DTW upgrades and such

You may have noticed some tweaks around the site. I’m in the process of fixing some stuff that’s been bugging me for awhile. The changes aren’t done, but I wanted to point out what has happened in case I broke something along the way. I know enough about CSS to screw stuff up, but not enough to be able to make stuff pretty.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

  • Changed the title style
  • Played with the post footer to change the styling of Related Posts and added a listing of Recent Posts
  • Changed the comment styling
  • Fixed a display problem on shorter posts (you may not have noticed it, but it bugged me a ton.
  • Added AJAX commenting functionality. This should be helpful in the game threads. You no longer have to wait for the entire page to reload when you submit a comment. Also, it checks for double comments so those accidents shouldn’t happen anymore.
  • Added the ability to edit your comments. If you mis-spell something you can now fix it, if you do it quickly. You have 10 minutes from the time you post the comment to edit it.
  • Long URL’s for links that are posted get shortened now. The design won’t break in IE anymore
  • Added the Buy Me a Beer donation thingy. It’s basically a cute link to a Paypal donation page. Don’t feel obligated, and I’m not sure how long it will stay. But several people had asked how to donate so I threw it up there.

Stuff still to do:

  • Change the header. The main banner will stay, but the stuff to the right will change. That gray box ALCS ticket graphic is an artifact from when the site had an adjustable width.
  • Updated roster pages, and organizational tree pages. The Tigers were too busy this offseason for me to keep up. Look for this to be completed sometime before spring training.
  • Adding an “About” page with more information about the site and me. To that end if there’s anything you want to know about me, let me know.
  • Clean up link lists. I’ve weeded out most of the dead sites, but it’s time to add some of my favorites. It’s something I haven’t done for awhile.

As always I’m open to any myriad of suggestions and I’ll do my best to implement them when possible (my skill, plans for the site, and time all allow). Also, if you see anything that’s broken please let me know. I’ve been testing in both Firefox and IE on Windows and so far so good.

7 thoughts on “DTW upgrades and such”

  1. You’ve been busy, Billfer. I especially like the AJAX commenting function and spell checker. Last night I checked into your blog and wondered “what the heck” when I saw lines under everyone’s name and also had to scroll way down the page to read the article. Anyway, nice work.

    One other thing, remember when you had the baseball story contest? I’ve tried and tried to find those stories but can’t. Do you remember the month and year you published them?

  2. Bill, I hate to make this sound like a love fest, but you truly do have the best baseball site around. I generally read DTW before anything else in the morning – including the Freep or the News.

  3. Editing ability on comments! Yes! You could not change another thing and that alone makes all the difference in the world, even if it for just 10 minutes after said post.

    That said, it would be nice to have a quote type function with the person’s name you’re quoting and whatnot. But that’s not a biggie, like the editing ability.

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