Limit description length to 160 in 1.6.4

[Holger]

The presentation can obviously be improved -- any suggestions?

I think the presentation is simple and ok. But displaying only the number of characters seems to be useless for most users without a short description. Maybe we should extend the help-string?
BTW: it took me some time to find the feature because I've looked at Settings -> Language and not at the Meta - tab . Should that feature not added to Settings -> Language -> Meta -> Description too .

[cmb]

Maybe we should extend the help-string?

Yes, that's a good idea.

BTW: it took me some time to find the feature because I've looked at Settings -> Language and not at the Meta - tab . Should that feature not added to Settings -> Language -> Meta -> Description too .

As I see now, svasti was speaking of the language setting only, so we have to care of this. It's not clear to me how to handle it: (a) adding a counter for all textareas, (b) hard coding an exception for the meta description only, or (c) introduce a new type in metaconfig? I'd prefer (b) or (c).

[svasti]

Just looked at the ongoing new version.
The intention of the counter was to be placed in Settings/Language/meta_description, as this is the most importent description for the site and read by the search engines.

I never thought of the pagedata description. Of course it would be useful there too.

The present implementation doesn't seem to work on my machine: "Description:[0]" is now visible and doens't change when I enter text. Not even after clicking submit. Only after going to another page and coming back to the description tab is the number of chars indicated. However usually one doesn't go back to this view, because one thinks the job of stating a specific description is finished.

a) adding a counter for all textareas, (b) hard coding an exception for the meta description only, or (c) introduce a new type in metaconfig? I'd prefer (b) or (c).

Yes (b) or (c), I tend towards (b) as this seems to be rather special and limited in scope.

[cmb]

The present implementation doesn't seem to work on my machine: "Description:[0]" is now visible and doens't change when I enter text. Not even after clicking submit. Only after going to another page and coming back to the description tab is the number of chars indicated.

Apparently the JavaScript doesn't work for you. Do you get any error message in the browser's console?

a) adding a counter for all textareas, (b) hard coding an exception for the meta description only, or (c) introduce a new type in metaconfig? I'd prefer (b) or (c).

Yes (b) or (c), I tend towards (b) as this seems to be rather special and limited in scope.

I agree. If the need arises, we could extend that later.

[svasti]

Apparently the JavaScript doesn't work for you. Do you get any error message in the browser's console?

I don't know what it was. Somehow java script didn't work in this particular case, not in Firefox nor in Chrome. As I was hunting through the browser's console suddenly the computer monitor got a refresh and it started to work.
Anyhow its working now and I find it perfectly nice. Yes, the help file could give a little hint about the 150-160 max chars to be search engine friendly.

[cmb]

I don't know what it was. Somehow java script didn't work in this particular case, not in Firefox nor in Chrome. As I was hunting through the browser's console suddenly the computer monitor got a refresh and it started to work.

Maybe admin.js was still loaded from the cache before.

Anyhow its working now and I find it perfectly nice.

Good.

Yes, the help file could give a little hint about the 150-160 max chars to be search engine friendly.

I will add this, and the change for the language settings.

[cmb]

Yes, the help file could give a little hint about the 150-160 max chars to be search engine friendly.

I will add this, and the change for the language settings.

Done (r1459 + r1460). However, currently there is no way to add help texts to the language settings, so I have documented the "maximum" length in the Wiki.

[svasti]

Very nice