Tweaks to the site

You may have noticed a couple of small changes. First, any footnotes from the 1893 edition of the diary have moved from the right-hand column to below the relevant diary entry. Since adding the Background Info links to the right column the footnotes have been a little obscured and several people have missed them when they appear. The new position keeps the reading of each diary entry in a straight vertical line down to the reader annotations.

Comments

• N vincent on Wed 16 Apr 2003, 03:15am

  I do like the change in footnote, thanks

• N Emilio on Wed 16 Apr 2003, 03:43pm

  I also like the new format, it does make the footnotes much easier to find. On the main entry page, though, would it be feasible to use full margins for the footnotes, either above or below the reader annotations line? Having a long note cramped on the side of the annotations page works pretty well, since the annotations are the main focus there, but with nothing beside the note on the main page the same format tends to look long and squashed.
  

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Apr 2003, 04:15pm

  While we’re discussing footnotes, I’m puzzled by what I believe is an inconsistency between the copy of the diary I have (Wheatley, copyright 1892 by the Macmillan Company) and the Gutenberg text that I had assumed was scanned from it. I’ve noticed that the Gutenberg copy has not included a great number of shorter footnotes that are in my copy but seems to have left the longer ones in tact. For example, my text has three footnotes for April 11th, 1660 and Gutenberg has none. These notes identify Mr. Boyle as the youngest son of Robert Boyle, discuss the apparent misspelling of Sir John Bloys and include an entry from Rugge’s Diurnal on Lord Monk’s activities. Both texts however include the long footnote on the escape of John Lambert for April 14th.
  Any clues?
  

• N Phil on Wed 16 Apr 2003, 04:29pm

  If a footnote is about a particular person or place, etc, then the footnote is put on their Background Items page, where it will be more useful in the future. This probably accounts for the discrepancy.

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Apr 2003, 09:31pm

  Footnotes
  Phil, Is there a link to the Gutenberg background items page mentioned in your note? I wasn’t able to find an entry specifically identified as such. It might be useful to bring some of the shorter footnotes forward into the background info for this site. As an example, my footnotes for April 14th identify the Captain Tiddiman as “Captain, afterwards Admiral Sir Thomas Teddiman”.

• N Phil on Wed 16 Apr 2003, 11:34pm

  If you click a word in a diary entry you get to the Background Item for that person, place, etc. Having had a look it seems like you’re right — the Gutenberg text has no footnotes for 11th April.

  I’m not sure what you mean by “bring … footnotes forward into the background info.”

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 17 Apr 2003, 01:19pm

  I was hoping that the missing footnotes were available in an on-line format somewhere. If they’re not, I’ll just continue to read along in my copy of the Wheatley and annotate the web site as needed with the useful notes that are missing.