'Select Author' update

The main site menu has a 'Select Author' feature which when clicked produces a drop-down list showing the names of all the authors we have loaded along with the number of submissions in brackets. Unfortunately, as the number of authors grows it's going to start to become unwieldy so I've replaced it with an "auto-suggest" version. Now you just need to type the first letter of the author you are interested in and a list of (up to 10) matches should be displayed .. you can then either select the author you're interested in (using mouse or, arrow keys and the ENTER key to select) or type an additional character to further refine the list.

As far as I can make out this should work in all the standards complaint web browsers (Firefox, Chrome etc) and it seems to work (after the usual rewriting to make up for browser bugs and deficiencies) in the less compliant browsers such as IE.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a change: I still get a drop-down list, and typing a letter doesn't do anything

Well it could be me as I've been testing it for a while and had the code modified so that only myself and a couple of beta testers were using it .. will go and make sure I've opened it up for everyone. Only other possibility I can think of is that you have the old scripts in your browser cache still... will investigate and report back.

Update: I hadn't made all the parts of the necessary code available .. have another go now and see if that's fixed the problem. Also, thanks for letting me know and a plague upon those who found it wasn't working and didn't tell me.

I did have to clear cache to make mine work when I started using it... dunno if that applies to all or not...

Aha, there it is. Woot! Looks good.

Ah, this explains the apparent problem I just mailed you about. However, I regret this change. In addition to seeking established favourites or trying out someone mentioned in the Forum, I like to browse the list of authors and experiment with someone I haven't read, often on the basis of an interesting name. Now I'd have to select a first letter, then another - more unwieldy.

Yes, this change is a double-edged sword. On one hand, I think it lets me get to my own author page much quicker. On the other hand, it makes it harder to "browse" authors as BH mentions above.

There may already be a facility to do just that, but otherwise adding an [authors] option to temporarily restrict the [Members] list to only display authors "might" be a way around that.

This library system is a marvel, but it has lots of "moving parts". I can see how it's really hard to do something that does not have unintended consequences.

The unintended consequence here is that it favors the more familiar authors, the ones you know about. Like bh I used to scroll down just looking for someone I'd never heard of just to give them a try. I'm not saying the new system is a bad one, I recognize the problem, but no matter what you choose there are trade offs. I don't have a suggestion, this is just an observation.

Hi

not sure this works well

I can't even find my own page - this way - what chance do I have to find new authors??

So thanks for the feedback - in case I never find my page again. Lol

DJ Black

Not sure why you can't find your own page as all you have to do is type 'DJ' in the Select Author box and then click on your name?

If that's a problem for some reason then simply don't logout when you leave the site and use this bookmark to go straight to your page:

http://www.spankinglibrary.co.cc/index.php?func=authpage&author=DJ%20Black