with Lorelle and Brent VanFossen

History of the Nikon F Series Cameras

Nikon F4 Camera bodyResearching an article on photography, I ran across an article written by Yokoyuki Tateno for Nikon on the The History of Nikon Cameras – History of the Nikon F Series: Nikon F4. The article literally opens the innards of the history of Nikon and the Nikon f4 camera body, using the history of Nikon’s camera development resulting in the Nikon f4 camera, one of the most successful early Nikon cameras heralded by professional photographers worldwide, including by us. We love the Nikon F4.

The Nikon camera story begins with the release of the Nikon I in 1948, while the F5, its direct descendant, made its appearance in April 1996. I think that taking a chronological look over these 50 years of history and various model changes is a fascinating task.
But what happens if you trace backwards ?
That’s what I’ve done with this article — review Nikon camera history in reverse chronological order, examining the links between models and the characteristics of each product.
Yokoyuki Tateno, Nikon Corportation – History of Nikon F Series

Understanding the reasons and technologies behind the design of a camera helps users understand how to use it better. If you are a camera equipment, Nikon or Nikon f4 fan, this is a fascinating look at the decision-making process at how the Nikon F4 was developed.

This article has concentrated on a cross-section of the F4’s development at a certain period of time, and though it may appear that it merely incorporated the specifications of the full-auto camera without modification, this is not the case.

In fact, the current F4 camera was developed through a succession of questions such as “what type of camera is needed?” and “what is the optimum camera system?”

The advanced technical challenge of the F4 camera was evident in a number of places, but this thorough and determined approach was only natural given Nikon’s attitude toward camera-making — strive for the best. If only looked at through this stance alone, the F4 is unique in that other AF SLRs were developed from a basic desire to create or fill a product niche.

The article continues in Part 2 of History of the Nikon f4 Camera and you can learn even more about the history of Nikon, an honest look at the historical facts, materials, products, and product development.

I also found an interesting summary of Nikon F4 specifications that isn’t included in the history of the camera, which is interesting in and of itself for Nikon F4 enthusiasts.

Journal: Falling Trees and Friends Part Three

Journal: Falling Trees and Friends Part Three
Greensboro, NC
July 6, 1998

The next morning, I awoke to a kitten in the truck and an angry old cat in the trailer. I put the kitten back in the trailer and let the old cat get angrier, and caught up with Linda, the healed Southern Baptist, for our early morning walk the next morning. At the end of our walk, we neared the campground office and found Martin talking with a woman also staying in the campground. Thank goodness, her stay was temporary.

She was among the many in town for the “Reverend Leroy Jenkins Revival and Healing Ministry” tent show setup not far from here. Linda had been attending when she could get a ride, but hadn’t told me much about it yet.

Both Linda and I could see that Martin was more than a little uncomfortable to be snagged by this woman, so we walked up to join them and rescue Martin.

Next to Martin, this woman was a stick of a thing, all wired and electrified with intent. We could hear her rattling on, her voice more shrew than bird-like, going on and on about how Martin MUST go to the “tent” to get healed. It would heal his heart, head and hopefully his trailer (okay, so I’m exaggerating a little, but her enthusiasm was…VAST).

Linda, trying to ease his discomfort and add some grace to this woman’s obnoxious intensity, advised Martin that she has attended and, indeed, wonderful healings were happening. She quietly added that he needed to do what he felt comfortable with and not feel any pressure to attend the revival.

Janet went on, stomping over Linda’s tempered words and hooted that “GREAT HEALINGS are HAPPENING there. The LORD IS THERE with Reverend JENKINS and I’ve seen some incredible HEALINGS! GOD is IN that TENT!” (more…)

Nanotech Moves Closer to Cure for Cancers and More

While our site is about travel, nature photography, and life on the road, and the use of the computer to make life easier on the road, every once in a while I stumble across a piece of news that is so exciting, I just have to share it. Wired News reports Nanotech Moves Closer to Cure for Cancer and other diseases. I’ve been following nanotechnology for the bio industry for a few years and this is really exciting stuff.

