Unwelcome arrow links surrounding tags

[jordannamorgan]

So, as of DW's latest code push, I'm seeing little arrow-shaped links on either side of every single tag on my journal entries. These links do nothing more useful than point to the last entry using that tag (or worse, an error page, if there's no earlier/later entry to point to). This seems like utterly redundant, pointless clutter to me.

Very simply, I do NOT want to be seeing these arrow links. If someone could provide me with some code for getting rid of them, I would tremendously appreciate it. Thank you.

Comments

[marahmarie]

Try this (but don't thank me - and yes, I'm using it, too): http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/36470.html?thread=5153398#cmt5153398. As far as I can tell, it should work with all custom CSS.

(convert the last bits to display: none - "-moz-begone: vile creature" won't work - though considering the monstrosity it's hiding, I don't see why not)

[branchandroot]

I appreciate that you're trying to help, but can you please keep in mind that the volunteers who work on patches like this are users of the site just like you and me, and read this comm? I totally understand if you don't like the function, and contributing an interim fix that a lot of people wouldn't know how to put together is generous of you, but using that kind of language about the hard work someone put in on a patch that was requested and voted on in the suggestions comm, where that someone has a better than even chance of stumbling over the comment, is unnecessary and unkind.

[marahmarie]

It's not "that kind of language", it's a simple statement of my opinion, and it has nothing to do with my feelings toward the author of the patch and I'm sorry but I can't help it if you are construing it any other way.

From what I understand the dev was not able to include CSS with their patch because a) he or she doesn't work with CSS very much so it was not on their mind (but the person has since apologized for this where even I don't think that was necessary, but it was very nice of them to do).

And there is nothing technically wrong with the patch! As executed, it is working exactly as intended. It's not so easy to modify via CSS or even any predictable backend tweaks because of what tweaking it to only show when actually useful, for example, would do to our server loads.

I'm not knocking the patch for any of that; it was executed well and exactly as it should be. I just don't like the looks of the arrows. And if you're going to rail at me for that, then I would like you to visit the most recent DW News page and make a similar rail against the literally dozens - if not hundreds - of other users who have expressed exactly the same displeasure over exactly the same thing - the overall unsightliness and visual clutter and confusion of it. From a strictly visual perspective, a lot of us agree that it looks awful.

Again, I am not knocking what this dev has contributed; it was probably one of the toughest patches anyone besides fu has coded up for DW in a long time, and for that this person definitely has my admiration, especially considering the sheer amount of direct - and definitely undeserved - blowback the are getting for it in the DW News comments now.

[branchandroot]

Terms like "begone: vile creature" and "monstrosity" are not simple statements of opinion, they are derogatory. I'm happy to hear you do appreciate the difficulties involved in coding a feature like this, and the extent to which some objections to the feature got personal in some very unpleasant ways. If that understanding were reflected in your current comments, I wouldn't have felt the need to remark, but, as you note, the response has been immoderate to say the least. Repeating terms like "vile creature" and "monstrosity" feed that fire, and now that the heat of the moment has passed I'd really appreciate it if you could use some less inflammatory ones to express your opinion. That's a fire that really, really doesn't need more fuel; quite the reverse. I think a little effort to tone down our expressions, as for example you do in the above comment, is a useful move right now. I can assure you, I'm making that effort myself as well.

[marahmarie]

Yes, my intent - while never clearly stated until one comment ago - was not to inflame but more simply to remark on my dislike of the looks of the new feature. But I don't view "the looks of the new feature" as being the dev's fault, either, since arrows are arrows and there is no making them look any better, and arrows are what was chosen for this project, a decision which I doubt was within the dev's control as it was a compromise chosen over other possible implementations for a number of reasons.

And my reason for linking to the comment in question (which I have not explained until now, either, so just to clear that up) was to not give myself credit for what I viewed as the best way to code for this issue, as it belongs to the person making the less-than-diplomatic comments, not to me. I have a thing about not taking credit unless of course I would've thought of that solution myself (but I would never have thought of that one, I can assure anybody).

I was probably thinking that since the patch dev has been responding to comments in the DW News post pretty diligently even if they're not directly addressed to them and even if they do seem at least a bit inflammatory in nature that my agreeing with the tone of the comment I linked to was not a big deal (or otherwise I would never have put things the way I did - and no, just because I justified it to myself that way at the time does not make it right - not in hindsight).

Point taken all around; if the dev is or was hurt by and/or has expressed to you or anyone that my comments are an issue then I apologize, both for the tone of my words and for not thinking much more on this before posting - so as to save the feeding of any and all fires - and I thank you for having this discussion with me.

[jordannamorgan]

I tried the code there, and it seemed to do exactly the same thing the original short bit of code from branchandroot does. I still had arrows on the tag-filter pages, which I believe is the one remaining place they need to be killed. (The expanded version of the other code did that... but it also ate the tags on my main page, so no joy.)

[marahmarie]

Sorry about that. I checked the code on my DW before posting about it and didn't see the arrows showing up on any view (I still don't, which kind of worries me, since I'm not sure which view would be the one in question that it doesn't work on).

I'm glad you got a better answer in the comments below (and I'm going to try that solution myself, just to make sure I'm getting rid of the arrows on every possible view).