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  • 02 Oct 2013 23:56
    Quote
    Message # 1403572
    Deleted user
    Aim
    1. Discuss whether the Home Page Photo Gallery is an effective showcase for the JRA.
    2. Make any necessary revisions.

    Skills
    1. Basic computer skills (downloading images, deleting from galleries, re-uploading, moving between folders...)
    2. Plenty of bandwidth, so best tackled by a non-cruising member/s.

    Background
    The Home Page Photo Gallery now contains too many images, many of them lacking captions. We need to overhaul this feature which was intended to be a showcase for the site and the rig, and to monitor its use more closely.

    Our first idea was to index the Gallery.  Bruce Weller took that on, but his work stalled because the Gallery grew faster than we could keep up. Sorry Bruce. Further suggestions have been made, which include:

    1. Move un-captioned images into a separate gallery. Ask those who uploaded them to add captions.
    2. Figure out themes that have emerged in the Gallery - Bruce also did that - and create a gallery for each theme, eg monohulls, multihulls, tabernacles, downhauls...
    3. Create a special 'showcase' gallery - see Lesley's separate post re a better slide show. Move the best (captioned) images into that. Appoint a curator, perhaps disallow members from uploading to it, iinstead posting to a 'submissions' gallery.
    4 Move the Gallery into the members' area and work on it in a more leisurely fashion there.
    5 Move the images into our currently dormant 'Ask the Junkmaster' feature
    6 Perhaps the clickable Google montage on the home page has superceded the Gallery?

    Note: Lesley and Barry Stellricht have pointed out that perhaps members need more guidance on what images to upload where. Fine, but would we stick to them?

    The current image resources are

    Technical Forum Illustrations. Pops out from the Technical Forum menu item when you hover over it.

    Members' Photo Albums. All members can create albums inside their Profile. Some do, some don't.

    Boats of the Month. The current choice appears on the Home Page and on the Members' Area page. They are preserved on a 'Previous Boats of the Month' page, but we failed to log boats that appeared before we started that historical page.

    Annie's Photo of the Month. This recent addition to the site will get a historical page soon. [Webmaster job.]
    Last modified: 18 Oct 2013 16:28 | Deleted user
  • 04 Oct 2013 21:10
    Quote
    Reply # 1405067 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    Lesley Verbrugge says she has tried several times to add a slide show to the Home Page but with limited success. Wild Apricot's current slide show facility is poor. A new version of WA is due Spring 2014, which may include a 'rotating' slide show. See 'Available gadgets' in that link.
    Last modified: 04 Oct 2013 21:21 | Deleted user
  • 06 Oct 2013 07:49
    Quote
    Reply # 1405816 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    Thanks for reposting my comment Brian.
     
    I like your idea of a submissions gallery, however it does duplicate effort and ideally, if there's a simple logic, members could load to the correct gallery in the first place. Whoever takes on the management of the galleries then should have less work to do (in theory!)

    I'd personally like to see a showcase 'Sailing' gallery on the homepage, no pictures of boats at anchor, no technicalities, just sailing, pure and simple. We have boats that look so beautiful when they're sailing!  Supplement that with Bruce's idea of different parts of the rig in different galleries, within the members area(?)

    Do we know if there are links from fora to existing pictures? I suspect there are! With dedicated Galleries for the parts of the rig, logically, members in future, would load  images that illustrate a point they are making, into the appropriate gallery, so future changes wouldn't result in broken links.

    Photos without captions are sometimes less than useful, and as it doesn't take very long to add them after uploading,  shock horror, could I suggest that those without are left out. It would also be useful if members added their name or their boat's to their photographs.

    Just in case members have uploaded pictures thinking they'll always be able to access them, lets leave the unused (for whatever reason), in a gallery for a limited time, until lack of space means they are dumped.
    Last modified: 06 Oct 2013 08:01 | Deleted user
  • 11 Oct 2013 19:41
    Quote
    Reply # 1410331 on 1405816
    Deleted user
    Lesley Verbrugge wrote:Thanks for reposting my comment Brian. No prob., my replies in blue.
     
    I like your idea of a submissions gallery, however it does duplicate effort and ideally, if there's a simple logic, members could load to the correct gallery in the first place. Whoever takes on the management of the galleries then should have less work to do (in theory!)

    Yep, agree with all that, bu don't know that 'simple logic' is enough. Doesn't always work for fora posts :-)

    I'd personally like to see a showcase 'Sailing' gallery on the homepage, no pictures of boats at anchor, no technicalities, just sailing, pure and simple. We have boats that look so beautiful when they're sailing!  Supplement that with Bruce's idea of different parts of the rig in different galleries, within the members area(?)

    The Google montage on the home page does that, doesn't it? And it's work free as far as we're concerend: just click on the image and you see all the junk photos that Google 'knows. Clicking on them enlarges them.

    Do we know if there are links from fora to existing pictures? I suspect there are!

