded file if your browser didn't do it for you. Stuffit Expander should take care of it.
3. Open up a new Finder window and go to Computer > Your Hard Drive > Library > WebServer > CGI-Executables.
4. Copy all the files unpacked from the file you downloaded to Computer > Your Hard Drive > Library > WebServer > CGI-Executables
5. Open up Applications > Utilities > Terminal and type in: cd /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables and hit Enter.
6. type in: chmod 775 *.cgi and hit enter.
7. type in: mkdir ./db and hit enter
8. type in: chmod 777 ./db
9. Open up your favorite text editor and open /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/mt.cfg
10. Look for the line that starts with CGIPath. Take out everything after CGIPath and type in: http://localhost/cgi-bin/.
11. Look for the line that starts StaticWebPath. Remove the # at the beginning of the line. Take out everything after StaticWebPath and add: /mt-static/.
12. Save and close the file.
13. Now, we need to move some files around. Copy, styles.css, mt.js, the docs and images directory to: /Library/WebServer/Documents/mt-static. You'll need to create the directory in Documents, because it doesn't exist by default.
14. Still in Terminal, type in: mkdir /Library/WebServer/Documents/archives and hit enter
15. Now, type: sudo chmod -R 777 /Library/WebServer/Documents and hit enter.
16. Open up your favorite web browser and enter http://localhost/cgi-bin/mt-load.cgi into the url field and hit enter. It should say everything loaded successfully. If it didn't, refer to the Movable Type documentation for troubleshooting.
17. Now you're ready for some fun!! Go to http://localhost/cgi-bin/mt.cgi in your favorite browser. That should give you a login screen. Enter Melody for the user name and Nelson for the password (it is case-sensative). This should take you to the Movable Type main screen.
18. Since you're probably not Melody, look in the top right corner of the page and click "Melody" next to "user:".
19. Here, change username, nickname and e-mail address to your personal choices. Also, update the password to something you're going to remember. Also, it would be a good idea to answer the password recovery question, as it's impossible to recover a forgotten password the way we have Movable Type set up here. Once that's done, click Save.
20. Once saved, select FIRST WEBLOG from the dropdown at the top of the page and click "go". Once on that page, click the Weblog Config item in the left-hand menu.
21. Here are the changes you need to make on this page:
    1. Local Site Path:/Library/WebServer/Documents
    2. Local Archive Path: /Library/WebServer/Documents/archives
22. Now, click SAVE
23. Once you save, you should have a green message at the top of the page saying your changes have been saved and you should see a link to REBUILD. Click it. A popup window should appear. Click REBUILD. If it worked, you're done!! Now, you can go consult the Movable Type documentation (from the HELP link in the top menu of Movable Type).

And, if this isn't enough and you want more, I'm teaching a class on Movable Type over at Eclectic Academy. If you want to know even more about MT, please go sign up, although this is pretty much the first lesson, the rest of them will be fantastic.

In case you mess up, especially when creating yourself as a user, just delete the contents of the db directory and redo the instructions from this point.

Bonus Goodies!! I've been playing with OS X for a good while now, and here are some other fun things you might want to play with.

• I haven't done this myself, past getting MySQL installed, but someone's posted a tutorial on using MySQL and Movable Type in OS X. It looks like it's all command line... consider yourself warned. If you had problems with my tutorial, you will probably have trouble with his (his is very well written though, so it's you, not him).
• Enabling PHP in OS X: Yet more command line goodness. If you have problems with it, it's probably me, not you.
• See also: No Hassle Guide to Installing PHP and MySQL on OS X