I have done some very minor fixes, breaks, and fixing of stuff I broke over the last couple of days. A while back, after learning what an — was, I made a quick edit to toss those into the final content (two dashes = — like most word processors do). Of course, I had not been paying attention and then broke info that was supposed to be commented out in the HTML code, so I fixed that.
Even further back, I was making adjustments to how posting worked and how they could be hidden. But, of course, I did not change any of my box code to reflect that, so pages with comments were still show up in the "Recent Page Posts" even though you could not see them. Fixed.
Some time back when I made the then current fix for our new, lame time zone change (then current because I have not and am not going to bother with DST until the next iteration of rantfest) I totally killed the posting of user comments on pages...and somehow did not notice. Yeah, it is fixed now.
So reflecting on this, I was trying to make sure when I added in the javascript hack I am working on that it would not break the page. I did some poking around the code and found the perfect place to insert what I need, how to add it in, and I was all set...then I realized that I did not know javascript. Sure, I know some basics, and the formatting is familiar, but there is still this foreign feeling I get everytime I look at javascript code.
One of the reasons I have never really messed with javascript is because I don't tend to allow pages to run javascript. By default, my browser does not load java, any type of plugins, or javascript (hell, I kill page sounds and animated gifs as well). It is not that I think these things are always bad, but well, they can be. Even ignoring the harmful things that could potentially be done with these, there are so many plain stupid things people do...like have crap follow your cursor or pop little notices when you hover over words.
The feature I am adding in is also cookie dependant, and I know how some people really don't like cookies. I already keep your name and homepage in a cookie for you if you post. The thought there was that fewer keystrokes and consistency of information were good things. This is set server side via HTTP headers...clean, and simple. The new feature I am thinking of adding in will actually keep your last post title and comment in the cookie as well, but adding them in client side instead of server side. The purpose for going client side for this is to save information for you on your machine. By doing it client side, it will be saved immedietly before you post it to the page.
The sole benefit for this is that you still have your post even if it does not make it to rantfest. For example, tBoMM commented on my last rant that his first post was lost. After talking to him about it, it does not seem so much of a rantfest issue, but a connection issue or a server hiccup. What this would do, hopefully, would be to save a copy of the comment locally so that if a connection can't be made and an error pops up, you can always retrieve that comment later. At least, that is the thought.
Oh well, I guess I should get back to it.
