by Stephen Rodgers

Well, I was hoping that this was going to be the Editor’s Note where I gave my big announcement, but it looks like that is only going to be half true. The plan was that you would log into the Beacon on January 1st, and everything would look quite different. But that’s probably going to happen sometime in the next few weeks instead, so I guess I’ll have to settle for telling you about it instead of showing you. So without further ado, put on your imagination caps and I’ll take you on a tour of Beacon 3.0.

• All the features that you’ve come to love in Beacon 2.0 are still there: RSS, searching, categories, and the archive will all still be part of the site.
• All of the articles from Beacon 2.0 will be there, AND we’re going to be incorporating all the articles from the Shine the Light! blog as well. That means that all those articles can now be searched and indexed as well.
• We’ve added some new code (RefTagger) which will automatically display little tool-tip bubbles with Scripture in them when you mouse-over the link. So if an author just writes “John 3:16” in their article, by mousing over the reference, it will popup the text of the verse. This is the same code that Grace To You and Desiring God are using on their websites.
• Additionally, we’ve added some new code that will allow you to push an article to your Twiter, Facebook, or Myspace just by clicking a link. So if you read something you like and want to share it, it’s never been easier to do so.
• Last but not least, we’ve made some subtle changes to the layout and text to make things easier to read.

Like I said, you should notice a change one of these days when we convert over to Beacon 3.0, but as long as you are still pointing your browser to http://www.lighthousebc.com/beacon, you shouldn’t need to do anything other than enjoy the new bells and whistles.

At least that’s the plan. ;-P

Pro Rege