Live Archives in Effect

Impotent in the workings of Javascript, PHP and SQL as I am, I rely entirely on coaxing others to do my work for me. Such is also the case with the newly implemented Live Archives, brought into creation by Jonas Rabbe from my plans, drawn up almost 6 months ago. Remarkable, as Jonas is only 4 days into WordPress!

Oh, you want them too? Run along over to Jonas for your fix then.

My Implementation

Here follows the code I’m currently using with Super Archives (I prefer the name Live Archives though). It is obviously costumized for my needs, so I’m sure there is some redundancy in there.

And the CSS:

PS: I have upgraded to WordPress 1.5.1 nightly (may 7th), as 1.5 had some plugin option panel problems. Let me know if something seems broken.

Also, the menu is now using the same code as the K2 menu, which is much better than the poor excuse for a hack I was using before. And yes, I know it doesn’t work properly in IE.

55 Responses to “Live Archives in Effect”


  • Well, this looks quites cool. Your are still bleeding edge in Developing cool and usefull Blog stuff.
    Thanks to Jonas, too, for the work he has done.

    I hope you get the problems with your Blog under control. Well, Freya is at least reachable again ;-)

  • It was down while I upgraded from WordPress 1.5 to 1.5.1 nightly.

  • Are there big differences between 1.5 and 1.5.1? Or ist it mainly Bugfixing?

    As far as I can seen, it works correct now.

  • Very nice..

    Look forward to seeing the plugin – the weighted display is very cool.

  • I don’t see anything out of the ordinary…

    Where’s the digging archives? I just see a list with (#) behind the categories..and now it’s all gone.

    You should implement it before you post about it :P

  • AkaXakA, what the devil are you talking about? Screenshot please.

  • Ah, that was my old reply from half an hour ago.

    After a hard reload it came up, and damn, that is really cool!

    Now all we need is a category digger just like this date digger :)

  • I’m sure Jonas is listening ;)

  • Hey, pretty cool!

    Just one thing, theres a really noticable lag when I click on a year or month, is this normal? Sometimes nothing happens at all.

    Otherwise, I’m looking forward to putting it on my site!

  • And after that, it could even be implemented in something like this:
    http://​aka​.gameover​.com/​w​e​b​m​a​r​k​s​.​php

    It’d probably be crazy difficult, but boy would it be nice.

  • Now all we need is a category digger just like this date digger :)

    I am indeed listening, and would appreciate ideas on merging the two (unless you think a category digger should be a seperate plugin).

  • It’s a good idea but it doesn’t look very good in Firefox 1.03 on the pc. It’s all issues to do with the styling so I’m sure you’ll sort them out eventually. If you want me to send you a screenshot I will.

    Very slow reaction time as well… I’m guessing it uses some sort of Ajax style ‘connect to the server and get the correct info’, which would account for the lag. Maybe hiding the links and replacing with a loading/ processing symbol so that people know something is happening?

    Anyway – once it’s all working properly I would definately consider adding it to my blog :)

  • Nice work Jonas & Michael. I’m looking forward to implement it on my website. Just a quick note: the layout needs some order! See the print screen. Those comment numbers should be aligned and not overlapped.

  • Michael, just another heads up. The same problem as noted by Ben and Vitor exist in Firefox for mac. Looks beautiful in safari though :)

  • Aah – looks like you have sorted it out already. Looks much better now.

  • Yeah, Firefox seemed to stumble on a float:right I had in there.

  • Jonas, Micheal: This is what I’m thinking about: live-category.gif (22kb).

    In A you’d see the digger as it’s now. Then press on Cat. and B shows. Now as people’d browse through the categories, you need to take the multiple levels of categories in account. My solution, as seen in C is rather crude, but I’m sure you can think of something nicer (how does Apple do it when browsing folders on a disk??).

    Maybe having the articles display underneath the 3 collumns would be better, but that has it’s own disadvantages.

    Jonas: I think 2 seperate plugins would be better, maybe even with a ‘master’ plugin in on top. (for the browsing view changer and maybe basic js libaries needed). I know to little of the WordPress plugin system to really give a definitive answer, but something modular is probably better, as I’d like to port it to Xaraya (and maybe TxP).

  • very nice. the only thing i was going to mention was the firefox styling problems as well.. but i’m sure you’ll work that out soon enough.

  • I’m going back and forth with the styling just now, so…

  • I have to say “Grats, Jonas! “

    Michael : This is way better than what we discussed some days ago. I am looking forward for the code release.

  • Just so you know, IE is getting javascript errors of a generic type, so the LA aren’t doing their thing ;)

  • Ah, and I think I know why. It has to do with the way events are added in javascript. I will look at it before I release it.

  • beautiful!

  • The plugin has now been released, let the carnage begin.

