Mint Forum

Setting up Mint for MovableType is fairly straight forward. The first part of the Mint install instructions involves filling in information in Mint’s configuration file. You can grab this information from your MovableType configuration and database password files. The configuration data for MovableType is stored in the mt.cfg file located in your /mt/ folder. You’re looking for the MySQL databases section (which appears around line 35):

Database DB_NAME
DBUser DB_LOGIN
DBHost DB_HOST

Your database password is kept in a separate file called mt-db-pass.cgi (also in the /mt/ folder). Your database password is the only thing in this file:

DB_PASSWORD

This information is all you need to configure Mint. Mint’s configuration file is located in the /config/ folder of your Mint install; it is called db.php. You will need to open it and set the following values using the information we just retrieved from your Movable Type configuration file. You can see how I have matched the values from the two files.

$Mint = new Mint (array
(
    'server'    => 'DB_HOST',
    'username'  => 'DB_LOGIN',
    'password'  => 'DB_PASSWORD',
    'database'  => 'DB_NAME',
    'tblPrefix' => 'mint_'
));

Now that your Mint configuration file is ready, you can upload the folder to your web site as per the instructions. Browsing to this folder should walk you through the remaining install process.

Once Mint is installed the last step that remains is adding the JavaScript Mint needs to run to the pages you want statistics logged for. You can use Movable Type’s templates to add the required code. Log into your copy of Movable Type and select Templates from the list of links next to your blog name and description. Open each of your Index Templates and add the following code right before the closing </head> tag:

<script src="/mint/?js" type="text/javascript"></script>

The code in the example assumes that Mint is installed at the root of your site. Once you are done with all of your Index Templates, add the same code to each of your Archive-related Templates. Once you’ve updated all of your templates click the “Rebuild Site” button in the menu on the right. In the pop-up window, choose to Rebuild All Files and press the Rebuild button. You’re done!

Are there any advantages to installing Mint on the same database as MovableType?

I have MovableType running on my site, but does it make a difference whether I set up a new database just for Mint, or add Mint on to my existing MT database?

Hi Till, thanks for replying. My question was - are there any advantages to having Mint on the same database as MovableType? Will it run faster on it’s own seperate database?

Great post, it really helped out. However, I do think a rewrite would be useful. I read thru the first half to only realize I already know what my database information is. I think many readers who come to this post will be simply looking for how to have Mint track the stats hitting the Movable Type page.

Perhaps relocate the section on finding database information to the end and referencing with an, “if you are not familiar with your database info…” or moving to another article.