Instead of using live viruses to destroy diseased cells, why not send in man-made, nanoscale molecules with tiny tendrils that scientists could engineer to battle specific types of cancers?

Remember, this was the early ’90s. Few had even heard of the internet, much less “nanotechnology,” which was then firmly the domain of futurists, and certainly not on the radar of respectable beaker slingers.

“In fact, there was a lot of derision at NIH (National Institutes of Health) that this was not real science,” Baker recalls. “But as it became clear that gene therapy was not going anywhere without different approaches, I think the reality of, the necessity of, bioengineering in this process became clear.”

Today, the National Cancer Institute is on its way to becoming a Nano Cancer Institute as it prepares to spend $144.3 million over five years on the engineered nanoparticles “approach” that Baker and just a few others had championed more than a decade ago. As for Baker, he’s doing rather well in his corner office at the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology with a panoramic view of downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Star Trek-technology is on the horizon and I hope we can all benefit from it soon.

Nikkor 35mm SLR Lens History, Terminology and Technology

We’ve been shooting Nikon and Canon alternately for a long time. Brent adores his Nikon and tollerates the Canon, and I tollerate Canon, but use it anyway.

When I started in nature photography in 1975, there was little information available. Now it is overwhelming, and the Internet has expanded those resources. I was delighted to find Nikkor 35mm SLR Lens History, Terminology and Technology by Ken Rockwell which examines the technical terminology of Nikon or Nikkor lenses and equipment.

The key is to understand Nikon’s alphabet soup. Each time they add a new lens feature they usually retain the previous lens features, so the newest lenses have long lists of letters behind them. One usually can ignore the earlier letters, even though they still apply. As we will see, today’s AF lenses are still AI-s and F mount, even though they don’t always list that.

While still a work in progress, this is a fine work that takes you through the “alphabet soup” of Nikon and gives you insight into what they were or might have been thinking and doing through their lens and equipment development.

While Rockwell’s site is very old fashioned in design and layout, and cumbersome to move around, it is packed with a lot of interesting information and valuable resources. The How to Do Anything Photographic contains a list of technical articles and how tos that are very helpful and intersting.

Some of the articles are actually innovative and worthy of attention, like How to Use a Digital Camera as an External Light Meter, which should also be subtitled, “Using a Digital Camera as a Replacement Polaroid”, explaining how to take “test shots” with a cheap digital camera with a preview screen so you can “see” the results before you click the shutter on your serious camera. There are flaws in this concept, which he tackles right off the bat with “Overall camera calibration”. Excellent.

Keep up the good work, Ken.

Journal: Falling Trees and Friends – Part Two

Journal: Falling Trees and Friends Part Two
Greensboro, NC
July 5, 1998

We learned later that the storm that hit us brought with it something I’d never heard of. A “white wind”. The news described it as “not a tornado but a very unusual wind blast created when two extreme weather conditions came together with force.” It’s a wind “explosion” created by the collision which forces the wind to slam straight down from the sky to blast into the ground. Once smacking the ground, it will then shoot out to the sides, smashing everything in its path.

It smashed into downtown Greensboro and hit pavement, which definitely isn’t very forgiving like farmland and blasted out windows in office buildings throughout the downtown area. The sideways wind blast scattered in all directions, plowing down anything that had any give. The rotting tree next to Martin’s trailer, complained about and reported to the campground office repeatedly, couldn’t withstand the blast. It snapped off near the base, crossing Martin’s trailer and slapping it’s top against ours.

The remaining stump revealed wood that was more sawdust from bug infestation and rot than solid tree.

As we dealt with the story in the campground, Brent had his own problems. (more…)

On the Road Full-time with Beauty and the Beast

Our trailer on a long winding curved road in Arkansas, photograph by Lorelle VanFossenNot long after our arrival here in Mobile, Alabama, we ran into Rita and Bob, a couple not much older than Brent and I who gave up their “American Lifestyle” to hit the road full-time about a year ago. Rita and I crawled into the truck for an all day excursion to the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival on the other side of Mobile Bay.

