Scribblings

Changes to this weblog

Regular readers of this weblog will have noticed that I’ve changed the way it is displayed in the past day or two. I made some cosmetic changes a couple of days ago and also added new search options. I’ve now made further changes which mean that when you initially access the weblog instead of being given the full text of the articles you are presented only with previews.

The previews consist of the whole or part of the first paragraph of the article with all styling, links and stuff removed. At the end of each preview is a link to the full article if you should want to read further.

You can still access the complete articles in the current weblog by choosing Complete from the site menu. As before, selecting Headings from the site menu will give you a list of headings only. The Archives list has also changed: whereas previously choosing a month name took you to a list of article headings for that month it now takes you to the month’s previews. The complete bodies are available from the [+] link next to the month name and the headings from the [-] link.

I’ve made this change mainly in the interests of speed. The old system sometimes gave you a page which was 50k long, fine if you’re using a fast connection but rather slow on dial-up. The new system also means you have less text to wade through to find the article you’re interested in while giving you more of an idea of what an article is about than the headings-only display.

I still, I think, need to make some tweaks but think I’ll run with what I have for the moment. I’d welcome your comments and suggestions.

Update (18 December 16:55)

I’ve now made further changes. Displays of articles, other than those for an article’s permanent URL, now show three options across the top from which you can switch between displaying the articles as previews, whole articles or headings only. This applies to search results too.

I’ve also made further changes to the search function.

Posted 16 December 2004, 14:50
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