Category Tests
The category pages for vanderwal.net have been in need of improvement for a very long time. One of the things I've long wanted is to have sparklines to get some idea of how recent the temporal patterns of category usage. I've long been a fan of sparklines since running across them in grad school reading Edward Tufte books as additional suggested reading for quant classes.
In initial framing and sketching things I realized I have two pages for category lists: Alphabetical and by count with the most used at the top. But, there is a third sort I'd really like to have and that is by recency. Thinking about adding recency and how I'd add it in I realized for 25 years I've had two pages (alpha and descending use) where I could have had one with a toggle for the filter. I don't think I'm going to move to one page for all things category lists until after I add sparklines.
Having 25 years of posts and categories used and sparklines being relatively short I opted to group categories into two 6 month groups per year for the sparkline rather than going with a more common monthly layout.
I also leaned into using SVG for lighter browser computation than using JavaScript or the other option of building static images with each new post or category update. Going the SVG route meant I needed a little assistance, but quickly got that resolved.
Category Page
This is sort of a first step as I really want to add concurrent categories on the category page and their counts in the sidebar. Say if I'm looking at the "Folksonomy" category the posts that have folksonomy category also have other categories, but what are the dimensions of those other categories with number of concurrent tags and sparkline on those as well. The sidebar has long been an interest to show what else is related and use that as a filter to get a subset of the category shown.
I have also long considered reworking the category page. Not only to have concurrent category lists, but to add a definition (my CMS had definition added to the category's data table that I added in the mid-2000s update, but never used and my 2020 update I removed it). Having a definition of how I use the category would be helpful. Now that I've been looking at sparklines and the length of time I've had the blog a visualization with more space could be helpful and possibly add that to the category page. This reworking would take a little more sketches and iterations.
Category Lab
- Category Alpha List with Sparklines
- Category Count List with Sparklines
Follow on Steps
I am getting somewhat happy with the sparklines. I am also thinking about doing a quick "recently categorized" page, to try it and possibly add a reverse sort on it as well.