December 6, 2006
MarkBernstein.org
 

Indexing Your Archives

Tim Bray and Anil Dash are exploring compact indexes for their weblog archives. Bray calls this a Dash View, which is a great name — we should name things more often for people. I'm a little miffed, I guess, because I've been using this kind of view for years, both in the right sidebar (for Book archives) and the footer (for weblog archives).

2024 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2023 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2022 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2021 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2020 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | MarFeb | Jan

2019 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | MarFeb | Jan

2018 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2017 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2016 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2015 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2014 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2013 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2012 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2011 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2010 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2009 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2008 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2007 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2006 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2005 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2004 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2003 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2002 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2001 Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | old

This is a live example, transcluded from the current navigation footer. Someday, no doubt, the navigation scheme will change; someone will have a great new idea, I'll implement it, and this weblog post will have a broken or incorrect example. For now, though, it's a nice specimen of experimental information archicture.

Dash View has a certain ring to it. We could call it a dash board.

Chronological access is literally geeky: we're exploring it because we can, not because it's useful. It's far more useful to provide good topical access, and still better to link things together. But if dates are what you have, then it's better to represent and use the dates than to treat your archives as fish wrap.