New Website Features
I have really been slacking on posting recently. I have not really been motivated to post anything worthwhile. Nothing has really been going on in my life other than the same 'ol, same 'ol. Family is doing well.
But, today was my day off from work, and among other things, I have a couple of new website upgrades to mention. The first, I got setup a couple of days ago, but haven't really tested yet, so I can't say for sure if it works or not. That is the comment subscription service. When posting a comment on any post, you will now receive an email when anyone replies to that comment. This is a nice feature as normally there is no way to know if someone responds back to a comment unless the site is visited again. This does require that an actual email address is provided (email addresses are not displayed on this site and are not distributed in any way, only used so I am able to contact you back personally, and for the subscription to work.) This feature can also be turned off if you don't want to receive these emails by unchecking the "Subscribe to comments" box.
The next big feature is what I was working on today. Though there is not really much need for this, like many features on this site, I set it up to learn how it works and so I can use this in future projects. Now, every post is available in Adobe PDF format. If you are at the posts individual page (if you are not there, you can click the title of a post to go to it's individual page. Here you will find a PDF download link. Like I said, not to useful here, but a more professional site could really take advantage of this since I can easily add a post to this website, and without any coding, it is now posted in a number of formats including PDF. I can't think of an easier way to create PDF files. Plus, at Six Apart ProNet there is a tutorial on how to auto generate MSWord DOC files in the latest WordML format. So, it would be very easy to use Movable Type and instantly publish not only to a website, but also auto generate MSWord files and Adobe PDF files.
Anyhow, maybe I will write up a quick tutorial on how I did the PDF setup. It's fairly simple, only requires Movable Type and PHP.
But, today was my day off from work, and among other things, I have a couple of new website upgrades to mention. The first, I got setup a couple of days ago, but haven't really tested yet, so I can't say for sure if it works or not. That is the comment subscription service. When posting a comment on any post, you will now receive an email when anyone replies to that comment. This is a nice feature as normally there is no way to know if someone responds back to a comment unless the site is visited again. This does require that an actual email address is provided (email addresses are not displayed on this site and are not distributed in any way, only used so I am able to contact you back personally, and for the subscription to work.) This feature can also be turned off if you don't want to receive these emails by unchecking the "Subscribe to comments" box.
The next big feature is what I was working on today. Though there is not really much need for this, like many features on this site, I set it up to learn how it works and so I can use this in future projects. Now, every post is available in Adobe PDF format. If you are at the posts individual page (if you are not there, you can click the title of a post to go to it's individual page. Here you will find a PDF download link. Like I said, not to useful here, but a more professional site could really take advantage of this since I can easily add a post to this website, and without any coding, it is now posted in a number of formats including PDF. I can't think of an easier way to create PDF files. Plus, at Six Apart ProNet there is a tutorial on how to auto generate MSWord DOC files in the latest WordML format. So, it would be very easy to use Movable Type and instantly publish not only to a website, but also auto generate MSWord files and Adobe PDF files.
Anyhow, maybe I will write up a quick tutorial on how I did the PDF setup. It's fairly simple, only requires Movable Type and PHP.