Update to website code

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brettz9
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Update to website code

Postby brettz9 » Wed Dec 06, 2006 6:32 am

Greetings all,

From Jonah's supervision of this website from a hand-coded HTML website from documents he started collecting way back (was it 1997?) to a dynamically driven website with over 2200 distinct items, the site has come a long way, thanks also to your contributions.

Jonah was also generous enough to host a number of websites and provide mentoring for those of us learning the technical ins and outs needed for our own projects.

Now Jonah has graciously allowed myself to go ahead with an update to the code of the site. I expect that there may be some kinks to work out, not the least of which may be the speed of the loading of pages (we're working on it), but any feedback on the new site would be most appreciated. Feel free to leave the feedback in this discussion thread.

Besides some behind-the-scenes improvement (which would be relevant for any programmers or designers who wanted to help us advance the software further and which I could share for any interested), the new site now allows for:

1) translation of the interface of the website (and even potentially individual files) into an unlimited number of languages (any volunteer translators are most welcome now that we have an easy interface for translations of the words and phrases used in our interface)
2) Separation for the user between interface language and content language, with interface language being the language in which you want to receive directions, etc. (if that segment of the website has already been translated into your language) and with content language being that which will narrow down a listing (including now on the main page as well) of only those items in your desired content language (e.g., showing only those files which are in French).
3) Searching site-wide by author or language
4) Greater XHTML and accessibility enhancement
5) A number of security fixes and a few small bug fixes

Many more features are intended for down the road which I can go into further if there is interest.

If you like the site, and the services being provided here, please do consider a donation to encourage the maintenance and development of this site. Jonah has barely been able to break even on the server costs (not including his countless hours of labor). We would also like to be able to dedicate more time to improving the site's features. A donation really would be appreciated from those who find the site helpful and would like to see it expand further, http://bahai-library.com/file.php5?file=support . Again, any feedback is welcome, as are any feature requests (no promises on the latter though!).

best wishes,
Brett

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