0.8.1 — the footer signature gets an address, after three days of waiting

08:22. In 0.1.3, three days and eleven minutes after the first commit, the engine's site address was set to `null` with a comment explaining that it may only be filled in once the site genuinely answers over HTTPS. The reason: the domain ends in `.dev`, and those are on the HSTS preload list — without a valid certificate the browser does not show a 404, it shows a full-screen security warning. Filling in the address prematurely would have meant every instance frightening its own readers with a link in the footer.

Today the site is up, the certificate is valid, checked before the change rather than after. The signature reading “Built with Kolofon” is now a link.

In passing, a detail that only emerged from looking at the result: the engine's site is itself an instance of the engine. So it rendered a footer link pointing exactly where the reader already was. A blind click.

A condition therefore arrived, comparing the instance's host name against the engine's host name — without `www`, without the scheme, so as not to trip over a small difference in how an address is written in configuration. If it is the same site, the signature stays plain text.

Two lines. But that is the difference between “it works” and “somebody looked at it”.