Tag Archives: word count

Search Page Fixed

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Sherlock Holmes knows the answer to our search problem.

Sherlock Holmes knows the answer to our search problem.

One minor quick morning note, late in the evening yesterday I was able to fix a bug I came across during some routine interface/content bug hunting where the df.com Search Page would be completely malformed (read: ugly to look at) though the contents were returning correctly for the search query itself. Turned out to be a conflict between my plug in that does in house searches on df.com and another plug in that does the “teaser” abbreviated News & Updates posts (including that nifty word count and permanent link feature at the bottom of this very post). With a little finagling I was able to get both the plug in’s to play together nicely. The result is the Search Page is fixed and all is good in the df.com world again.

I also updated all the various web page content site wide to reflect the current status (such as the Staff Page, etc…) of what we’re up to.

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Abbreviated For The Masses

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This afternoon I spent some more time introducing tweaks to df.com. Our latest improvements are as follows:

  • Cleaned up the 404 Page Not Found quick search function. Better layout and coloring is now found on the 404 Search page making it easier to use than ever.
  • Updated CAPTCHA form to continue to reduce spam comments (haven’t had one sneak through yet proudly enough).
  • Cleaned up the Google.com Custom Search found at the bottom of our in house Search page making that also more user friendly and easier to read.
  • Introduced new “teaser” function to front page News posts. If the post goes over 500 words it will be abbreviated on the main “Home” page. This insures df.com load times stay under 15 seconds and helps make the site snappy when first loading. You’ll also notice a new “Permanent Link” is shown at the bottom of each post to help you with linking to the article on your blog/web page if you so wish to do so. Finally, you’ll notice each post also has the complete word count and estimated time to read it so if you’re on the go or in a hurry you know how much time you’ll need to tackle the text at a later time. All in all I think this will improve web site browsing speeds and also let you know just how long an article is.

These are some of the small, but important improvements I’ve recently implemented. Hopefully they will help you continue to enjoy our site even more. As always, feedback is welcome.

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