Colophon and other Updates
I have made a few changes to Noscope, amongst other things, added a colophon.
Over the past few days, my to-do list has shrunk quite a bit. I’ve managed to tweak and fix a lot of the things that have annoyed me about this website for ages.
The comments have been overhauled. I removed the word “permalink”, because so few people used it. The permalink is still available if you click the number next to the comment.
Using Scriptygoddess’ technique, I have separated comments and trackbacks/pingbacks.
I have updated my comment live preview, so it better reflects an actual preview.
My RSS feed now outputs the full entry, instead of just the excerpt. It also shows sidenote posts, because I think that’s nice. If you think otherwise, let me know. Now it shows all categories but sidenotes. There’s still a separate sidenote feed, though…
Following Pinksocks.co.uk, I have updated the link title rollover effect (Nice Titles) to the latest version.
I’ve added category RSS feed links on category and archives pages.
Based on an A List Apart tutorial, Firefox users now get a neat stylized bullet display using a right angle quote character instead of the usual dot. It’s hidden from IE users, since that browser can’t handle it anyway.
- It looks like this.
You can examine my stylesheet under /* Unordered List Items */ if you want to see how it’s done.
I removed permalinks to individual articles from the frontpage, and instead made the headline link to their permanent locations. This is better for Google, since none of my entries are actually named “permalink”.
Behind the scenes, I’ve cleaned up a lot of PHP include code, a lot of CSS has been optimized, and in general things are easier for me to update.
I’ve also managed (again with help from Scripty), to create something I think is a smart way of displaying a Trackback URI for a post. Most trackback URIs are either fully displayed, or hidden behind a link that does nothing. As it is on this site now, clicking the “Trackback URI” link, will summon a small textfield that’ll allow you to copy the URI. Try it!
Finally, inspired by Binary Bonsai, I’ve added a Colophon (actually I just renamed my portfolio and added some info). You’ll now be able to read more about me, where I come from, what I think about this or that, and what I’ve done in the past.
Now I should probably get started with my Noscope September installment…
- Noscope September: Open House
- Colophon and other Updates
- Hiding CSS From Browsers
- About Wordpress, Usability and Open Source Development
All great improvements Joen, but I am left with one request: Can you make a feed with all the categories, except sidenotes?
Hmm. Yes, okay I can do that. I actually had something in place that barely worked, and did just that, but decided otherwise.
I’ll bring back a version that works without sidenotes, and hopefully better than the last one worked. I’ll put it on the to-do list, and fix it asap.
Any particular reason that you went with the word ‘Colophon’, and not ‘About’? I’m asking, because I’ve wanted to rename my About to Colophon several times, but always decided against it, because I think About is a more widely understood word…
“About” is indeed a much more easily decipherable word, and pretty much covers the same content. In a way, that makes it more usable.
However, the colophon on this site is commonly accessed when clicking my name on the front page. Thus, the actual URL and / or title is less important. Furthermore, “about” could be “about anything”, and I wanted my about section to be about the entire site, both Installments section and Journal section. Thus, colophon—”publishers imprint”, seemed to cover it better than “about”.
The biggest usability problem, as I see it, is not the use of a technocratic word in the URL, rather that I am now linking to the same page with two differently entitled links—my name on the frontpage, and “colophon” in the navigation. Ideally there would be only one link title for links to this section. This problem would have been the same with “about”, though, albeit easier to work with.
Arh, all in all I chose to go with colophon because I like the word. As Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks would say: “Harry, every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, just let it happen”. :)
Heh. I like the quote (and the series), and I like the word. You have my blessing ;).
Anders, now I have tweaked my RSS feed so it should now show all but Sidenotes, and as full text. You’re right, it is better.
I worked on it all morning, and so my entire RSS feed has been pretending to be updated all day—for you with active feed readers that have constantly been blinking “Noscope updated”, I sincerely apologize. I’ll leave it as it is now, for a long time, though.
It annoys me a bit that I had to kinda hack Wordpress to do it properly. There is a setting in the option section of the admin interface that allows you to set number of entries to show in the RSS. The problem is, that if I sort away sidenotes, they still count towards the total maximum.
The solution in my case here, was to code a variable it counted towards, and break when reached—and simply set the “Show the most recent [x]” number of entries in my RSS to a very high number.
Ack. There’s gotta be a better way.
very interesting. good to see it all written out, and of course, well thought-out, too.
there is one spelling error. you have 1 hour to find it. go!
:)
Aah, the critiqeur strikes again eh?
Actually there were several. Some of the more grave mistakes were:
consciuosly & photograpy, other mistakes were “highschool” in one word, greek and swedish that should’ve been capitalized, and persistance and existance that should’ve been with e instead of a.
Did I find your typo?;)
Haha, I’ve been wondering why all of your old posts kept reappearing in SharpReader. Now I work myself up to this entry and it all makes sense. Nice job cleaning up the place. I’m amazed at how much of an effect little changes can have on an already great design. It says a lot about you.
Sorry for the RSS mess. I’m no longer touching that thing until Wordpress 1.3 comes out.
Glad you like the changes. Subtle, but I’m working my way towards not only simplifying the templates, but reaching a level of usability where I’m satisfied. Once this happens, I’ll redesign, and hopefully only have to touch the stylesheet—atleast that’s the idea.