Colophon

Notes on this blog's design, features, and maintenance work beyond regular article updates

Site Notes and Feed Pages

The site gained a notes page for its own changes, alongside a refined About entry, RSS subscription pages, local reader links, and matching route and style work.

  • Moved site-note copy, category cards, and the linear timeline into data
  • Added a lightweight About entry whose shell follows the site’s inner-link card style
  • Turned /feed and /en/feed into subscription pages with Reeder and Unread app links

Theme, feature, and subscription changes now have a durable record, and RSS subscriptions better fit local reader workflows.

English 404 and Missing-Path Routing

English missing HTML paths, function packaging, and local development routes were aligned around one localized 404 behavior.

  • Routed English misses to the English 404 page consistently
  • Narrowed function packaging to reduce runtime uncertainty
  • Captured Vercel and Hugo dev routing differences in tests

English error paths became more predictable, and production/local parity is easier to audit.

Reworked 404 Dino Runner

The 404 page evolved from a plain error state into a lightweight runner interaction while keeping recovery links primary.

  • Added keyboard controls, state copy, and reduced-motion support
  • Tuned obstacles, jumps, ducking, and difficulty pacing
  • Kept the page lightweight, silent, and degradable

The error page gained personality without blocking normal recovery.

Article Toolbar and Sharing

Article pages gained copy-as-Markdown, title-link sharing, and translation actions, with prefetch flicker fixed.

  • Reused the post-meta toolbar area to keep reading flow intact
  • Used static Markdown output as the copy source
  • Stabilized icons, button states, and narrow-screen layout

Sharing and note-taking became smoother, with mobile controls staying clear of content.

SEO, First Paint, and Search Index Work

Structured data, canonical URLs, first-paint assets, and search indexing were consolidated to reduce output anomalies and page weight.

  • Cleaned /index.html forms from generated URLs
  • Tuned search index length to reduce page and search weight
  • Added tests around metadata, external-link safety, and generated output

Pages became easier for crawlers to understand, and generated output became easier to verify.

Article Likes

Article pages received Vercel-backed likes, then gained caching, feedback states, and responsive layout hardening.

  • Separated read, like, unlike, and pending states
  • Kept the like widget stable beside tags on desktop and mobile
  • Locked API parameters, UI states, and cache behavior with tests

Reader feedback became lightweight without disrupting the post layout.

Observability, Theme Upgrade, and Lazy Loading

Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights were added, PaperMod was upgraded, local overrides were synced, and interactive assets were lazy-loaded.

  • Loaded analytics and speed metrics through production-safe paths
  • Re-aligned local overrides after the theme upgrade
  • Deferred interactive assets such as Fancybox to reduce first-paint work

Future tuning gained real metrics, and theme updates became easier to verify.

About and Home Identity Polish

The About page gained a contribution graph, while the home page added ORCID and Google Scholar identity links.

  • Added a dynamic contribution graph for public activity rhythm
  • Expanded academic and social identity links
  • Kept Chinese and English entry points aligned in emphasis

The About page became a fuller personal-site front door rather than a static profile.

Tag Wall, About Page, and Projects Entry

The Chinese About page gained a tag wall, and the tags, search, and projects entry points were adjusted to match the current content structure.

  • The tag wall exposed personality, interests, identity, and research cues
  • Fixed typography side effects from the tag wall
  • Shifted the tools entry toward a more accurate projects entry

The site gained stronger personality while navigation semantics became clearer.

Feed, Search, and 404 Foundations

RSS paths, feed styling, search indexing, and the 404 game took shape, with Vercel content types and routes tightened.

  • Stabilized RSS discovery and /feed.xml, /en/feed.xml output
  • Fixed search failures caused by missing index output
  • Added the 404 game and handled mobile header height issues

Readers could subscribe, search, and recover from missing paths more reliably.

Style Details, Localization, and Comments

Small iterative refinements covered the home logo, light theme, scrollbars, tag mapping, translation copy, and comment library updates.

  • Polished light theme colors, emoji spacing, and inner links
  • Fixed Chinese tag display within English structures
  • Maintained Twikoo and translation copy behavior

Many small refinements helped the site settle into a stable visual voice.

Hugo Migration and PaperMod Foundation

The blog moved to Hugo and PaperMod, establishing multilingual content, theme overrides, first deployment, image handling, comments, Fancybox, shortcodes, and Vercel routing.

  • Established Chinese as the default language with English under /en
  • Set up image rendering, WebP handling, logo watermarking, and code-copy polish
  • Disabled directory trailing slashes on Vercel and cleaned navigation URL shapes

This phase became the technical and visual base for later iterations.