What's New in Version 4.0

by Jonah Winters

Version 4.0 of the Bahá'í Library has a new look (compare with 3.1). For consistency, I've implemented much of the same style sheet as used by Bahaikipedia and Wikipedia. For ease of use, I've implemented many upgrades to the interface, simplified the layout and streamlined the content of pages, and added new search shortcuts and browsing options. Here are some of the more visible front-end changes added (or fixed) in 2011-2012.

• User-controlled font sizing: click on the AA in the upper right corner. This will change the fonts on every page of the site.
• Browse book and journal series.
• Search by author name. Shortcut: type bahai-library.com/author/some name directly into your browser's address bar, like bahai-library.com/author/jonah winters.
• Search by title. Shortcut: type bahai-library.com/title/some title directly into your browser's address bar, like bahai-library.com/title/bibliography tablets.
• Added a huge amount of new content; see new items from the last two years.
• List of documents needing extra work proofreading and/or formatting: bahai-library.com/poor.
• More collection sort options: sort by date published or date posted. (And Collections pages simplified and re-tooled, necessary as some Collections are now over 500 items.)
• New top navbar, contextual by search page.
• Browse holdings in any language by typing the language name in the address bar, like bahai-library.com/French. Or see all holdings not in English, bahai-library.com/non-English.
• Expanded "about" page for each document, with more inter-linking between Library indexes and collections, e.g. bahai-library.com/2963.
• Site-wide cookies for language and sort options. Collections default to sorting by title, and showing English-language documents only. Change those options and the Library will remember your preferences.
• Author names are now linked to a page listing all items by that author; journal names are linked to a page listing all items published in that series, e.g. Bahá'í Studies Review.
• URL shortening. Old URLs were long and ungainly. New ones are short and easy to cite. Here are some examples:

  Old	New
  bahai-library.com/id.php5?itemnew=391	bahai-library.com/391
  bahai-library.com/index.php?file=new_version_4&Language=All	bahai-library.com/new_version_4
  bahai-library.com/collection.php?collection=Published_Articles	bahai-library.com/Articles