It was fasinating to talk to someone so much like me and yet new with this “living on the road” business. It brought back tons of memories of our first year on the road, innocent and naive and yet determined to survive and overcome every obstacle the road threw at us. And the road threw a LOT at us. Rita spoke of learning to give up “stuff” and constantly fighting her passion for books (books are weight!), and streamlining their lifestyle down to a trailer a tad smaller than ours.

We laughed and cried about the struggle to stay in touch with friends and family, the hideous lack of Internet access, and the fun and woes of life on the road. We shared some of our dreams and expectations about what life on the road would be, and how reality was a harsh slap in the face, but also better than we ever imagined. (more…)

Keyboard of the Future?

Personally, as soon as they restructure the disaster of the layout of normal keyboards into something ergonomic and more intutitive, the computer will be limited. But here is a step in the right direction. Optimus keyboard by Artemy Lebedev has been announced.

This is the design prototype and the finished version is due out in 2006. It features a very low structure with a slight slant and a minimalist look. But the power is what is UNDER the keys not how it looks.

Supposedly it will automatically detect the language you have your computer set for and display those keys on your keyboard. Having used a Hebrew keyboard for the past five years, I can tell you that my touch typing ability was definitely a plus in Israel, until I found an English and Hebrew combined keyboard.

And the keyboard will automatically detect which program you are using and highlight function keys related to that program. Very cool.

Same with games. The keyboard letters and symbols will change to colorful icons, graphics, or words. Very cool.

Definitely a new way to make the computer keyboard more user friendly.

Have I Told You I Hate the Heat?

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL
1200 PM CDT SAT JUL 23 2005

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MOBILE HAS ISSUED A HEAT ADVISORY FOR SOUTHWEST ALABAMA…THE NORTHWEST FLORIDA PANHANDLE AND A PORTION OF EXTREME SOUTHEAST MISSISSIPPI.

AFTERNOON TEMPERATURES IN THE MID TO UPPER NINETIES COMBINED WITH A HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT WILL RESULT IN HEAT INDICES RANGING FROM 107 TO 112 DEGREES. SLIGHTLY WARMER TEMPERATURES WILL OCCUR ON SUNDAY…
WITH SLIGHTLY HIGHER HEAT INDICES AS WELL. NIGHTTIME TEMPERATURES WILL NOT OFFER MUCH RELIEF FROM THE HEAT…WITH LOWS TYPICALLY IN THE UPPER SEVENTIES.

URBAN AREAS WILL HAVE AFTERNOON HIGH TEMPERATURES AND HEAT INDICES THAT ARE A FEW DEGREES HIGHER STILL…MAKING FOR AN EVEN MORE DANGEROUS HEAT STRESS SITUATION.

SLOW DOWN AND TAKE YOUR TIME TODAY AND SUNDAY AND SPEND MORE TIME IN AIR-CONDITIONED PLACES. STRENUOUS ACTIVITIES SHOULD BE REDUCED… ELIMINATED OR RESCHEDULED TO THE COOLEST TIME OF THE DAY…USUALLY BETWEEN 400 AM AND 700 AM. STAY INDOORS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. IF AIR CONDITIONING IS NOT AVAILABLE…STAY ON THE LOWEST FLOOR…OUT OF THE SUNSHINE. ALSO…TRY TO GO TO A PUBLIC BUILDING WITH AIR CONDITIONING EACH DAY FOR SEVERAL HOURS. REMEMBER…ELECTRIC FANS DO NOT COOL THE AIR…BUT THEY DO HELP SWEAT EVAPORATE…WHICH COOLS YOUR BODY.

WATER IS THE SAFEST LIQUID TO DRINK DURING HEAT EMERGENCIES. AVOID DRINKS WITH ALCOHOL OR CAFFEINE IN THEM. THEY CAN MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD BRIEFLY…BUT MAKE THE HEATS EFFECTS ON YOUR BODY WORSE. THIS IS
ESPECIALLY TRUE ABOUT BEER…WHICH DEHYDRATES THE BODY.

NEVER LEAVE ANYONE IN AN UN-AIRCONDITIONED CAR WITH THE WINDOWS UP…TEMPERATURES INSIDE A CAR WITH THE WINDOWS UP CAN REACH OVER 150 DEGREES QUICKLY…RESULTING IN HEAT STROKE AND DEATH.

