SC - Stefan's Florilegium files

[Stefan li Rous]

>Stefan li Rous wrote:
>> Catacombs?!! Argh. That is not the impression I've wanted. I want them easy
>> to access and I don't like them to be thought of as halls of dead things.

>How about a maze than?  You know, like in the garden, formed from living
>plants?

That's not quite what I was wanting either. :-)

> Learning to use your search engine
>helped. Learning to search for related words helped more.  It's an experience
>thing.  that's why I think referencing specific files in the FAQ, rather than
>the Florilegium as a whole, is good.  Gets people in there and used to the
>looks of things.

Yes, I was happy to see Greg Lindahl (Gregory Blount) add the search engine
capabilities to the site. It's my files but it is his WWW site. He is also
the host for Cariadoc's online Miscellany. Anyway, the few times I tried
the search engine I was not impressed. Too many extaneous hits. But perhaps
I just don't know how to use the search engine well. Since I generally have
a good idea of where things are, I depend more on my memory to make good
guesses.

One of the reasons, I give out the URL only to the top of the list is that
the categories under it may change and occasionally the filenames change.
Another, more selfish reason, is that by forcing people to start at the
top, they can see that there are other files there that might be of interest.

>> If you have any suggestions for
>> how I might make the files less intimidating, I would certainly be
>> interested in any suggestions.

>Do you have "Search Also" followed by more "keywords" at the bottom of any
>files?  That could be handy, though I can understand another layer of drudgery
>for you.

A year or two ago, I changed the format of the files slightly. Now there is a
short description of the file at the top. This was put in specifically for
those search engines that show the first few lines of a file. Seeing the 
introductory paragraph which is the same for all files wasn't very useful.

When there are similar files available, I will often add a note in this same
area referancing any similar files that I have.

I've only changed files to the new format as I update them, so not all have
this but the precentage that does goes up over time.

There is also a set of keywords in the file summary block in the Word (and
RTF format) version. But this is not in the HTML or the text version and is
not easily used in the Word version. 

Perhaps I should add a keyword list in this section or a search also list.
The first would be a more useful extension of the keywords I was doing and
the second a more fine-grained implementation of the mentions of other files.

>Bonne

Thank you for the suggestions. I will think about this.

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net

PS: I will be bringing a stack of Florilegium filelists to Pennsic for those
who might be interested. Sometimes it is easier to look through a paper
document (although 20 pages long :-) ) than to page through multiple web pages.
The complete filelist is also available at the website in the IMPORTANT STUFF
section, although it is only as up-to-date as the website files.
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