    The Engineered Boulderer’s Super Archive

    I have made some corrections to the event handling so it should work with internet explorer, but I have not been able to test it.

  • Oh yeah, question and bug reports should of course be made on my blog entry.

    cheers.

  • Beautifully done on the live search addition, still love commenting with the live preview. Web apps were meant to be cool like this! Keep up the good work. ;)

  • Looks ace! Very nice work indeed!

    I look forward to the category view as well.

  • I’ve updated my UI Idea of the Live Cat Digger: live-category.gif.

    Comments welcome.

    Michael, Jonas: If you want to get together to work out this idea (or need css help) just mail me, Michael should have my address.

  • Oops, had a typo in the javascript of version 1.0. I have fixed the javascript and updated the plugin to version 1.1 which should work.

  • Is the “firefox issues” on BinaryBonsai the resizing of the space around the archives? e.g. when you click on Jan 2005 and then March 2005, you’ve got a lot of white space still hanging around underneath… (Firefox 1.03/Win)

    And has it been fixed in the plugin form? Great plugin regardless =)

  • Anyone have a quick fix for what we should put into our css files for this work appropriately?

    using Kubrick :-))

    solid stuff, guys!

  • I love the way that it works, though the js popup link-descriptors appear behind the live archive menu on my PC running FF 1.0.3.

  • Hmm… Wierd. For some reason, the black link-descriptors appeared the first time that I used it, but I cannot get that to reproduce. Sorry!

  • A version somehow for categories would be supercool B-)

  • Hey there Michael, just thought I would mention that a few of your categories aren’t showing up. Clicking on any category from any entry on the homepage displays your gorgeously designed 404 – and your menubar shows up half-way down the 404 page. Thanks for your diligent work on K2 by the way – all us K1 users are jonesing for your magic. SHAZAM!

  • Btichin’.

    Further props to Jonas for being one of the most awesome folks I know. I’m certain he will soon achieve world domination.

  • I have a question about javascript to fix some bugs in the Super Archive. If you know anything about the Javascript Event Model in Internet Explorer, please head over to Help needed with the javascript event model in IE and drop a comment.

  • Looks cool – now, if only I could actually get to Jonas’ website to check live archives out (without a constant timeout), I’d be happy..

    Oh well.

  • Michael,

    You have the ‘comment email notify’ toggled on (by default) – which means anyone leaving a comment has to untick the tick box if they do not want email updates. You’ll be emailing unsuspecting folk a lot of comments they might not be aware they’ve subscribed to :)

  • Yes I know; that was actually on purpose. I’ve tried it before, and never got any complaints about it. The idea behind it being that people sometimes have a tendency to hit-n-run, leaving their questions behind, but never returning simply because they forget.

    Either way, I’m open for critique.

  • Cool – no probs.

  • if only I could actually get to Jonas’ website to check live archives out (without a constant timeout)

    Michael, you’ve created a new DDOS. I’ll call this one getting his with a BB. :)

    Regarding email comments. I prefer leaving it on. I’d rather get hit with an email from a discussion I’m a part of than not knowing what was going on cause I lost the link. Much easier to come back to the site and turn off the notification than it is to come back to a link a week later and have to play catch-up on an interesting conversation.

  • ‘tis a valid point Chris. I’ll just keep quiet over here in the cheap seats. :)

  • ‘tis a valid point Chris. I’ll just keep quiet over here in the cheap seats. :)

    Sorry, I wasn’t jumping back at you. :) I was just giving Michael my critique. If it’s any comfort I reckon I’m in the minority.

  • Thats VERY nice.

    I’ve not taken a look under the hood as it were, but the final product it very nice. I was thinking of doing something similar for my blog with the ajax toolkit I just released but wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted. What you have here is basically it, though as some people have said – a category option would be nice. Pretty easy to impliment I would have thought.

    Very nice work though, I’ll have to have a poke around in the code at some point ;)

  • how can i use this in a default WP Page ?

  • never mind, worked as soon as i sent this comment (as usual ;) )

  • Not that the css was bad at all (actually really good!), but I did see some things I could tighten up.

    la-css.txt (about 30 lines less)

  • Nice, I like. ;)

  • Wow. That’s hot. I mean really hot. Btw, I’m on a PC using Firefox 1.0.2 and it looks great to me.

    One thing about the digging method, it really reinforces the importance of succinct entry titles!

  • Great website! I didn’t realize it was so big and this area is nice to read various posts and opinions.

    I found a place for Car Loans. They also do New Car Loans, Used Car Loans, and Bad Credit Car Loans nationwide!

  • Great website! I didn’t realize it was so big and this area is nice to read various posts and opinions.

    Heh, you know Michael, he’s right. :)

  • Heh, you know Michael, he’s right. :)

    What’d you know, even spammers may be right from time to time.

  • Thank you for sharing! Muchly appreciated. :)

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