Dinosaur Toy Blog changes

[DinoToyForum]

I've removed Twitter from the share icons below each review and replaced it with a Mastodon icon. Also, deleted the blog's Twitter profile link from the side bar and replaced it with a link to the blog's (i.e. my) Mastodon profile.

[DinoToyForum]

I've updated the search and filter function on the blog. Before it was only possible to search for a single category (company or higher taxonomy) or genus at a time. Now it is possible to combine categories and genera. So, for example, if someone wants so find all Jurassic World Pteranodon, they can now do so: https://dinotoyblog.com/category/jurassic-world/?tag=pteranodon

The blog is big enough that this functionality should come in handy. Let me know if it doesn't work properly1

[shahinos]

First post here. I'm not sure the function works properly. Before I could see all toys of let's say Diplodocus when I chose that animal in the Dinosaur category, regardless of brand. Now, if I choose Diplodocus and "All categories" I'm redirected to the 2008 Carnegie Diplodocus. Likewise, the similar Parasaurolophus search takes me to the 2007 Schleich version.

I very much preferred to be able to glance through all models of a specific dinosaurs, it gave me a great overview of rating, pictures, brand.

[DinoToyForum]

First post here. I'm not sure the function works properly. Before I could see all toys of let's say Diplodocus when I chose that animal in the Dinosaur category, regardless of brand. Now, if I choose Diplodocus and "All categories" I'm redirected to the 2008 Carnegie Diplodocus. Likewise, the similar Parasaurolophus search takes me to the 2007 Schleich version.

I very much preferred to be able to glance through all models of a specific dinosaurs, it gave me a great overview of rating, pictures, brand.

Welcome S @shahinos and thanks for the feedback. You're right, the filter isn't working correctly, thanks for flagging this! I'll try and fix it as soon as possible.

[DinoToyForum]

First post here. I'm not sure the function works properly. Before I could see all toys of let's say Diplodocus when I chose that animal in the Dinosaur category, regardless of brand. Now, if I choose Diplodocus and "All categories" I'm redirected to the 2008 Carnegie Diplodocus. Likewise, the similar Parasaurolophus search takes me to the 2007 Schleich version.

I very much preferred to be able to glance through all models of a specific dinosaurs, it gave me a great overview of rating, pictures, brand.

Welcome S @shahinos and thanks for the feedback. You're right, the filter isn't working correctly, thanks for flagging this! I'll try and fix it as soon as possible.

For now, I've reverted back to the basic search and filter by dinosaur genus. For some reason I can't get a simple category (company/group) filter to work as well, but I'll get to the bottom of it. In the long term I want to be able to have multiple concurrent filters so the visitor can filter as broadly or as finely as they wish.

[Fembrogon]

I was having similar problems with the search function; any genus or category would direct me to a single review, rather than the full list.
I love the idea, though; hopefully a resolution can be achieved soon.

[DinoToyForum]

I was having similar problems with the search function; any genus or category would direct me to a single review, rather than the full list.
I love the idea, though; hopefully a resolution can be achieved soon.

Yeah, it was definitely working properly at first (because I tested it) but something has subsequently gone awry. Perhaps a conflict with another plugin. But I agree it will be helpful to be able to use multiple filters like this so I'll work out a way to do so!

[DinoToyForum]

Would anybody miss the "previous" and "next" links at the top of individual blog review pages? I'm thinking of losing them. Personally I never use them, do you?

[suspsy]

Would anybody miss the "previous" and "next" links at the top of individual blog review pages? I'm thinking of losing them. Personally I never use them, do you?

Never.

[Flaffy]

Would anybody miss the "previous" and "next" links at the top of individual blog review pages? I'm thinking of losing them. Personally I never use them, do you?

Never used them either.

[BlueKrono]

Would anybody miss the "previous" and "next" links at the top of individual blog review pages? I'm thinking of losing them. Personally I never use them, do you?

Go ahead. I usually only use the links that connect to other reviews of that species or company.

[Paleo Flo]

Would anybody miss the "previous" and "next" links at the top of individual blog review pages? I'm thinking of losing them. Personally I never use them, do you?

Never used them either.

never

[DinoToyForum]

Thanks everyone.

Go ahead. I usually only use the links that connect to other reviews of that species or company.

Well, my intent is to make those category links more prominent, above the title to replace the "previous"/"next" links. So that change might go down well!

I'm also experimenting with more categories. At the moment there are two: genus, and category. I'm thinking of breaking this up into three: genus, brand(s), and classification(s). I'm also thinking of eventually adding a fourth: Period (i.e. Jurassic), which might be useful for diorama makers! A fifth, Scale would also be useful, but that would be a larger undertaking and would be asking a lot of reviewers/editors going forward, so I think I'll bench that for now. Can anybody think of other categories we could apply to reviews?

These will be different to the fact box we experimented with a few years ago in that they will be linked categories rather than just text.

[ceratopsian]

I never use those links.

Would anybody miss the "previous" and "next" links at the top of individual blog review pages? I'm thinking of losing them. Personally I never use them, do you?

[Gwangi]

I've never used them.

[DinoToyForum]

FYI, I'm trying to fix a minor issue with html tags in image captions not being rendered, so if you spot some unusual code in image captions, such as <em></em>, just ignore it. 

[DinoToyForum]

FYI, I'm trying to fix a minor issue with html tags in image captions not being rendered, so if you spot some unusual code in image captions, such as <em></em>, just ignore it. 

Fixed this.

[DinoToyForum]

I've made some minor changes to the position of the category buttons, which are now below the title on both the review page and archive pages/front page. Photos on archive pages are also now aligned right instead of left.

[bmathison1972]

I always watch these changes on DTB as I anticipate ATB will be next LOL.

For DTB these changes might work (although personally I fond them very bold and distracting). But on the ATB it could get a lot messier, since we have subcategories for larger taxonomic groups (for example, a butterfly could have Arthropods, Insects, Butterflies and Moths) and we have a lot more tags, since we use Latin genus, Latin genus + species, and common name (so, the complete review of the Club Earth butterfly set has 36 tags!).
I know I am going off on a tangent here, since this discussion isn't even about ATB, but something to consider if you were to homogenize the two blogsites!

[DinoToyForum]

I always watch these changes on DTB as I anticipate ATB will be next LOL.

For DTB these changes might work (although personally I fond them very bold and distracting). But on the ATB it could get a lot messier, since we have subcategories for larger taxonomic groups (for example, a butterfly could have Arthropods, Insects, Butterflies and Moths) and we have a lot more tags, since we use Latin genus, Latin genus + species, and common name (so, the complete review of the Club Earth butterfly set has 36 tags!).
I know I am going off on a tangent here, since this discussion isn't even about ATB, but something to consider if you were to homogenize the two blogsites!

Yes, I don't think some of the changes I'm making here will apply to the Animal Toy Blog. There are too many common names!