Feature Suggestions for Improved Markdown Navigation and UI Enhancements

[rez1coder]

Could we make post titles in markdown files clickable for easier sharing? Right now, I have to use the table of contents for this. Adding this feature directly to the title hashtags or the whole title would be more convenient.

I also have a few additional suggestions:

• Previous/Next Post Navigation: Adding these would encourage readers to explore more content.
• Featured, Recent Posts: A section highlighting these could improve content discovery.
• Suggest Changes Icon: This would allow users to spot errors and propose fixes directly on GitHub for later review and push.
• Search Shortcut (Ctrl + K): Enhancing the search functionality with this shortcut.
• Simplified Date Display: Instead of two dates, a single one would suffice (e.g. Updated: 6 December 2024 / 4 min read). You could toggle it if someone wants to stick with the current version.

I know your site is intentionally minimal. I haven’t learned Astro yet, but I would’ve implemented some of these myself if I had. What do you think?

[chrismwilliams]

Hi @rez1coder, thanks for the suggestions.

I'll definately add the shareable links to the titles when I get the chance, with limited time ATM though, I'm concentrating on moving the theme to Tailwind v4.

Re additional suggestions:

• Previous/Next Post Navigation

So this was in the theme at some point, and I can't remember why it was removed, but I will take a look again. The src/components/Paginator.astro component is still there to use.

• Featured, Recent Posts

Mostly implemented already. The most recent posts are already filtered to the top (on the home page you can also limit the amount, but I don't find "pinned/featured" posts particularly helpful in the main, and would probably require a schema change.

• Suggest Changes Icon

Not quite sure I follow this, but if you mean something similar to Astro's docs implementation where they have an "Edit page" at the bottom, then I don't think it would work as not all users of this theme are/will-be open source and/or use GitHub as the source.

• Search Shortcut (Ctrl + K)

Yes, this is one I've been trying to get round to doing.

• Simplified Date Display

So I thought about this when adding the updated date feature a while back as it takes up some extra space. I decided to keep both as I thought it's better to provide the reader with all the relevant bits of information/context. Also, leaving it to the user to remove, if required, is easier than implementing a toggle.

I'll leave this open as a reminder to my future self when I get more time. Thanks again for the support

[rez1coder]

• Suggest Changes Icon

Not quite sure I follow this, but if you mean something similar to Astro's docs implementation where they have an "Edit page" at the bottom, then I don't think it would work as not all users of this theme are/will-be open source and/or use GitHub as the source.

I totally agree. That feature is feasible for open-source dev blogs.

[rez1coder]

Come to think of it, on mobile UI, a drop-down table of contents at first would be nice.