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A lot of changes since the last update
Posted by Dave on 05/29/11, 9:30am Permalink
Wow, it’s been over a year since the last written update. A lot has happened, and since I was more focused on working on this rather than writing updates, I sort of missed a few things I could have talked about. So why not get to it now?
There has been a tremendous overhaul on what this system was originally built as, and that has allowed it to become so much more. Instead of a single administrator, it now has the ability to offer some of this power to multiple moderators in order to help make the job of running the site easier on the webmaster. Members of the site will also have a much cleaner UI and modern way of interacting with the system.
Design Redesign
The design of the site has been completely reworked. While building the new elements of the site, the design itself has morphed into something a bit different than before. It was a necessary change as so many of the new features had no particular place. As time went on and the number of features increased, the look of the site had to be updated.
What you see now is the current incarnation of the design. Some of it is still in a state of change, such as the header and navigation. It is likely that the header itself will remain small but the navigation will be changed in the coming weeks. The look of the site itself changed due to the system changes, but the navigation is currently still a cluttered mess. That will be getting updated with a more modern feel to it.
User Profiles
The profiles of the members of the site have gone from a bare bones and nearly useless page to a full content rich design. It shares a massive amount of information when compared to it’s previous version, including the user’s highest rated photos, followers, and top 30 favorited photos. One of the newest features is the ability to comment on a user’s profile itself, similar to the MySpace profile comments.
Image Pages
The image pages have gone through a lot of changes, the most recent being a code revision that helped speed up the pages remarkably. The quicker load time was greatly needed as the beta site has proven, and with the addition of several JQuery powered elements, page refreshing is no longer needed for some of the interaction on the page with more following soon.
The design of the image pages has been modified heavily, now focusing more on what the page itself is about. More information about the picture can be seen under the statistics section on the sidebar, including the dimensions of the picture as well as it’s weight (file size). Another feature which has shown tremendous popularity on the beta version is the “Related Images” section beneath the photo’s “Rate It” section. This is powered by the tagging system, finding other images that match some of the tags and displaying them below.
Dashboard
The member dashboard has gone through some of the most changes. It was one of the hardest pieces of the site to utilize, so a lot of focus went into it’s redesign. It is now a much cleaner and easier to understand design that brings the most common features to the front.
Some of this is still changing, but what is shown is nearly complete.
There are several other design changes through out the site, but I wanted to discuss some of the most notable ones before moving into some of the feature changes and additions.
Feature Changes and Additions
As I mentioned before, the design itself has changed greatly due to the additional features or the changes made to previous ones. As I looked back at the last post, I realized that there have been so many changes since then that to list them all would make this unreadable. Your eyes would cross and beg you to stop staring at your screen. To put it short, there have been a lot.
The major update in the previous post was the forum, instant messaging, following users, and favorites albums. Now, we are bringing user upload albums, categories, an improved uploader, tag tracking, forum activity, featured uploads, image battling, additional pages, and user blocking. Instead of doing a large explanation of each, I’ll go through some of the bigger changes.
Upload Albums
As suggested on the beta site, it is almost necessary to have user uploads being placed into albums. The ability to classify your uploads in albums allows the you to see what you’ve uploaded previously, and also allows the viewers to find content uploaded by you much easier.
The Uploader
The image uploader has been modified to be a multi step process. The way it works is simple. Choose the pictures you want to upload. You may also choose the category they will go into. When you are done selecting your pictures, choose to either upload more or process these when they are done. Click the submit button. If you chose to upload more, it will return you to the same page. If you chose to process these, you will be taken to a page that allows you to update each of these pictures with it’s name, description, category, tags, comments on/off, and upload album. You can change these individually or mass change them all at once.
Featured Uploads
As an administrator, some pictures may catch your eye and make you want to so them off to the rest of the site. Under normal conditions, this would require you to post to the blog or forum. Now, you have the ability to select an image to stay on the front page in a section which features it until you feature the next. You don’t have to wait until the last minute to select another. You can pre-schedule featured images to show up automatically at a set time.
User Blocking
Sometimes users annoy each other. This gave way to create a user blocking system that allows a person to block another from various areas of their view of the site. It will prevent the blocked user from being able to vote for their photos, comment on their pictures and profile, but also blocks that user from the image rotation when they are looking through the site. Direct links will show up, as well as on the statistical pages such as top rated.
Tag Tracking
The tag tracker gives a user an update on images that have recently been tagged with whatever keyword they want. For purposes of this site, if I chose to track the keyword “Elizabeth Mitchell”, my tag tracker would show me all of the images of Elizabeth Mitchell in order of their tagging. It shows the tags in a mixed list, so other tags I’m tracking are within this list as well.
Categories
If you plan on running a site with only one category of images, this part is not needed. However, for the rest of us who want to separate the uploads into multiple categories, it’s a necessary function. Here you are able to find pictures under various categories, including people, wallpapers, cool workspaces, and others. If you hit the random link at the top, you get an image from any of these categories. If you choose a category, you will only get an image in that category. Each has it’s own set of statistical links as well, including the ability to battle within that category.