    Yes, quite a few, so as soon as the Gallery changes those links will be lost.

    With dedicated Galleries for the parts of the rig, logically, members in future, would load  images that illustrate a point they are making, into the appropriate gallery, so future changes wouldn't result in broken links.

    Fine.

    Photos without captions are sometimes less than useful, and as it doesn't take very long to add them after uploading. Shock horror, could I suggest that those without are left out? It would also be useful if members added their name or their boat's to their photographs.

    Name and boat's name, I suggest.

    We could reduce the size of the Photo Gallery by simply deleting all images that don't have a caption, and adding a warning that that will happen in the future.

    Just in case members have uploaded pictures thinking they'll always be able to access them, lets leave the unused (for whatever reason), in a gallery for a limited time, until lack of space means they are dumped.

    A monthly sweep of each Gallery could work, but we'd need a volunteer for each Gallery.

    WA's next software update has been put back to Spring 2014 but still includes a new slideshow feature. Perhaps gather ideas here and then start this project when we see what they're offering?

    Last modified: 11 Oct 2013 19:47 | Deleted user
  • 20 Oct 2013 20:35
    Quote
    Reply # 1417361 on 1403572
    Anonymous member

    The Google montage on the home page does that, doesn't it? And it's work free as far as we're concerend: just click on the image and you see all the junk photos that Google 'knows. Clicking on them enlarges them.

    I see two problems with using Google as our gallery:

    1   It doesn't gallery only JRA boats and some of the images are not appropriate
    2   There are no captions :-)
  • 21 Oct 2013 03:28
    Quote
    Reply # 1417720 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    First, slider gallery:
    Have been experimenting with this for my own sites and I have a feeling that the solution is simply that the images aren't the right size. Need 1200x500 and that's rarely the size. Simple solution is to stitch two pics 600x500 together and upload as one. Will test my theory...

    I took a look at the images in the current folder and they are a mix of high and low res. which affects loading time.

    I think one approach is for someone with bandwidth to download the whole folder, take the sailing images, resize, stitch into pairs, upload into slider gallery (supposing my theory is correct)
    Future inclusion into slider based on images conforming to size and resolution. High res no good for quick loading and online viewing. 

    Google no substitute for our members pics IMHO! 

    You said the following which I totally agree with!

    We could reduce the size of the Photo Gallery by simply deleting all images that don't have a caption, and adding a warning that that will happen in the future.

    Last modified: 21 Oct 2013 03:38 | Deleted user
  • 21 Oct 2013 03:42
    Quote
    Reply # 1417730 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    resolution issue:

    Set low res for sailing slider, high res for tech illustrations as there is nothing more annoying than a low res pic you can't enlarge to view detail.

    I'd rather see a few good pics than have to trawl through a lot of low quality quality ones, but that's because I have bandwidth, quota and time issues others may disagree.

    Photorazor is free software that will resize images, preserving the original and can be used on individual images or a folder. very easy to use.
    Last modified: 21 Oct 2013 03:45 | Deleted user
  • 21 Oct 2013 13:01
    Quote
    Reply # 1417932 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    The key thing for this project as Lesley says is that it needs a land-based bod to do much of it. The three of us use wifi, and wifi is one of the reasons I haven't got stuck into the albums. Let's use this space to agree what needs doing, with suggestions from members, then test methods, and then pass the fun on to a volunteer :-)
    Last modified: 21 Oct 2013 13:03 | Deleted user
  • 07 Dec 2013 08:04
    Quote
    Reply # 1453487 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    Can you spare some time to help kick start this?

    To produce a slide show of our spectacularly beautiful junks sailing I need your help!

    My biggest challenge is bandwidth and download speed so I really need the material on DVD

    I need someone (Paul, Roy, a.n.other???) to download and burn to CD/DVD all the photo galleries currently on the website, so that I can work with them.

    [Webmaster edit - section re sailing rigs and rig details moved to separate topic.]

    our address is
    Crib - Boat in transit
    (C/o Adam, J&D Enterprise)
    Kudat Marina Jetty
    Petit Surat 121
    Kudat
    89058
    Sabah
    East Malaysia

    Many thanks
    Lesley
    Last modified: 06 Jan 2014 21:42 | Deleted user
  • 06 Jan 2014 21:28
    Quote
    Reply # 1468953 on 1403572
    Deleted user
    Dave Zeiger emailed this to me a while back, and says I can add it here:

    "Just a thought re Photos... a lot of places require that any photos uploaded be entered into public domain. That relieves the burden of
    permission/credits (those who wish to be credited can photoshop their info into the pic). If that wasn't universally acceptable, the Gallery could have a
    designated area for public domain uploads (or visa versa). JRA projects could then draw on that one at will."

    Dave, this is a good idea. The gallery can be considered to be in the PD anyway as the images are already  accessible to non members. That's been a 'given' since day 1.

    If someone can take this on I will gladly steer them through it.
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