Opinions Wanted on Glossary Word Inclusion

[EMRR]

I added a glossary word search in reviews to have popup definitions. These two are samples.

https://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/loc_aura.shtml

https://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_est_tidal_wave.shtml

Thoughts?

I still have a little clean up to do on how it handles some special charactures.

Nick

 

[DAllen]

That is awesome. I absolutely love it. The one thing I would change is the character used. Having a "#" near the text looks like it is part of the text so it seems a little awkward and distracting from reading the copy. If possible, I would change it to a very small graphic symbol of some sort or change the color and reduce the size so it is a little more subtle. I think like a very light gray like hex code #CCCCCC along with a 30% to 40% reduction in size would be better.

Once implemented site wide, that will be a great feature.

-DAllen

 

[Peartree]

Agreed, a little distracting. I've seen similar things done that were marked like hypertext. Defined words were underlined or a different color and a mouseover would bring up the definition (or sometimes advertising)

 

[EMRR]

How's this?

https://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_prat_longfellow.shtml

 

[WiK]

How's this?

https://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_prat_longfellow.shtml

Brilliant! The only thing I can think of is you might want to make sure the definitions are nice and short. The definition for Streamer on that page is pretty long, IMHO.

Phil

 

[sunward]

Brilliant! The only thing I can think of is you might want to make sure the definitions are nice and short. The definition for Streamer on that page is pretty long, IMHO.

Phil

I would agree. Some go right across the screen. So if they could be limited to say 400 pixels wide? Or so?

 

[CharlaineC]

I love it the underlined style is great. the only thing i would do is have the curser dissipear or keep it a point. as the hand gets in the way.

 

[Peartree]

Nice.

If you don't want to shorten the definitions, perhaps limit the line length, but drop down into more lines of text.

 

[EMRR]

Okay, I'm pretty darn happy with this one:

https://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_est_ninja.shtml

Thanks for all the input. I will now be making a couple tweaks to the glossary and then let 'er rip.

Nick

 

[DAllen]

Dude...that looks great! Very very nice site upgrade!

-DAllen

 

[Peartree]

Sweet! That is a VERY nice addition.

 

[EMRR]

Okay, it is now turned on with pictures... takes about 5 days to go through all the reviews (they are only build every 5 days unless I tweak the DAT files... this speeds up the site and takes some load of the servers).

Nick

 

[MarkII]

I have seen some glitches, though, but I don't know if that's because the process isn't complete yet. For instance, in the paragraph right after the parts list my recent FSI Nova review, the phrase

"but Semroc's versions of these parts are made from balsa"
​

has been change to read

"but Semroc's versions of these parts are!MAD!. from balsa."
​

In the next sentence, the phrase

"while Semroc's version of the same part is solid"
​

has been changed to

"but Semroc's version of the SAM. version is solid."

​

Further down, in the paragraph that starts with "Next I went to work on the transition" the phrase

"I needed to bore a similar hole through my balsa version"
​

has been changed to

"I needed to BOR. a similar hole through my balsa version."

​

Also, every word with a pop-up glossary definition is now capitalized, regardless of its place in the sentence. I don't know if these glitches will be fixed by the time the process is complete, but I thought I'd let you know of them.

Mark \\.

 

[MarkII]

Also, in the Estes Ninja review page that you cited before, in the second from last sentence in the second paragraph in the Flight section of the second review (whew!), the word "moment" is given a definition that is completely out of context with the way that word is used in the sentence.

I'm worried that all of the reviews are going to start to look like bad Chinese translations...

Mark \\.

 

[Gillard]

the new additions to the reviews look great. i think that for a new person entering rocketry it will be very very useful, looking back at my early days in rocketry i can remeber thinking " but what does that mean" great addition.

 

[MarkII]

the new additions to the reviews look great. i think that for a new person entering rocketry it will be very very useful, looking back at my early days in rocketry i can remeber thinking " but what does that mean" great addition.

I completely agree. I really like the concept, Nick, but there are a few glitches to correct.

Mark \\.

 

[andytherocketeer]

Glossary is always handy to have, but I'd have simplified it by using built in html tags:

<a href="glossary.html#xxxx" title="Short definition of the term" class="glossary_style">term</a>

should probably do the trick.
Then add an entry in the stylesheet for the a tag for that class so that the highlighting for a glossary entry differs from that for a normal url link (dotted underline is common).
Saves the hassle of all the cgi-bin stuff.

Don't make the description too long though, because they fall off the side of the screen, and I wouldn't fill the page with too many distracting links.

 

[EMRR]

I completely agree. I really like the concept, Nick, but there are a few glitches to correct.

Mark \\.

Right, sorry.. I'm up to D's in cleaning up the misses... common words with multiple meanings like "moment" will be shutoff. The made to MAD!. and bore to BOR.... have me a bit baffled. I will find and fix these though.

Nick

 

[EMRR]

Okay...

Fixed: Converting words to title-case verse non-title case

Fixed: Picking up words that end with e. and thinking they are something else (go figure!)

Added: Alternate words... so if I can't find "Balsa Wood" but finds "Balsa" it uses "Balsa Wood" definition, or All-Thread verses, All Thread or Allthread.

Added: Single Pass

Question: Right now it is only (supposed to be) grabbing the word and defining it the first time in the article... should it be more than once?

Lastly, if you look at a review and the "build date" is prior to 1/30/09 2:50 EST, then you can click on that little underscore next to date stamp to have it rebuilt with the new reviewbuilder script. (Else wait < 5 days to have it automatically build).

Nick

 

[MarkII]

[...]

Question: Right now it is only (supposed to be) grabbing the word and defining it the first time in the article... should it be more than once?

Nick

Linking the word in the first citation only makes sense to me. It looks redundant (and maybe even a little silly) to keep defining it every time the word comes up. But in that case, it might make sense to also make the highlighting (or whatever it is - the underline) slightly more obvious - not too much, just a little. When you have every mention of the word linked, the very subtle underscore that you are now using makes sense, because you don't want the linking to stick out too much and be distracting. But if only the first mention is linked to a glossary entry, then the reader has another problem - going back in the article or review and finding the word that has the glossary link. So in that case it makes sense to make the linked word a little bit easier to find.

The above are just some random thoughts/musings.

Mark \\.