There are a lot of changes that have come down over the last year which I haven’t mentioned. Slugs, forum polls, lots of administrative and moderator tools, and so much more. Several more things are coming down the line and I’ll try to take a break every now and then to update this blog about it as these things happen.
There has been a tremendous overhaul on what this system was originally built as, and that has allowed it to become so much more. Instead of a single administrator, it now has the ability to offer some of this power to multiple moderators in order to help make the job of running the site easier on the webmaster. Members of the site will also have a much cleaner UI and modern way of interacting with the system.
Design Redesign
The design of the site has been completely reworked. While building the new elements of the site, the design itself has morphed into something a bit different than before. It was a necessary change as so many of the new features had no particular place. As time went on and the number of features increased, the look of the site had to be updated.
What you see now is the current incarnation of the design. Some of it is still in a state of change, such as the header and navigation. It is likely that the header itself will remain small but the navigation will be changed in the coming weeks. The look of the site itself changed due to the system changes, but the navigation is currently still a cluttered mess. That will be getting updated with a more modern feel to it.
User Profiles
The profiles of the members of the site have gone from a bare bones and nearly useless page to a full content rich design. It shares a massive amount of information when compared to it’s previous version, including the user’s highest rated photos, followers, and top 30 favorited photos. One of the newest features is the ability to comment on a user’s profile itself, similar to the MySpace profile comments.
Image Pages
The image pages have gone through a lot of changes, the most recent being a code revision that helped speed up the pages remarkably. The quicker load time was greatly needed as the beta site has proven, and with the addition of several JQuery powered elements, page refreshing is no longer needed for some of the interaction on the page with more following soon.
The design of the image pages has been modified heavily, now focusing more on what the page itself is about. More information about the picture can be seen under the statistics section on the sidebar, including the dimensions of the picture as well as it’s weight (file size). Another feature which has shown tremendous popularity on the beta version is the “Related Images” section beneath the photo’s “Rate It” section. This is powered by the tagging system, finding other images that match some of the tags and displaying them below.
Dashboard
The member dashboard has gone through some of the most changes. It was one of the hardest pieces of the site to utilize, so a lot of focus went into it’s redesign. It is now a much cleaner and easier to understand design that brings the most common features to the front.
Some of this is still changing, but what is shown is nearly complete.
There are several other design changes through out the site, but I wanted to discuss some of the most notable ones before moving into some of the feature changes and additions.
Feature Changes and Additions
As I mentioned before, the design itself has changed greatly due to the additional features or the changes made to previous ones. As I looked back at the last post, I realized that there have been so many changes since then that to list them all would make this unreadable. Your eyes would cross and beg you to stop staring at your screen. To put it short, there have been a lot.
The major update in the previous post was the forum, instant messaging, following users, and favorites albums. Now, we are bringing user upload albums, categories, an improved uploader, tag tracking, forum activity, featured uploads, image battling, additional pages, and user blocking. Instead of doing a large explanation of each, I’ll go through some of the bigger changes.
Upload Albums
As suggested on the beta site, it is almost necessary to have user uploads being placed into albums. The ability to classify your uploads in albums allows the you to see what you’ve uploaded previously, and also allows the viewers to find content uploaded by you much easier.
The Uploader
The image uploader has been modified to be a multi step process. The way it works is simple. Choose the pictures you want to upload. You may also choose the category they will go into. When you are done selecting your pictures, choose to either upload more or process these when they are done. Click the submit button. If you chose to upload more, it will return you to the same page. If you chose to process these, you will be taken to a page that allows you to update each of these pictures with it’s name, description, category, tags, comments on/off, and upload album. You can change these individually or mass change them all at once.
Featured Uploads
As an administrator, some pictures may catch your eye and make you want to so them off to the rest of the site. Under normal conditions, this would require you to post to the blog or forum. Now, you have the ability to select an image to stay on the front page in a section which features it until you feature the next. You don’t have to wait until the last minute to select another. You can pre-schedule featured images to show up automatically at a set time.
User Blocking
Sometimes users annoy each other. This gave way to create a user blocking system that allows a person to block another from various areas of their view of the site. It will prevent the blocked user from being able to vote for their photos, comment on their pictures and profile, but also blocks that user from the image rotation when they are looking through the site. Direct links will show up, as well as on the statistical pages such as top rated.
Tag Tracking
The tag tracker gives a user an update on images that have recently been tagged with whatever keyword they want. For purposes of this site, if I chose to track the keyword “Elizabeth Mitchell”, my tag tracker would show me all of the images of Elizabeth Mitchell in order of their tagging. It shows the tags in a mixed list, so other tags I’m tracking are within this list as well.
Categories
If you plan on running a site with only one category of images, this part is not needed. However, for the rest of us who want to separate the uploads into multiple categories, it’s a necessary function. Here you are able to find pictures under various categories, including people, wallpapers, cool workspaces, and others. If you hit the random link at the top, you get an image from any of these categories. If you choose a category, you will only get an image in that category. Each has it’s own set of statistical links as well, including the ability to battle within that category.
There are a lot of changes that have come down over the last year which I haven’t mentioned. Slugs, forum polls, lots of administrative and moderator tools, and so much more. Several more things are coming down the line and I’ll try to take a break every now and then to update this blog about it as these things happen.