2008-09-03 Links File Update Released

To help get your new service year off to a good start, the 2008-09-03 Links file update has been released. Those of you who are on the list to receive email updates have been sent an email with directions on how to obtain this updated file. If you have not received this email update and would like to, email me about receiving the update and getting added to the mailing list.

The Links file recently underwent a major redesign, which debuted with the 2008-02-18 version. This redesign is intended to help make it easier to find things in the growing list of resources. Besides helping you to find what you are looking for, the system may even help you to discover resources that are available, but that you had not thought of looking for.

Hopefully it will not be too difficult to figure out how to use the redesigned file. However, I recommend that the included directions.html file be read first. Besides including instructions and examples on how to use the new design, this file also discusses redistribution of the Links file.

Based on recent feedback, a few tweaks to the new design appear in this update.

• Since some seemed to be confused by the term “Tags”, this term has been replaced with “Tags (Index Headings)”. Hopefully this will make it clear that clicking on a tag takes one to the corresponding heading in the index.
  


• Some were not intuiting that the titles in the Links section were the links (although it has been that way since the Links information was first published years ago), so the URLs (web addresses or email links) will also be listed as live links below the link titles.
  


• There is now a Document Structure section at the beginning, which shows the overall structure of the Links file. From this section, one may note that:
  
  
  • Right near the beginning, in addition to the complete list of tags, there is now a Featured / Commonly Requested Tags (Index Headings) section, which hopefully is self-explanatory.
    
  
  
  • The Index and the Links sections have traded places. Now, the Links section is closer to the beginning, making it easier to find for those who just want the straight list of links. Also, the structure of the file is now more like that of a book, with something resembling a table of contents at the beginning, the body in the middle, and the index at the end.


• The ‘Go to...’ quick navigation links have been beefed up a bit, and they now appear at the beginning of each major section, and at the end of the file.

One of the results of the redesign is that the file may not work right when it is attached to an email. The HTML code of the file itself is standards-compliant, but I found in my testing that some email systems would not run it properly. So, the Links files are not attached to the Links emails anymore. Instead, the Links file should now be used by downloading its zip file from the web page linked to in the email, extracting it with the supplied password, saving it to a drive, and opening it in a modern web browser like Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Safari, or Opera. After you open it, you may want to bookmark it or add it to your Favorites for easy retrieval later on.

New and updated resources are listed under the *** NEW *** and *** UPDATED *** index headings.

New resources this time around include:

• 3-line material (pinyin, Sidney Lau, and Yale) for the Creation book
  


• 3-line material for the new God’s Love book

One major update of note is that the J’s Day book 3-line material is now listed as being available at the 3-Line Translations - Theo. Study Aids... and “A large door to activity has been opened” web sites.