Post Archive
› February 4, 2003
New Blogroll
So you may have noticed a new blogroll (left hand column for those reading via a graphical browser). The core of it uses phil ringnalda's phpblogroll, which I tweaked a little bit to display items differently depending on if they were updated today, yesterday, or earlier. Since this is non-critical information, I'm displaying the difference through boldness and grey value. I also added a "detail" link above the blogroll which toggles the actual post time and the availability of a syndication file for each entry. The detail information is somewhat rough because the file is updated hourly (a requirement for scripts which get data via blo.gs), and the syndication link is dependent on if blo.gs is aware of such a file (through auto-discovery). The hide/show toggle is done via a variation of a script from Gazingus. So there are things I have in mind to tweak it, but I'd be very intersted to hear if anyone has any feedback or thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment.
Comments
1. February 4, 2003 09:39 AM
2. February 4, 2003 09:45 AM
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James Posted…
Very nice. I'll be stealing this withing weeks :D for my redesign.3. February 4, 2003 09:46 AM
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PeterV Posted…
And one last comment: make sure the link colours indicate visited/non visited links. (They don't, currently)4. February 4, 2003 10:08 AM
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Nate Posted…
Ah! good points - and Peter, you actually stumbled upon a weakness of my php coding skills (the reason it's not split out currently), I'll have to learn my way around that as I think the subtitles would be much more useful. It might be better off (as suggested to me by others), having the blogroll on it's own page - which would make room for the full blog titles, does that strike anyone the wrong way? Oh, and James, I'll share my version of Phil's php to encourage stealing :-)5. February 4, 2003 10:19 AM
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Joshua Kaufman Posted…
Nice work, Nate! It would be even better if I didn't have to scroll so much to see everything, but I know you had to work within the constraints of the current web graphics design. I would prefer something like this for the details: blogname (99D 99H) RSS or blogname (Yesterday) RSS Oh, the possibilities :)6. February 4, 2003 10:27 AM
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Adrian Holovaty Posted…
Clearing up an inaccuracy: blo.gs doesn't use auto-discovery. It requires sites to ping it (or weblogs.com) manually.7. February 4, 2003 10:35 AM
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Nate Posted…
Adrian, actually, blo.gs does use auto-discovery (more specifically ultraliberal rss locator) to determine if a site (that manually pings blo.gs) has a syndication file. I guess that was nit-picky of me, sorry.8. February 4, 2003 10:44 AM
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Nate Posted…
Oh I like that idea for the detail view Joshua. I could make the DD tags inline to accomplish it. I'm really thinking this should be on it's own page, plus there are several other blogs I'd like to link that don't ping blo.gs, so that could be a second column.9. February 4, 2003 11:23 AM
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vis10n Posted…
Nate (et al), I found the site via Brushstroke.tv a few weeks ago. Very nice! Suggestion on the blogroll: I think having it on another page is an excellent idea: it gives it the room it deserves and lightens up the front page. The only problem I see with the idea, is that if any of your other readers are like me, they'll never make it off the front page—nothing ever catches my eye, so I'm just down the main column, and into the comments area for any tasty morsels I find. In fact, there's only one site that consistently gets me off the home page, and that's The Morning News. I don't know what this might mean to you... but it's just an observation. Again, love the site... keep up the great work.10. February 4, 2003 11:31 AM
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Nate Posted…
vis10n, that might not be such a bad thing (folks not catching on to a new blogroll page). Afterall, the blogroll is largely a conveinence item, for those interested. Oh, I guess another benifit would be the ability to throw the page into a sidebar/sidepanel. I think uncluttering the homepage would be a good idea.11. February 4, 2003 11:34 AM
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Michael Posted…
Nice, Nate. Apparently Drupal has done blogrolling like this for a few years, by the way. They initially called it a "site cloud" (I guess this was before the term blogroll was in fashion?). Check my site's blogroll to see how Drupal's blogroll thing works. You tell it what URL to monitor, how often to check it, and the number of bytes modified to mark the site as updated.12. February 4, 2003 11:51 AM
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Nate Posted…
Oh that's interesting Michael, I was wondering how site cloud could understand that web-graphics was updated since the main blog is an include. (do updated includes refresh the last-mod date?). Site cloud actually crawls the page it seems: "A page is updated when there is a 50-character difference since the last time it checked."13. February 4, 2003 02:10 PM
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Adrian Posted…
Nate: Thanks for the clarification. I thought you'd implied blo.gs auto-discovers the sites themselves. (Not the RSS feeds.) If that makes any sense at all. :)14. February 5, 2003 04:38 PM
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vis10n Posted…
Nate: I agree... some folks care, and others don't (particularly). I was just wanted to let you know. Besides: taking it off the front page, and replacing it with a small, tasteful graphic ad for the blogroll might even prove more compelling than smooshed text.15. April 5, 2003 03:11 PM
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PeterV Posted…
Excellent. I have long wanted people to apply some info-design to those blogrolls. I would even remove the 'extra info' - it's not particularly crucial. But I would make it display the complete blogname. And maybe have subtitles (Today, yesterday, earlier) instead of just colours (the subtitles mean you can remove the explanatory text)