Random Quotes

Came up with a fairly simple method to stick random quotes into Movable Type pages (requires PHP).

This method requires that your pages are parsed for PHP directives. If you don’t have PHP support, you should probably look for a JavaScript solution.

1) In the Templates section, create a new Index template called quotes.inc. In it, place one quote per line.

2) Put this code in your page template(s) where you wan the random quote to appear:

<?
// Select a random quote from an array

// On the next line, enter the full path on your web server
// to the generated quotes file.
// No need for any other changes to this code block.
$quotes = file(‘/full/path/to/quotes.inc’);

// Seed the random number generator
$somerand = srand ((float) microtime() * 10000000);

// How many quotes do we have to work with?
$num_quotes = sizeof($quotes);

// Choose a random number between 0 and the number of quotes in the array
$this_quote = rand(0,$num_quotes – 1);

// Now we have a random number to select from the array index, grab it.
$thisquote = $quotes[$this_quote];

// Spit it back
echo $thisquote;
?>

Also referenced here.