Microfeatures in Blogs
Came across this delightful blog entry which shares some items that Daniel, the author, enjoys seeing implemented on other blogs. For ease of reading, I'll reproduce the list here, but do go read Daniel's post:
- Aside links in larger articles
- Tables of Contents (also calling out displaying page progress)
- Linkable Headings
- Multipost Grouping
- Dialogue blocks
- Code blocks crediting origins/sources
- Markers for external link
- RSS Feeds
- Links to other sites/blogs
I loved the list and have already made some notes for Glowbug (my own blog's engine) implementation. Their inclusion of "Markers for external links" also made me happy given this blog's already implementation of showing linked domains, et al.
I already have an idea for an on-page progress bar. My idea is to add the ability to seen previously seen on the progress bar. Specifically if scroll down a page, and then back up, it should keep the furthest you've scrolled visible and just change that color so signify it isn't currently seen. I don't have time to hack on it this morning, though I might try to get it done tonight before I fly out tomorrow.
Multipost Grouping is something I technically have implemented on the back-end, but haven't really used, and also isn't quite the implementation the author was referring to. My implemention was a thing I called 'chapters' and comes from an old idea I had years ago for a life-blog which let me write entries into chronological "chapters" to capture eras in my life. This concept came about when I was younger in my 20s I think, when my life was somewhat more likely to change. The reality is I also don't tend (at least, currently) to write posts which are grouped in any way other than tags.
I am definitely going to add capabilities for Dialogues to my blog. I don't regularly need them, but agree having them would make the blog better.
My daily automated post potentially includes links to other blogs if they are posts I add to my Wallabag to read later. I like the concept, and the idea I've come up with is a "starred reading" functionality for the blog, where it is posts I've read recently on other blogs and want to recommend in an ongoing fashion. I've added it to my backlog, we'll see if I implement it or not.