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Release Notes 1.2
jdee edited this page Jul 14, 2011
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Release 1.2 of Dubsar greatly enhances navigation among words, senses and synsets. It provides significant improvements to views on the main and mobile sites and introduces a rudimentary JSON web service to support iPhone and Android apps. It includes a Dubsar Mobile OpenSearch plugin for Firefox 5 Mobile. This release also includes an AJAX share dialog.
July 13, 2011
- Browse words, senses and synsets directly These things now all have their own views.
- Better lexical/semantic linking of pointers Previously, all pointer links (in tooltips) were simply search links. For example, one sense of the word evil, meaning "morally bad or wrong," is antonymous to one sense of the word good, meaning "morally admirable." Previously, the tooltip for that sense of evil would include a search link that would return all entries for the word good (three parts of speech and all their senses). Now the tooltip and the sense view include links to that individual sense, providing much more precise information. This applies to both the main and mobile sites, as well as the JSON service.
- OpenSearch protocol used in Dubsar autocompleter The same autocompletion protocol used to provide suggestions to browsers using the OpenSearch plugins is now used in the autocompleter both on the main and mobile sites.
- Dubsar Mobile OpenSearch plugin There is now a separate plugin (http://dubsar-dictionary.com/mobile-opensearch.xml) to allow Dubsar Mobile to be registered with a browser like Firefox 5 Mobile as a search engine.
- HTML 5 search input The search input field is now an HTML 5 "search" type input tag. It also uses the HTML 5 autofocus attribute to load the page with focus in that field.
- Search field prepopulated when displaying results When a search is returned, the search input is prepopulated with the previous search term. This is similar to the behavior of the mobile site (not to mention search engines like Google). It helps remind the user what they are looking at and facilitates quick editing of the term.
- Custom 404 pages Dubsar is now returning 404 status codes for the first time. Even for a bogus URL like http://dubsar-dictionary.com/foo, Dubsar always redirected to the previous page or the index view with an error message in the flash. Now it only redirects for valid searches (including a term parameter) that return no results. In all other cases, it gives a 404 with a custom error page. This includes the mobile site.
- Big mobile view improvements In particular, the mobile sense views that lay at the bottom of the navigation hierarchy included lots of small links that were hard to use because of their size. These have been replaced with collapsible divs and large buttons. There are also now mobile synset views in version 1.2.
- Share dialog Dubsar previously had links to social networks that were removed out of concern for the privacy of visitors to the site as well as their adverse impact on page load times. This version introduces an AJAX-backed share dialog. When the jQuery UI dialog opens, Dubsar populates the dialog with the response to an AJAX request. This keeps all external markup and content out of the main Dubsar site until the share link is clicked. Only then are the social buttons loaded. Page loads are still fast, and visitors who are not interested in sharing the site need not notify Facebook or Google of their presence. Facebook Like buttons come in dark and light themes. Dubsar switches the theme of the Facebook Like button to match its own display theme as the theme picker is used.
- Rudimentary JSON service It is now possible to retrieve all the data required to build all the HTML views in Dubsar via JSON. In particular, the /search, /words, /senses and /synsets routes all return JSON responses when so requested. For example: http://dubsar-dictionary.com/words/1.json. cf. http://dubsar-dictionary.com/words/1. This work was required to support applications for Android and iOS.
- Badly formatted pagination links Issue 30 Though not well advertised, the mobile interface still supports wild-card searches. Large search results (for "a%", for example) are paginated, 10 at a time. However, the pagination links did not display well under the listview div. The will_paginate footer was put into an h4, which jQuery Mobile styles better.
- Mobile autocompleter sometimes stays visible after a search is submitted Issue 31 This was introduced by making the search form submit an AJAX request. That was not a good idea.
- Autocompleter menu not hidden when search field cleared [Issue 32] (https://github.com/jdee/dubsar/issues/32) Some browsers (mainly Chrome and Safari) style "search" type input fields with an X to clear the contents of the field. That required some extra event handling to hide the autocompleter in that instance.