A HEAT ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHENEVER HEAT INDICES ARE EXPECTED TO BE AT LEAST 107 DEGREES FOR THREE HOURS OR MORE WITH OVERNIGHT LOW TEMPERATURES IN THE UPPER SEVENTIES OR MORE.

You know it’s bad enough when the weather radio alarm goes off, television and radios warn of the horrible heat temperatures and indexes, and when my Internet browser weather warnings start flashing alerts at me…but gees, do they have to type the alerts in captial letters? Hasn’t NOAA and the National Weather Service learned to announce their alerts and warnings in lower case letters??

Or maybe just sum it all up by saying, “DAMN, IT’S HOT. STAY COOL.”

Duh!

You know, I’ve been under terrorist alerts, smog alerts, poor air quality alerts, tornados alerts, hurricane alerts, flood alerts, and even homeland security alerts. But now a HEAT ALERT!

I HATE HEAT!!!!!

Just thought you should know.

Lorelle, from Mobile, Alabama, aka Hell

Journal: Falling Trees and Friends – Part One

Journal: Falling Trees and Friends Part One
Greensboro, NC
July 1, 1998

We have survived our arrival in North Carolina and are slowly beginning to get entrenched here. Tomorrow my mother arrives for our first “from home” visitor to our new “temp” home. I’ve gotten to know some of the people around the campground, especially the ones who are “home” during the day. A couple of them generously allow themselves to be victimized by my need to escape and escort me in their vehicles out of the trailer for lunch, laundry and movies. Oh, and the occasional shopping trip. Now that we are making some money again, I can spend a little.

One of our next door neighbors, Martin, just bought a old used computer. Not just old but ancient, and old 486 machine. I’d almost forgotten about computers that old, but they still serve a purpose. He’d heard I was a computer whiz of some kind. I try not to be obvious about that, since we have so much expensive computer equipment in our nondescript trailer, but he’s one of the few nice people in the campground I’ve met, I’ll help him out.

Martin is just a giant teddy bear and very sweet. Recently, he looked very tired and sad. Seems he just found out he needs open heart surgery soon. That would be terrifying enough except for the fact that he is HUGE. Martin is not just fat, he is very, very tall and very, very heavy on top of that. Unfortunately, the doctors can’t do the surgery as they don’t have a blood circulator to accommodate the amount of blood his 350 plus pound body need during the surgery. He has to lose weight before they can do the surgery. I told him I could help with that along with his ancient computer.

I’ve also met Linda, a very seriously religious (Southern Baptist religious) woman. I put out signs around the office promoting morning walks 3 times a week. She was my first “victim”. (more…)

Telling Stories from 1996 to 1999

As I start work again on my book, Home is Where Lorelle is, I will be posting some chapters here on our site in the Telling Zone under 1996-1999 when we hit the road full-time, crossing North America from Seattle to Florida to Arizona to Alaska to Florida and a lot of places in between and not in that order.

We covered over 60,000 miles in our first 18 months, went through tons of tires, gas, film, and headaches. Every day was a story of interesting people, travel, adventure, agony, and challenges. And we survived.

Enjoy.

A Legend is Gone: Scotty

Having been a fan of Star Trek for a very long time, even changing my schedule around to watch the show, I was heartbroken to learn that we’ve lost James Doohan, aka Scotty.

Diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2004, he made his good-byes in public to the world and stepped into the shadows. The cause of death was pneumonia. A Canadian, it surprised me to know that he made his last home in Redmond, Washington, home of Microsoft and not far from my childhood home.

We lost Deforest Kelley a few years ago. It is amazing how the Star Trek legacy was grown and expanded from a television series that was condemned before it barely got started. Only three years on the air and now it’s a part of our culture.

Thank you to Doohan, Kelley, Shatner, Nimoy, and all of our Star Trek legends and the ones who followed. You made our world brighter, full of hope for the future, and your roles became role models for everyone. Thanks.

