SuttaCentral: now with added goodness!

We’ve just rolled out an updated version of the main SC site, which mainly affect the site header. Most of the changes are subtle, and are things that refine the previous design, so you might not notice much. But underneath there’s a lot of new code and care, and it brings the site closer to our aims when releasing the previous version.

The most important innovation is that we now automatically pull discussions for here on Discourse over to the relevant sutta on SC. Try it out. Go to, say DN16. Open up the sidebar and you’ll see a big green button saying “Discuss & Discover”. Click it, and there’s a bunch of topics on Discourse that mention that sutta. The code behind this is still evolving, so don’t expect perfection just yet. But this is a huge innovation, and one of the main aims I had in setting up Discourse. As the site grows, it will mean that anyone who reads the suttas can easily find a community and learning tools. Too often I’ve heard that people would like to read the suttas, but it’s hard, and they don’t understand things, and they don’t know where to learn more. I hope that this will go some way to addressing this.

Other changes we have made include:

  • Refactoring the header code. It’s now more logical, and should perform better across different devices.
  • Improve the animations
  • Shift the sidebar button to the header.
  • Add a one-time notification to draw attention to the sidebar.
  • Overall improve the mobile experience.

If you notice any bugs, please let us know.

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