Some of you may have noticed that we've spruced the place up a bit. The design has been upgraded, and you don't get those annoying pop up windows any more.
Best of all, comments now have their own permalinks. The outstanding quality of our readership made that a natural move: see Lurker's sharp comment on the immigration enforcement issue, for instance, or Bart Hall's analysis of Canada's election or Robin Burk's questions in "al-Qaeda & the Geneva Conventions". Among others. If you enjoy that feature, you can thank Kevin "Calpundit" Drum for his help.
As for the design here at Winds, I'm still working on it and pondering further changes to create the kind of impact and impression that really fits this blog. Any readers who think they could create a stylesheet and/or design that kicks us up another notch or three is welcome to email me (joe, here at windsofchange.net).
Oops. please see comment in the Sudan post.
Remember, Lurker, you can just link that comment directly now.
Glad you like the changes. In answer to your question, registration would come into play only if/when we migrate to MT 3.0 and its TypeKey feature. At that point, your TypeKey ID would work on all MT 3.0+ blogs, unless that ID is specifically barred from a certain blog.
So far, we seem to be able to maintain order without registration - and that's my preference. Though if we do start seeing that problem, Jinni Twisterella reports that Charles at LGF is writing his own registration system, and that it's improving the quality of debate. So it's nice to know that there is help for the comments problem at higher scales of readership.
Actually, I realized this about 5 seconds after I pressed the submit button. Such is the state of my mind these days...
Thank you very much for changing the color of the links. Perhaps it’s my aging eyes, but grey didn’t stand out from black enough for me.
Thank you very much for changing the color of the links. Perhaps it’s my aging eyes, but grey didn’t stand out from black enough for me.
Nice upgrades, Webmaster. Moving the commenter's attribution to before the comment had me puzzled for a bit; such is the state of my mind these days. [Ack, now they are back below their associated comments in this 'Preview' window!? Or perhaps it's not just Andrew J. Lazarus' eyes that are aging.]
A nice feature you've kept is the "Recent Entries" block in the upper left corner. Some of us still have ~56k dialup connections (remember dialup?), and it's helpful to be able to click directly from post to post. Preference for text over routine display of large pixel-rich pictures is similarly appreciated.
Glad to read of the helpful hand extended to you by Kevin Drum on these updates. The internet has meant more and better information on Current Events for everyone who's interested. Paradoxically, its use has also led to heightened 'information segregation.' People who are inclined to Belief X can now find writers who make persuasive arguments in favor of X, and can skip the sites where Not-X is advocated. While you and Drum probably don't come down on the same side on many of the Issues of the Day, civility itself is an important virtue. Good to see you two acting on that principle.
I got an error from Movable Type on my screen on hitting "Post" just now. I happened to see my (brilliant) submission had joined the tail of the comments queue while previewing the reconstructed entry. This "heh, the comment went through despite the error message" feature may account for a number of double postings.
[Note added in proof, 02:15 AM--Well, Andrew's and my comments are visible to me again. Now you see 'em, now you don't. It'll all work out.]
Hey, Movable Type ate my comments! Andrew J. Lazarus had some words right after Lurker's that turned out to be equally ephemeral.
Going from the Preview screen to Post, MT gave me this screen:
[Note added in proof, 02:15 AM--Well, Andrew's and my comments are visible to me again. Now you see 'em, now you don't. It'll all work out.]
Hey, Movable Type ate my comments! Andrew J. Lazarus had some words right after Lurker's that turned out to be equally ephemeral.
Going from the Preview screen to Post, MT gave me this screen:
JOE! Comments are NOT posting correctly to the topics!!!!!!!
Permalinks for comments is an excellent idea. I considered them on the old GlennFrazier.com before it blew up, but never put them in place. Since I'm rebuilding from scratch, I think I'll stick them in from the start.
Nice. Like the changes!
What I don't understand is why the count on the comments is so very off kilter. Must look into that later...
Joe,New comments increment the count but aren't attaching to the topic. Try it to see the error msg.
YEA!!! Comments are fixed!
Just a minor quibble . . . the Recent Entries background color looks odd compare to the following headers. Did you mean to keep the pink color to make it distinct?
It appears that comments to a topic that were made during the recent troubles cannot be read until another comment is made to the same topic. This seems to jog everything back to working again.
Maybe a rebuild would take care of everything?
Andrew, I actually specifically thought of you and your requests when I changed the links. Glad you like it.
Lurker, one rebuild coming up - but it will have to be tonight. We actually strain servers on those if done during full traffic periods.
AMAc re: Comment Previews - you're right, but they are a seperate template, sigh. Will have to figure that one out over the next few days.
And Lola (#23688)... yes, that's it exactly. I want those Recent Entries highlighted, and I also wanted a warm colour in the site. Everything else is a "cold" colour, and that gets a bit dampening after a while.
On which topic...
I'm considering a change of the shaded sidebars to a foresty green colour, and the post titles would also go dark green. I think that might convey a bit more of the hope/science feel, but we'll see. I'm not a real designer, so if there are any in the crowd suggestions appreciated.
Thanks for fixing things, Joe. All better. Eh?
Hi Joe,
Sent you an email to a design that I thought you might like.
SBD