Feeds for the Traveler and You

The term “feeds” is not about eating. It is about “feeding” you information from the web that you need to help you as you travel on the road or on the Internet. A “feed” or “webfeed” is a term for delivering summaries of web content, such as web pages, news, press releases, and other content to your computer in a short and “condensed” form.

There is a LOT of information on the Internet. Keeping up with all of it is time consuming and tedious. Feeds make it possible for websites to “feed” you their content so you can go through the information quickly and easily, and in one place. Basically, their websites come to you rather than you go to them. From your feed reader, each site’s posts or summaries includes a link to their website’s content, so with one click, you can access the information you want and not have to go digging around. If you are following developments or content at a number of websites, using their feeds will help you to keep up with the information fast and easy.

Think of feeds as the headline news. Like the table of contents of a magazine, enticing you to flip to page 42. Got it?

I loved this description from USC Annenburg Online Journal Review article on RSS Feeds:

These days it’s not easy being an infowarrior. As the number of blogs and niche news sites continue to soar, how do you keep on top of everything?

While most Netizens still surf to Web sites to catch the latest postings, more users have found that to be a laborious, time-consuming way to browse. Instead they are installing “newsreader” software that constantly plucks feeds from Weblogs and news outlets and pulls them together onto a single screen.

Real Life Example of Using a Feed Reader

Get Firefox!In the morning after I’ve responded to all the emergencies that seem to greet me lately, I click the button in my browser that accesses my feeds. It’s called a “feed reader”. I use Sage, a free extension or add-on for Firefox, my web browser. In the sidebar, a list of sites, which resemble Favorites or Bookmarks, is visible. I currently get feeds from over 25 websites, including my own. I click a button which instructs the feed reader to go down through the list and check for new content on the feeds at the various sites on the list.

Summary posts from our site feed using Firefox Sage

If there is new content, the link turns bold. In the bottom section of the sidebar column is a listing of the posts summarized in the browser window for that site. I can go down through that list, hover my mouse over a link, and a small window will pop up with the first 100 or so words of the post. If I click the link, it will open that page in my browser. If I view or “read” that page, the bold will go away on that link as an indicator that I’ve read the page.

Sidebar of read and unread posts in Firefox Sage Feed ReaderIn my browser window is also the summaries or full posts of the content on that site. Instead of using the links in the sidebar, I can scroll down the list and read or click on any link on the page to instantly view that page.

By marking what I have read or not read, or not interested in, the next time I use my feed reader, it will only bold the things I haven’t read. I can quickly scroll down the list of sites looking for the bolded site names and links and determine at a glance what is worth paying attention to on the list.

I can pour through the content of 25 websites in a few minutes, taking only time to read what I want and go on. MINUTES where it used to take hours.

Feeds for the Traveler

Firefox Sage view of a feed from a websiteWhat I’ve described is great for the average user who wants to keep up with a consistent list of sites and information. Feeds for travelers is of even greater value.

When you are traveling, finding an Internet connection can be a challenge, and once you find one, your time online may be brief. You don’t have time to go through your favorite sites to catch up on the news and information. You have to get the information and get offline. Feed readers can help.

Feeds save time for short access times or even slow dial up connections, allowing you to gather the information you need and then get offline.

When you connect online, update your feeds immediately, so they can load while you get your email and get your immediate tasks done, like check bank accounts, credit card statements, flight times, or find maps. When the most critical tasks are done, go back to your feed reader and scan through the list of updates. If there is something of interest, click the site, and when it comes up in the browser, choose File, Save As, and save the web page to your hard drive. When you are done, disconnect. Then you can then read through these saved pages at your leisure, disconnected from the Internet. Some feed readers even feature built-in page saving features which make your life on the road even easier.

Why Should You Use Feeds?

We’ve covered the concept of fast and easy, but I want to address another reason why feeds re so valuable to use.

Remember the days of newsletters and magazines arriving in your mailbox? They were soon replaced with emailed newsletters, journals, life stories, and magazines. So much information you could barely keep up with all of it. Feeds are no different. They are the newsletters and magazines of today. The difference is that they don’t clutter up your living space and YOU choose what to allow into your “home” and you can eliminate it without pain and suffering. If you want timely information without wasting a lot of time, use feeds.