- Incorrect autocompleter results [Issue 33] (https://github.com/jdee/dubsar/issues/33) When you select the match case button in the search form on the main site, the autocompleter should honor that when suggesting results. In particular, select the match case button and then type in Fran. Many results beginning with lower-case fran would show up before France, for example. This was fixed when the autocompleter was converted to the OpenSearch protocol.
- OpenSearch broken in Firefox Mobile [Issue 34] (https://github.com/jdee/dubsar/issues/34) Firefox 5 for Android recognizes Dubsar as a search engine, but it would redirect to pages on the main site. A Dubsar Mobile OpenSearch plugin is now advertised on the mobile site and can be added to Firefox 5 Mobile on Android.
See Dubsar's full current list of open issues at https://github.com/jdee/dubsar/issues.
- Invalid inflections These have mostly been cleaned up. The remaining errors primarily involve verbs ending in a short syllable with l or s. The clean-up process continues.
- Missing inflections Some verbs do not list regular past-tense forms because of the presence of an irregular form. This requires review.
- OpenSearch suggestions not working with IE in a guest account With IE 8 on Vista, in a guest account, searching Dubsar from the browser's search box works, but an error is reported when requesting suggestions. This works fine on the same host in a privileged account.
- Dubsar autocompleter not working in Firefox 5 Mobile The entire QUnit test suite passes in that browser, but anything typed into the autocompleter does not work. That applies to the main site as well. That is, if you visit either of these URLS in Firefox 5 Mobile:
http://m.dubsar-dictionary.com/m
And type something into the search box on either page, you will not get any autocompleter suggestions. This could be due to an issue with jQuery UI in the Firefox 5 Mobile browser. It could also be a quirk of the recent separation of routes into different domains. However, if it were the latter, it would not likely be limited to one browser. Autocompletion works quite well in Mobile Safari on Android 2.2.1 and in the Apple iOS Simulator on OS X.
- Back: opening the right accordion pane Dubsar's accordions work well when refreshing a page, which happens in particular when a user requests a search returning no results. Dubsar will redirect to the previous screen (if the search was performed using the search form), open the correct accordion pane and position it where it was when that pane was opened. This does not work in the general case of going back to a previous screen.
- Back: getting the display theme right If you navigate from one Dubsar screen to another, change the display theme, then immediately go back, the previous page will be displayed in the previous theme.
- Header bar doesn't display well in a narrow window If the window is made too narrow, the search form will overlap the alphabet links on the left of the header bar.
- Wrong accordion pane with navigation option In a search like http://dubsar-dictionary.com/?term=turn#turn_v, the accordion pane for the verb should be open. It fails on every tested browser except Camino on OS X and Safari on Windows. It seems likely to be an issue between jQuery UI and the various browsers.
- Giant tooltips don't always scroll well On a page like http://dubsar-dictionary.com?term=jurisprudence, there is a sense with hundreds of pointers. In some browsers, a tooltip too large to fit on the screen can make the application unusable.
See Supported Browsers and Devices for updated information.
Dubsar requires a JavaScript-enabled browser. Currently, Dubsar works well in the following browsers:
- Firefox 3 & 5 on all platforms (Ubuntu, Vista, OS X)
- Google Chrome 6-12 on all platforms
- Safari 5 on OS X and Vista
- OmniWeb 5 on OS X
- Internet Explorer 8 & 9 on Vista
Dubsar has not been tested with a version of Internet Explorer below 8.
Dubsar Mobile has primarily been tested on an Android (2.2.1) and with Apple's iOS Simulator (4.3), using Mobile Safari in both cases and Firefox 5 Mobile on Android. Anecdotal reports indicate that it also works on Blackberry and iPad. Lack of available mobile testing devices prevents further testing for the moment. Testing is an ongoing activity.
The QUnit test suite currently passes in all listed browsers.
The server has been tested both on Ubuntu and OS X.