Question thread #124

[pauamma]

It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

Comments

[misbegotten]

I don't actually know what a dev-related question is, but I will ask in the hope that this is:

Is it possible to fix it so we can do back-dated entries in community journals?

[denise]

It is not technically possible, no. (There's an explanation for this but it's long and boring and very very technical: the very short version is that entry dating works much differently in communities than in personal journals to accomodate the fact there are going to be posts from multiple timezones.) You can change the date and time to be whatever you want it to be for the archive, but it will always display on reading pages in the order the entries were posted and you can't keep them from showing on reading pages the way backdating an entry in a personal journal does.

[misbegotten]

Thank you for the explanation! It is frustrating not to be able to change the display in "community" journals that are actually being used in ways other than for community posts, but that makes perfect sense.

And thank you also for providing enough detail to make the "no" understandable. I like to know how things work, even if I don't have technical expertise.

[denise]

Yeah, it's deeply annoying that the behavior has to be inconsistent between comms and personal journals, but timestamps/chronological display is actually one of those computing problems that look deceptively easy when you first think about it and then turns out to actually be a vast, incomprehensible eldritch horror lurking in the depths to devour programmers' sanity when you dig into it a bit more. (If you want to read up on 'why' a little bit, the best explanation that gets into just the basics in an accessible way is "UTC Is Enough For Everyone, Right?" and spoiler alert: the answer is 'no, no it is not'. And that's just the overview.) There is a very, very good reason why we don't try to translate the timestamps of posts into the viewer's time zone, let's just say. (Timestamps on comments we can kind of do. Timestamps on posts: absolutely not, and I cry just thinking about it.)

Like I said, you can at least change the date/time on community entries so they sort properly in the archives! But yeah, the fact community posts can come from anywhere in the world in a rapid back-and-forth means that we have to treat them differently, timestamp-and-sorting wise, than we do entries in personal journals.

Accurately displaying "when a thing happened" is one of the hardest problems in computer science by far and it's not even close. It's not even much of a technical issue so much as the way we try to shoehorn the passing of linear time into a coherent description/identification system really is that messed up.

[misbegotten]

>>the way we try to shoehorn the passing of linear time into a coherent description/identification system really is that messed up.<<

Ha! I am obligated to use my spiffy Dreamwidth/Doctor Who icon made by seleneheart at this point.

Thank you for the reference! I will enjoy reading it, even if it just makes my head hurt.

Add text to tag page of community

[sunlit_skycat]

Is it possible to change the way that the tag page of a community is generated, whether through layers or another method?

The goal is to take this tag page and change it so it is like this:

--

Page title

[Insert new text here that tells people how to click on the tags to find things and other navigation tips]

All the regular tags as normal, but the multilayer tags are changed so that all the indented, second layer of tags are under a details dropdown section, which opens up to show all the second layer of tags on click.

--

This is the text I am hoping to place in HTML form
Navigation Tips
Dreamwidth has some hidden navigation features. To search for the types of content listed below, edit the information inside the brackets [ ], and then copy and paste the address into your URL. Replace any spaces with the + symbol. For example, the tag [character: alexander belanger] should become character:+alexander+belanger

Entries by a specific poster
https://blueheronteanook.dreamwidth.org/?poster=[user name]

Entries with both tag A and tag B
https://blueheronteanook.dreamwidth.org/tag/[tagA],[tagB]?mode=and

Entries with tag A or tag B
https://blueheronteanook.dreamwidth.org/tag/[tagA],[tagB]?mode=or

To find the full table of contents for a multichapter work, click the tag labeled [series: title].

To find the next chapter of a multichapter work when you have already clicked on an entry, go to the tag section of an entry. Next to the "tag" label, click the green button with a + sign. Click the tag labeled [series: title]. Use the blue arrows to navigate. Desktop only.


The theme used is Radiant Aqua of Venture with some recolors and custom CSS edits. I am on a paid account now, but will soon be on a free account. My current level of programming skill is about the level where I can open up inspect and fiddle around with CSS, and copy and paste code that other people have written. I have taken a quick look at the DW Dev Wiki, but am still not sure whether this is a) something that can be done and b) something that can reasonably be done at the skill level I have.

Re: Add text to tag page of community

[pauamma]

Sorry you didn't get an answer sooner.

All the regular tags as normal, but the multilayer tags are changed so that all the indented, second layer of tags are under a details dropdown section, which opens up to show all the second layer of tags on click.

I don't know enough about S2 to tell whether that's feasible without Javascript or how, and Dreamwidth doesn't allow custom Javascript so any JS would have to be vetted and made available sitewide. For a more informed opinion, perhaps ask in dw_styles.