When you signed up for emailed newsletters and mailing lists, you risk exposing yourself to email spam? Handing out your email address to just anyone runs that risk. When you use feeds, you do so anonymously without giving any information out. You keep up with the news and stay protected from spammers and email harvesters.

Two summary posts in the Firefox Sage Feed ReaderThere are even more benefits for me, the website owner, as well as for you. I outline some of them in the article on Site Administration – Feeds Help Manage Your Site. For example, I was asked a few years ago to create a “What’s New” page to keep track of the changes and new content on our site. I did so, but it became tiresome to maintain since we are constantly adding new information. I’d only update it quarterly, so visitors to our site in the interim wouldn’t know which articles were really new or updated. Feeds allow us to call attention to all the changes and new articles we make on our site. Within a few seconds, you know right away what is new. It helps us by helping you stay updated with our activities and site content.

Feeds also present content. We work really hard to provide solid information and entertainment on our site. It’s not about how pretty our site it (though I do think it is much improved and prettier), and it isn’t about the bells and whistles we have on our site. Viewing our site through a feed reader strips away all the “pretty” and reveals the content, the words and pictures that provide helpful information you may need. It puts the focus back on “content”, something often forgotten by today’s web pages.

Using Feeders

There are a variety of feed readers out there. They are also known as aggregators and news readers. There are also a variety of feeds. The most popular feeds are RSS and Atomz.

There are basically four different styles of feed readers. Stand-alone independent readers that require no other software will gather the information and display it in their program. Web-based services allow you to keep track of your feeds via a web page, which is great for the traveler using Internet cafes and borrowed computers. Plugins or extensions for use within web browsers, and built-in feed readers which come with the software you are using like a web browser or email program.

Once you have chosen a feed reader, you have to find the feeds. There are thousands, possibly millions, of feeds out there. We have a list of feeds available on our site listed by feed type, category, comments, or the whole site.

RSS FeedWhen you are visiting a website, some web browsers, like Firefox, will alert you if the site features a feed with an icon in the status bar. Many websites will feature icons in the sidebar or footer to highlight their feeds. If you find a feed link, you can usually click and drag it to your feed reader’s feed list. But the easiest way to find a feed on a site is to use your feed reader to search the page for feeds. With one click, it will scan the site, looking for links to feeds, and then report back on what it finds.

From that report, you can choose which feed you want to follow. Once you have chosen a feed to follow, remember that if you grow tired of it or it isn’t providing you with the information you need, you can always delete it from the list.

On occasion a feed from a site will break. You will get some kind of warning that the feed wasn’t found or not available or an error. This might be fixed in a few minutes or a few days, but be patient. If it isn’t repaired in a day or so, and you have the time, visit the site and contact the site owner to let them know there’s a problem. I know that I would appreciate that since I don’t check our site’s feed every day.

Here are some of the popular feed readers:

Finding Feeds

Now that you are excited about feeds, it’s time to find some. There are many feed aggregator services and feed directories, with new ones popping up all the time. But begin by visiting your favorite sites first. If they don’t have a feed, and you visit their site often, consider asking the site owner to add one to their site.

Here are some aggregators and directories to help you find feeds.

For the traveler, here are a few feed resources with the traveler in mind.

Feed Resources

To learn more about feeds and feed readers, here are a few resources.

WordPress Backup Week July 23-30 – Get Backed Up

WordPress is celebrating blog security and protection with WordPress Backup Week July 23-30.

WordPress, one of the most popular blogging and website management tools, is sponsoring WordPress Backup Week July 23-30. Step-by-step backup instructions will be available in the online manual, the WordPress Codex, and online in the WordPress Support Forum to help you through the process.

Having lived on and off for the past month with numerous computer crashes and bleeding my fingers and brain all over the place trying to stay online and working, I can appreciate this reminder from WordPress a LOT.

Your database contains every post, every comment and every link you have on your blog. If your database gets erased or corrupted, you stand to lose everything you have written. There are many reasons why this could happen and not all are things you can control. But what you can do is backup your data, after all, it is important isn’t it? Making backups is essential because problems inevitably occur and you need to be in a position to take action when disaster strikes. Spending a few minutes to make an easy, convenient backup of your database will allow you to spend even more time being creative and productive with your web site.

