July 25, 2004

For the Devoted Reader

This weekend I did some site overhaulin’. No, not where I steal someone’s site, trick it out and replace every letter “s” with a “z”, but rather, I made some modifications here at jasonsantamaria.com; your most favorite site on the web.

Most notably, and most invisible to you, I upgraded to MovableType 3.0. The upgrade was easy as hell and seamless to do. Say what you will about Six Apart, but I am still on board. I love these guys and love their product. The upgrade sports a slick new interface as well as a few new features (better comment maintenance, faster rebuilds, etc.).

I ditched the comment popups. With a little help from Inman I was able to get his comment preview script up and running and now you can view your comment as it’s being typed. Ooooo, futuristic! Expect flying DIVs sometime next week. With this in place, I was able to ditch 3 extraneous templates (comment listing, preview, and error) and contain everything on the individual archive pages. I realize other people have this now too, but let me relish for a moment dammit. Also, for the vain reader, individual comments now sport their own permalinks for ease of linking to your thoughts here. Just click the word balloon or the comment number. You may also notice the commentary cookie actually works now! *gasp*

Rounding out, I provided a much easier way to get to my XML feeds at the bottom of the homepage’s sidebar. This site’s search feature will now return results from the main news, Oddities & Diversions, and Leisure sections, all at once. And lastly, I updated my About page with more nearly useful information (no naked pictures… yet).

Enjoy the new jasonsantamaria.com, I hope you’ll find it not too different or “wilder” than before. If you do, I could walk you through it.

Commentary (11):

1. Mike D. says… jul 26, 2004 | 12:30 am

Well done. All these new features and still just 40 cents an issue!

2. Jon Hicks says… jul 26, 2004 | 6:41 am

hurrah for the loss of comment pop-ups! much rejoicing!

3. Jason says… jul 26, 2004 | 1:00 pm

Spiffy Changes! I personally can’t wait for the flying divs! One of the programmers here wrote some bookmarklet code that might help with that.

4. Jason Santa Maria says… jul 26, 2004 | 1:09 pm

Well, hell. I was just kidding about those flying divs. It seems the future has come and left me behind :D

5. Ian Corey says… jul 26, 2004 | 2:54 pm

I like this preview deal. You guys are geniuses.

6. Matt Cahill says… jul 26, 2004 | 3:37 pm

I hate to be the person to ask, but being a convert to MT 3.01D, I am begging to know how you implemented the Live Comment Preview and Comment linking. Jon Hicks had an article about the JS behind live preview, but that was for Text Pattern rather than MT. Any direct knowledge or linkage would be great!

7. Jason Santa Maria says… jul 26, 2004 | 3:55 pm

Well, it is made up more of JS than anything, Inman provided me with a custom script for my site, so, I am not at liberty to redistribute it. But, it isn’t something that you expressly need MT 3.0. The method I used for comment linking on the other hand is quite simple and can be found at the girlie matters, permalinks for comments.

8. Matt Cahill says… jul 26, 2004 | 8:36 pm

Thanks for the help, I was looking on her site briefly earlier but didn’t see anything. [adds to test MT3 build] I totally understand the script situation and I’m thankful for the reply. Keep the improvements coming, I love this site!

9. Greg says… jul 27, 2004 | 12:51 am

Man it’s about time you upgraded, I was so about to drop you off the bookmark list.

10. Lucian says… jul 28, 2004 | 4:17 am

I had to comment just to try out the preview.

11. iSujay says… aug 2, 2004 | 1:03 pm

Very cool. I’m new here but I’m very impressed.