Implemented Article reading time based on Medium

[Alpha1]

A nifty function that I see more and more for articles is Article read time. This displays the time that it takes to read the article. I don't know if its easy to add such function or not, but it would be nice to have. Because it can entice users to read the article. Not critical though.

Some more inspiration to give an idea of the functionality:

Read-o-Meter | Estimate the reading time.

Flexible Article Reading Time Indicator - Active Reading Time

Article Word Counter & Reading Time Plugin - jQuery KeepReading

I do see this more and more on websites and I must say it persuades me to read an article that I would otherwise have skipped.

This is from: Medium – Where good ideas find you.

Medium shows a nice example of how it could look on AMS. At the end of the article by-line on article/grid view/etc there could be '4 min read'.

Here is how the minute count looks on medium on article page: I’ve Been Playing Homebrew Video Games Made By Soviet Teens In The 1980s

I see that Medium uses 265 word per minutes as their standard, which seems reasonable. I dont see a use for a custom setting for this. How is Medium Article Read Time Calculated?

If possible, add a setting so that admins can choose to display article read time.

I know that this addon by Xon has can take care of word counting, but does not support AMS yet:

Word Count Search

Im not sure if ts relevant or if it would be beneficial to base this on ElasticSearch. / XFES.

Display locations:

1. Article page: At the very end of the article by-line (after Update time) display a FA icon and the text 'X Min Read'.
2. List View: At the very end of the article by-line (after Update time) display the text 'X Min Read'.
3. Grid View: At the very end of the article by-line (after Update time) display the text 'X Min Read'.
4. Tile View: At the very end of the article by-line (after category) display the text 'X Min Read'.
5. Article View: At the very end of the article by-line (after Reviews) display the text 'X Min Read'.

For the FA icon, hourglass Start seems suitable: Hourglass Start | Font Awesome

 

[Bob]

This has been implemented in AMS 2.2.19

This is an option drive feature, that is controlled by setting the "Average reading speed (words per minute)" option (which is set to 265 by default, which is what MEDIUM uses for WPM when calculating their article read time). Other sites that also display read time use Higher and Lower values, so that is why I made it configurable so you have a choice (altho, the min is 100 and the max is 500).



Article Read Time is initially set when Creating an Article.

Article Read Time is Updated when Editing an Article, Adding a new Article Page, Editing an Article Page or Deleting an Article Page (Note: Only VISIBLE Article Pages are included when determining Article Read Time for a multi-page article!)

Yes, you read that right, this supports multi-page Articles

NOTE: The upgrade will run a JOB that will rebuild the article read time data for all articles. You can also run the 'AMS: Rebuild articles' function in the Rebuild Caches which includes rebuilding Article Read Time (which is stored in a cache field in the xf_xa_ams_article table in the field 'article_read_time'). You can also run the rebuild articles via CLI.

Display on Layouts is controlled via Style Properties. All 9 Layout Type Style Properties for AMS have a new element titled "Article read time" and is enabled by default.

Example, here you can see that the List view layout now has an element titled "Article read time", which controls whether that data is displayed on the layout type or not.




And here you can see List View layout displaying the article read time (which displays exactly like MEDIUM does and is phrased for easy translation or customization).








As mentioned above, the display uses a Phrase so that it can be translated and or customized.



That's pretty much it in a nut shell... KISS!

 

[Old Nick]

Greaaaaat !!