Feature Request: Configurable ellipses

[rbma]

Under the Results Layout to have an option to either use ... or something else like [more] or use nothing at all.

Thanks.

[David]

If a search word appears several times on a page, then several text fragments are displayed. This is done to show the context of the word on the page.

Because the text fragments are not continuous, there need to be some way to indicate to the user that there a multiple fragments.

Example Context
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... refer back to here for information on how to test your search page. If logging still does not work ... Zoom-How to enable search word logging This page aims to help you with enabling Zoom's search word ...

Using the ... would seem to be the only sensible choice. If you used [More] instead, then people would expect it to be clickable link, and it wouldn't be. Also you would need to repeat [More] several times if all the ... were to be replaced. And we think this would look silly.

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David

[rbma]

In our case, we are indexing only PDFs. Only title and meta descriptions from the PDF are displayed. No fragments are displayed thus no need for the ellipses.

[David]

The behaviour is the same for PDF files and HTML files. In both cases the document content is indexed and context results displayed with multiple fragments. (Except if you have turned context results off or using the Javascript option).

So maybe you have turned off the context results feature? This is not a very common scenario. I think it would be confusing for the Zoom users if there was a function to just replace some ellipses in special circumstances. You are probably better off making a few small changes to the script to match your specific requirements. (But we will not provide support once you start editing the script)

The other option is to increase the "Max description length" from the limits tab in the Zoom configuration window. If you increase it from 150 characters to 300 characters, then Zoom will more often display the entire descritpion and not require ellipses to trucate the text.

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David

[rbma]

The other option is to increase the "Max description length" from the limits tab in the Zoom configuration window. If you increase it from 150 characters to 300 characters, then Zoom will more often display the entire descritpion and not require ellipses to trucate the text.

We have done this and it is still showing the ellipses.

[Ray]

You're right. To clarify, the current version is always showing dots at the end of the meta description. We'll change this in an upcoming build (probably 4.1.1002) so that it only shows dots when the meta description has been truncated.

In the meantime, if you are using either the PHP, ASP or JS versions, you can edit the script to disable the dots from showing.

If you search for "print meta description" or "displaymetadesc", you should find a block of code that writes out the meta description. There is a line which will print out the dots and look something like this (javascript version follows):

document.writeln("...</div>\n");

Removing that line will eliminate the dots in the current version. If you need more detailed instructions, tell us which script version you are using.

[Rick Parsons]

Ellipsis

Sorry to bring up an old topic but I am learning a lot from reading the archives.

I was wondering why a genuine ellipsis character was not used (#8230; I think) rather then three dots. It is available in most common fonts.

[Ray]

Simply because we didn't want to risk the possibility of coming across a font where it is not supported. There also doesn't seem to be any great benefit in using the HTML entity, and simplicity is always a good thing. Side note: Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo also uses three dots for their ellipsis as opposed to the HTML entity character.