Local Thoughts blog

One of the most requested features for Local Thoughts has been the ability to view shorter versions of the feed items. The main reason for this request is the desire to skim quickly and read only the items that are interesting. Well… this feature has now been added to Local Thoughts.

Local Thoughts now has three different item display modes.

The “Title only” display mode removes all of the body text and only displays the title of the item as well as date and author information.

Many feeds are nice enough to offer a short version or description of the item content. The “Short” item display mode will show the content description if it has been provided. If the feed did not provide a content description Local Thoughts simply creates a short version by truncating the content at around three hundred and fifty characters.

The “Full” mode displays the entire item content as was always the case before the addition of the item display modes.

What is really nice about this new feature is that not only can you select the item display mode for each topic and city, you can also quickly select the display mode for a particular item without reloading the page. The display mode settings which affect the entire page are located near the top of the page beside the city or topic description. The per-item display mode settings can be found in the top right corner of each item.

For those of you who login to create and modify feeds or to take advantage of the favourites system your selected display mode setting for each topic and city will be remembered. If you view the site anonymously the display mode setting will be applied to every city and topic you visit.

If you have any comments, questions or problems relating to this new feature please let us know!