Backing up your WordPress database has never been easier with WordPress plugins which allow you control over how, what, and when you backup, even emailing your database backups to you – all pain free. Documentation is available to take you through the step-by-step process, as well, for backing up your WordPress site and database with cPanel, vDeck, DirectAdmin, Plesk, and others.

For your own protection and security, and peace of mind, join us in learning how to backup and protect our valuable data and writings during WordPress Backup Week. Consider using this Backup Week as an incentive to backup all your valuable documents and software, too.

If you care about your friends and you don’t want to see them suffer through the same agonies as I and you may have had, tell them about this. Help them learn from our pain and suffering. Remind them BACKING UP IS A GOOD THING.

Tell the world.

Customizing the WordPress Loop for Excerpt Queries

I talk a lot about the powerful features and ability to customize WordPress on our site. One of the behind the scenes power WordPress “tricks”, if you will, featured on our site is found on our site’s front page. It involves some queries that ask several rather uniquely styled questions, and generates what you see based upon the answers from the database. Let me explain this better.

When you view the “home” page or front page of our site, you are greeted with a combination of excerpts or full short posts. On the left side of each post is a green bar. Each post features the title and post categories. Each post also features the excerpt summary, or first paragraph or two of the post, or the full length short post.

View of excerpts on front page of our website
Each excerpt on our page is defined by a green bar along the left edge. The first excerpt at the top uses the “more” tag to define the excerpt section within the post. The second excerpt is an explicitly defined excerpt using the Excerpt textarea window in the Write Post panel. The third excerpt is the full post. Note there is not “Continue Reading” link at the end of the post.

Now, let me break that down into PHP query talk. Inside of the WordPress Loop, which generates the page results from your database, is a query. The default query states “if there are posts, show the posts”. Very simple. It looks like this:

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<?php endif; ?>

A query is a bit of code that begins with an IF and then provides the answers based upon something like this in plain English:

If X then Y else Z

In PHP query language, the terms “if” and “then” are replaced by “if” and “else”. The query looks more like this:

If X else Y else Z

Most people use queries to say something like “if this post is in category 4, print it with a red background” or “if this post is in category 6, don’t show it”. Or they use queries to alphabetize the posts found on the front page, or to only show posts from a specific category, leaving the rest visible through category templates or other means. These are the traditional and most requested types of front page queries.

There are also two other elements to the query that need to be considered. They are two WordPress template tags, the_content() and the_excerpt().

Used within the WordPress Loop, the_content() displays the content of the post. It features a parameter which allows the site administrator to use a tag called “more” in a post. This shows the post’s beginning content until the “more” tag as an excerpt. If the “more” tag is not used, then the whole post is shown on mutli-post pages. The post author or administrator controls where the “more” tag is used.

The other tag is the_excerpt(). It replaces the_content() tag and displays one of two things. Either the explicit excerpt as written in the Excerpt textarea box on the Write Post panel, or the first 120 words of the post. It is used to force only excerpts to be seen on the multi-post pages.

Generally, a WordPress site owner or Theme author will use one or the other template tag. The problem is that I’m not your ordinary user.

That’s right. I had to have something different, something to challenge the WordPress experts. I challenged them, and this is what Michael Adams of MDAwaffe came up with just for me.

I wanted to use the explicit excerpt, the “more” tag, and the two template tags and have WordPress do the work of figuring out when I needed which, and to use it appropriately. The question put forth on the front page of our site is this:

If post content has an explicit excerpt, 
            display the explicit excerpt.
If post content uses the <--more--> to mark the ending post of the excerpt, 
            display this excerpt.
If post content uses NO EXCERPT, 
            display the entire post.

Here is the loop, without all the styles and references so you can see the actual code that asks the three questions. Comments are in place to help you follow the process.

<!-- Start of the Loop -->
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php if ( $post->post_excerpt ) : // If there is an explicitly defined excerpt ?>
  <!-- Display explicit excerpt-->
    <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
<?php else : // If there is not an explictly defined excerpt ?>
  <!-- Display post or post until READ MORE tag -->
    <?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endif; // End the excerpt vs. content "if" statement ?>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
  <!-- Display Page Not Found Page if post is not found -->
<?php endif; ?>

The key is in the line that says:

<?php if ( $post->post_excerpt ) : ?>

It provides the condition that looks for the explicitly defined excerpt. The rest of the query within the Loop is fairly normal.

The template tag the_content() has a parameter to set the “read more” statement. The template tag the_excerpt() does not.

This created a bit of confusion. It meant that if I set the_content() to say “Continue Reading”, it would only show up on the posts that used the “more” tag and not on the posts that used the_excerpt() template tag. Not very consistent looking. I needed to add the same look and text for the “Continue Reading” tag to the explicit excerpts.

The usage of the “more” within the_content() looks like this:

<?php the_content('<span class="readmore">CONTINUE READING <?>

The addition of a “faked more” tag to work with the the_excerpt() tag looks like this:

<?php the_excerpt(); ?><br />
<div class="readmore"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">CONTINUE READING </a></div>

Here is the entire customized Loop query. Note the use of the clearfix CSS style which is discussed in the article on WordPress Tips and Tricks on Themes and Templates.

<!-- Start of the Loop -->
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php if ( $post->post_excerpt ) : // If there is an explicitly defined excerpt ?>
<div class="excerpt-post clearfix">
<h2 id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" accesskey="s"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</h2>
<div class="catslist"><?php the_category(' and '); ?></div>
<div class="entry">
<?php the_excerpt(); ?><br />
<div class="readmore">
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">CONTINUE READING</a>
</div>
</div> <!--end of entry -->
<!-- <?php trackback_rdf(); ?> -->
</div><!-- end of excerpt-post -->
<?php else : // If there is not an explictly defined excerpt ?>
<div class="excerpt-post clearfix">
<h2 id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</h2>
<div class="catslist"><?php the_category(' and '); ?></div>
<div class="entry">
<?php the_content('<span class="readmore">CONTINUE READING</span>'); ?>
</div><!-- end of entry -->
<!-- <?php trackback_rdf(); ?> -->
</div><!-- end of excerpt-post -->
<?php endif; // End the excerpt vs. content "if" statement ?>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<h2 class="center">Page Not Found</h2>
<p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>
<p><?php _e('To help you find the information you seek,
we recommend you check out our
<a title="Camera on the Road Site Map" href="sitemap.php">Site Map</a>
to help track down what you are looking for.'); ?></p>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . "/searchform.php"); ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<!--end Loop -->

More WordPress Resources

This a powerful example of one of many options and queries possible within the WordPress Loop. For more information see the following resources:

CNET – Top 10 downloads of the past 10 years

Began in 1996, when we hit the road full time, C|net’s CNET Download offers free downloads of shareware and freeware applications. They are the largest source of such software products and continue to offer us some of the best programs through their online software distribution service.

Their Top 10 Downloads for the Past 10 Years caught my attention recently. I’m running seven of the top 10. I’ve been using 4 of the top 10 for more than 10 years. How many of these are you using on your computer?

A surprise on the list is Firefox. I put off downloading this new Internet Browser for a long time, not believing the hype about how awesome it was and what a fantastic replacement for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Get Firefox!Well, folks, BELIEVE THE HYPE. Since installing it and getting past the first day or so of “new – how does this work”, I’ve opened Internet Explorer only when I have to view a website I’m working on with MSIE to make sure it looks “right”. For personal viewing of web pages, I think I’ve used MSIE at the most five times over the past six months, and that was only for a website that had a feature that wasn’t web standard and didn’t work in Firefox, like a non-web standards software driven form or display of information. But that is extremely rare.

Firefox is relatively new, so to get on the list of the top 10 in 10 years, wow. That is saying something about the program. And it’s at number 4!!! With over 71,000,000 downloads, it has even surpassed WinZip, long in the top 5!

If you are looking for the most useful programs for your computer, check out this list and the other programs available from CNET Download.